Avermedia ULTRATV USB 300 TV Tuner (MULTRAU30)

I researched this product, made sure it fit my technical specs, and finally made the plunge. I couldn't wait to get the thing, because it was exactly what I was waiting for.I set it up in minutes after it arrives, and got only a black screen. I tried a few tweaks, and no luck.So, I got on with AverMedia tech support. It was a known problem that I was having-- the product doesn't work with motheroboards that use the ATI chipset-- which an increasing number of computers (mine is a Toshiba laptop) do.At any rate-- this may be a great product, but I'll never know. I had to pack the thing back up, arrange for a return code and ship it back. All because they make no reference of this hardware incompatability anywhere on their site or packaging.So, make sure you do your homework-- and don't just go by their stated requirements.

TV image is rather clean compared to other products. TV application takes a few seconds to load on a new AMD64 2Ghz. As well, it takes another 5 seconds for the application to connect to the USB device before you get TV picture. However, I couldn't get any of my game systems to work properly with it. The application would start just fine, and video game audio would come through, but the picture would freeze soon after the game would turn on. Video would work properly if the game was turned off again. I tried using the RF adapter and direct RCA cable connection to the device, neither combination worked. This was tried with a playstation, NES, and N64. Tech support tried to help, but I gave up when they asked me to reinstall the OS on my second HD.My conscern is that this device may not work properly with other A/V equipment, such as DVD player or VCR. However, if you only plan to use this device for watching television, it should suite your needs nicely, as I mentioned it has better picture quality than most.

I, unlike some of the other reviewers, got the thing to work initially, on an ATI chipset. I just followed the directions. However, having a laptop limited me to onboard sound (which means I had to ghetto-rig the sound output from the tuner), so later on I bought an external sound card to remedy this problem. After plugging it in, and loading it up, I found that I had now had audio and no video! This puzzled me, and knowing that it worked before, I had to keep trying to figure it out. Eventually I did, and I want to share how I got the video back.My solution is a simple power one. On my USB hub, only a few things are self powered. An external Hard Drive, a MIDI controller, and that's it. Having the keyboard, mouse, AVerMedia, and a sound card plugged into it all sapping power from it (it is self-powered), I figure, caused it to malfunction, hence no rendering of video, or rendering improperly. After routing the sound card directly to my USB, instead of through the hub, the problem went away. My conjecture is then, that in some cases, the black screen may be caused by not enough USB power or a USB surge. Anyway, my two cents. Good to use once you get it going though.

help for the poster (and all those like him) below...1. I right-clicked on the speaker icon in the Taskbar at the bottom of my screen.2. I clicked Volume Control.3. In the Volume Control dialog box, I clicked the "Options" selection at the upper left corner. I then clicked "Properties" in the menu that appeared.4. A dialog box appeared for adjusting the volume for recording and playback. I selected "Recording." A choice of volume controls immediately appeared. I noticed that "Microphone" wasn't selected, so I selected it.5. A dialog box instantly came up where I could adjust the record control for the Microphone. At the bottom there was a "Select" box. I used it to select the Microphone.This should fix the audio issues.

Just wanted to post about this. I had the same problem with using the Mic In, and I did figure out how to set the audio control panel to use that as the input. The audio was kinda bad though, and sounded too loud even at the lowest settings. I contacted Avermedia tech support, and they sent me a small device that connects to the audio cable, and it sort of muffled the sound a bit and made it sound a lot better. Other then the audio setup, this was easy to plug in and use, and the video quality is very nice. I have a couple of avermedia products and I am satisfied with the products.