About a week and a half ago Woot was having a nice sale on this product for 20 bucks. It was one of the purchases that was worth a 20 dollar mistake, just for the fun of playing with it.



Some backstory:
For the longest time, I have had a disdain for ATI products. I suppose it stemmed from the ATI card in my laptop which constantly had some issue going on (mainly driver related). I was beginning to get relaxed on my ATI stance (5870 looks awesome), but today was a total goat-rope.



Back to today:
The instructions looked like they were literally translated out of order:

Install software.
When prompted, install hardware.
But you don't have to install the software first, Windows will autodetect.
Be sure you install the software first.
Open software and run it.
Now install hardware, Windows will autodetect.

WHAT? (By the way, the autodetect part did not work)

Some searching on the internet revealed that you have to download the driver separately from the stuff included on the install CD and THEN use the CD. Perhaps the directions should have mentioned that. The install (after rebooting your computer) throws some weird, obscure icon on your desktop. This icon is so weird and so poorly named it just looks like spyware, but it's not. Turns out it is the driver for the remote control that came with the tuner. Again, not explained in the install guide.

After all this ado I finally got the thing functional, but now I only have 8 channels:

1. local ABC
2. some local Spanish channel
3. a 24/7 weather channel
4. a televangelist channel
5. some local channel, think a low budget sesame street channel
6. same as number 5
7. PBS
8. the Pentagon channel

SWEET! (not sweet, I am pissed) I uploaded an EPG (electronic programming guide) and based on the local free over the air digital channels listed, I should be getting as least 4 times as many channels including local fox, nbc, and cbs ones. My current setup defeats the purpose of buying this thing. I'll play with it some more, hopefully I can get a few more of the local affiliates.

The software (Catalyst Media Center) was up and running it actually pretty good. I hear Windows Media Center is better, but since i'm still on XP Pro, I don't have access to it. Recording TV was easy, I haven't tried automating it yet.



For what I do have, the picture quality is excellent, HD FTW.




UPDATE:

It turns out that the lack of channels is due to the low quality of the included antenna. I think I'll hit up Radioshack later today and see what the next tier options are.