I have been looking around for a digital television solution that wasn’t going to cost an arm and a leg. Well, I saw the ASUS My Cinema-U3000 Mini on the weekend and so thought it was time to take the plunge. I do like Asus – let’s face it, I bought their R1F!
I was a bit skeptical about the size and this USB dongle’s ability to receive digital television broadcasts, let along HD broadcasts. I was pleasantly surprised. It comes with it’s own antenna that plugs into the unit and then has a magnet on one end so you can attach it to metal objects.
As you’d expect, that’s not the greatest solution but for the mobile traveller it’s the best you can hope for. The dongle does come with a coax adapter so you can attach it to an external antenna for a more permanent installation.[more]
Vista automatically detects the hardware, and you then install the driver for the unit from the CD that accompanies it. After that you add in the EZVCR software from Asus. It’s a bit wobbly but it works okay. I was pretty impressed with the quality of the picture I must say. After a few tries scanning, I got most of the digital channels available in Sydney.
Obviously you need to position the antenna in particular places for particular channels, but that was what I would have expected from a internal antenna. When you do hit the sweet spot with this receiver, the dongle lights up green to indicate that you have good reception.
And the reception looks great. The EZVCR software is not the most robust and easy to use. There is pretty limited documentation about the software, but then it’s pretty limited in what it can do.
Stay tuned for an update on some open source software that I’ve found, and which I much prefer to that offered by Asus.
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