The Sabrent USB2.0 Tuner Box is a TV receiving and video capturing device for notebooks and PCs.  The Sabrent is basically a device that allows you to watch normal television on your PC, but with additional DVD-style features such as fast-forward/rewind, etc.

Functions and Features of the Sabrent TV-USB20

In a nutshell, the Sabrent TV-USB20 is an external TV/video receiving box that will allow you to capture from any analog device, such as a VCR, camcorder, or basically anything with composite output jacks.  The device connection is made via a USB 2.0 port and receive TV broadcasts and capture video on the computer.

The compact design looks sharp and is small enough that it can conveniently be taken with you when traveling.  It features a variety of DVR-esque features allowing you to pause, rewind and record live TV.

This will use your PC’s own hard drive so how many hours of TV you can record depends on how big your PC’s hard drive is. Typically 80GB of free space will hold about 80 hours of TV, depending on your compression settings.

Technical Details of the Sabrent TV-USB2

The television captured by the Sabrent is at 704 x 480 (NTSC) and can be stored on the computer in a MPEG-1, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 format. Audio is captured in stereo at 16 bits, in either a 24 KHz or 48 KHz sampling rate.

The Sabrent box’s TV/Video Scheduled Recording Function works using a simple MPEG video editing program with an encoding/decoding engine that has a smart merge process, and this helps the system work faster.

You can even use the device to capture video from your camcorder for home videos, as well as recording TV shows to your computer. You can even record video and sound from gaming consoles like the Xbox 360 and PS3.

How to Record From Gaming Consoles

Things Said About the Sabrent TV-USB20 in Reviews

Amazon’s reviews for this device were mixed, ranging for relatively positive reviews citing that the Sabrent from a basic standpoint did what it was supposed to – with some negative comments about difficulty with getting it to work.

Cnet’s reviews were limited but scathing, identifying problems with integration and software compatibility.

CompUSA reviews were mixed, ranging in extremes from one side of satisfaction to the other side of “worst product ever”.  The opinions were really divided on this, but from the sounds of a majority of reviews the Sabrent TV-USB20 is a decent, cheap product but one that might cause some difficulties with the software and integrating it with the OS.

Sabrent TV-USB20 – Prices, Deals and Discounts

On Amazon:

Available to buy at Amazon

On eBay:

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NEW Sabrent TV USB20 USB 20 TV Tuner Video Capture Box US $26.99   Auction Ends: 16d 1h 25m Make it yours…

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These days it seems as if a lot of people have older media on their hands that they’d like to have transferred to a digital format (for instance, VHS tapes or old family footage captured with a camcorder, etc.)

For anyone who is looking to make some backups of old video footage like this, and would like to capture this video on a digital format with a PC, the Diamond VC500 One Touch is an ideal choice.

The Diamond VC500 offers capture technology for a number of different sources such as VCR, camcorder, DVD (or basically any device with video output offered through S-video or composite RCA ports) the One touch allows the user to capture video footage easily with just the touch of a button.

Once the capture software has been installed on the users PC, the Diamond VC500 device is then bridged between the particular video player to the computer’s USB port.

The software that is included with this helps guide the user in the process of capturing the video footage, and allows one to change the details and size of the video being saved.

There are a number of ways that a user can capture older video and bring it into a digital format on a PC, such as using a DVR system for example, but with a simple device like the Diamond VC500 One Touch, the transition is going to be very straight-forward and simple, using a simple connection between the device and your computer.

System Requirements

The system requirements are relatively simple, requiring 256 MB ram with an Intel or AMD CPU 1.4GHz (or faster) system. Disk space would depend on how much the user wishes to capture with this device, but 200 MB is recommended (with 600MB to 3GB per 1 Hour of Recording, again depending on how much the user wishes to capture).

Since this is dealing with video footage, and potentially a lot of it, it’s probably a good idea for those using older PC’s to close out other applications while running this capture software.

Hands-On With the Diaomond VC500

The Diamond VC500 One Touch offers an ideal and affordable solution to backing up older-format video footage, and is worth checking out for anyone who has old, nearly-obsolete video footage on their hands.

Diamond VC500 Marketplace – Deals & Discounts

On Amazon:
Available to buy at Amazon
On eBay:

Best Data DIAMOND VC 500 VIDEO RECORDER PERP US $38.94   Auction Ends: 20d 8h 6m Make it yours…

Best Data Diamond VC500 DIAMOND VC 500 VIDEO RECORDER US $69.91   Auction Ends: 24d 16h 47m Make it yours…

You may also be interested in:

• More About Video Editing & Productin
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• Searching for more Video Capture Devices on eBay