DigitalTuner
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picoStick USB Digital TV tuner is insanely small, but only in Europe
It's not like we've ever felt particularly overwhelmed by the size or heft of the USB digital TV tuners already on the market, but Hauppauge's latest has us feeling positively overwhelmed at the thought of lugging one of those other, nearly credit card-sized behemoths ever again. The PCTV Systems picoStick, launched at PlayBite 2009 in London today, is being billed as the world's smallest DVB-T (Western Europe) tuner, requires no antenna, costs £50 (about $83) and should be available from Amazon.co.uk and Play.com next week. One more pic after the break.[Via Richard Lai]
New CableCARD diagnostic tool for Windows Media Center makes installation slightly less frustrating
Let's be honest, getting a CableCARD to work with Windows Media Center is far, far, far from a smooth process. Thankfully, the Media Center Integrator Alliance -- this sort of the things is its bag, naturally -- are set to show off a Digital Cable Tuner Diagnostics tool at next week's Electronic House Expo. It'll provide all kinds of information on your tuner and CableCARD, including modulation type, format, frequency, carrier, PCR Lock, encoding level, and authorization -- and if all that goes way over your head, there's an option to export the data to XML and send it to someone who can help. No word on when we'll see an official release, but no matter what, it won't be soon enough.
Dell USB Digital TV Tuner announced for Inspiron Mini family
Unless you're picking up a Mini 10 with an integrated TV tuner, you'll need one of these (or something similar) in order to pull down OTA signals on your Inspiron Mini. Dell has just announced a thumb-sized USB digital TV tuner (complete with a built-in telescoping and articulating antenna that retracts) catering to the Inspiron family which will start at just $50. Also of note, the company is intending to offer "regional-specific versions of the Digital TV Tuner, designed to receive local broadcast standards, including mobile digital television standards like ATSC in the US, DVB-T in Western Europe, ISDB-T 1-seg (a.k.a. One Seg) in Japan, and the emerging CMMB standard in China." It'll play nice with the Dell-customized version of Ubuntu Linux (8.04), Windows XP and Windows Vista Basic, and it's expected to ship later this quarter in Europe, followed by North America and Asia-Pacific / China soon after.
HP not offering CableCARD on PCs due to configuration issues?
We were admittedly joyful when HP decided to unveil its media-centric m8010y and d4890y desktops soon after the stylish DEC lineup headed to an early grave, but apparently, things aren't going so well with the sophisticated machines. According to a user report, HP informed the owner of a malfunctioning m8010y that the company was "no longer selling Digital Cable Tuners due to problems with the current configuration." Sadly, we've no idea how that conversation continued nor why HP would be having so much trouble integrating CableCARD tuners into its machines, but there's certainly no shortage of vendors willing to take its place in the meantime. So, dear readers, have any of you ran into issues ordering a CableCARD-equipped HP of late?
Toshiba delays RD-A1 HD DVD recorder launch
Lately it's been the Blu-ray camp cruelly torturing us with product delays, but in a refreshing change of pace, today it's rival format HD DVD's main proponent Toshiba announcing that a next-gen optical disc device won't be shipping as scheduled. Unlike Sony's procrastination in releasing the PS3 and BDP-S1, though, Toshiba claims that it only needs two more weeks to get its RD-A1 HD DVD recorder out the door, citing inadequate inventory stemming from component shortages as the reason for putting off tomorrow's scheduled launch. Since this model, with its 1TB storage capacity and OTA digital tuner, is only headed for Japan anyway, the delay probably doesn't concern the vast majority of our American readers -- nor most Japanese, for that matter, as the $3,500 pricetag will likely dissuade all but the most fervent early-adopters. [Via HDBeat]
