The Friendliest Computer Club in Ventura County Since 1986
WINTV-GO-PLUS - Product Evaluation
This is a reprint from the November 2006 issue of TOE (The Outer Edge)
By Jim Thornton
Can you image watching live TV programs on your home computer screen? In addition, you can record those programs using your computer and either watch them later on your computer screen or burn a CD and watch the recorded programs on your large TV set with a CD player? Yes, it's possible with the simple addition of a WinTV-GO-Plus computer card. This single card comes with a 125 channel cable-ready TV tuner and a video digitizer.
Some of the more interesting features of WinTV-GO-Plus is that you can size the TV window on your computer screen to act just like the standard TV picture-in-a picture feature of your larger TV sets or set it for full screen; you can display 16 TV channels at once on your screen and select which channel you want to watch; you can click and print TV screen images as large as 1600x1200 pixels for your own enjoyment or for desktop publishing; you can record TV programs including movies off the air or live action from your home video camcorder. The still images are available in BMP, JPEG, and TIFF formats and in color or black-and-white. The programs are recorded in Microsoft's AVI format and may be played on your computer using your Windows Media Player program or if you like you can record the program in MPEG format.
WinTV-Go-Plus comes with several interesting software programs. The WinTV-GO-Plus-SnapShot program is for printing video images. The WinTV-GO-Plus-Capture program is for recording video movies. The WinTV-GO-Plus-SoftPVR program is for recording the same programs or movies in the MPEG or DivX format. The WinTV-GO-Plus-Scheduler program is for scheduling your computer, just like your VCR, to record a live TV or from an external source.
Use your computer's CD burner to create your video CD's with up to one hour of video. Now be aware that your computer must be able to handle video recording and playing activities. To watch MPEG recordings, the computer must be at least a 733 MHz Pentium or faster and to watch DivX recordings a 1.8 GHz Pentium computer or faster is needed.
With WinTV-GO-Plus, you can participate in videoconferencing over the Internet. WinTV-GO-Plus is compatible with Microsoft's NetMeeting, Windows Messenger, CU-SeeMe, etc. Image being able to videoconference with your friends and family using your computer!
Installation is fairly simple and straightforward. Turn off your computer, remove its cover, remove the blank card cover, insert the WinTV card, replace the cover, connect the TV cable from your TV cable system, cable box, satellite box, VCR, DVD player, or antenna, connect the WinTV audio cable to the out jack on the WinTV card, connect the other end of the audio cable to the In jack on your sound card, connect the WinTV IR (infrared) Remote Blaster cable to the WinTV IR cable jack, turn on your computer, your computer will report that it has found new hardware, insert the WinTV installation CD into your CD drive, and install the WinTV software.
The minimum computer requirements are a Pentium processor with speeds of 90 MHz for TV watching, 733 MHz for watching MPEG videos, and 1.8 GHz for watching DivX. The operating system may be Windows 98, Me, 2000, or XP. The WinTV-Go-Plus card fits into a PCI slot. In addition, your computer must have a sound card, CD drive, and video card with at least 2 MB of memory (AGP or PCI).
The manufacturer is the Hauppauge Computer Works, Inc., in Hauppauge, New York, and their website is www.hauppauge.com and the WinTV-GO Plus costs $49.95 but there was a $10.00 rebate thru Fry's Electronics when I brought my WinTV-GO-Plus. Hauppauge, also, manufactures other computer video products - USB version of WinTV-GO-Plus, computer-to-TV set digital music, picture, and video playing, and digital video editing.
Included with the computer card is audio cable for connection to your sound card; installation CD-ROM including the TV in a window application, WinTV-GO-Plus-Snapshot for high resolution image captures, WinTV-GO-Plus-Capture for AVI movie recording and playback, and WinTV-GO-Plus-SoftPVR for recording MPEG and DivX videos; installation and reference manual; an IR Remote Control cable; and an IR Remote Control with batteries - just like your TV set uses for controlling the channel, volume, recording and playing features, etc.
