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These things are great, but unfortunately, it looks like they're discontinuing them. It's looking doubtful that we'll see 64-bit WinXP drivers, much less Linux support. Too bad, because HDTV on widescreen notebooks looks great. 1680x1050 res is close enough to 1080i, and 1280x800 is the same width as 720p.

Sasem's site has a notice posted about the discontinuation, if anyone reads Korean.

Of course, you really need to be able to receive broadcast TV for HDTV tuner boxes/cards to be useful. Unencrypted digital cable TV channels are viewable, but broadcast works best. Plus it's free. I get better HDTV reception than analog TV broadcast.

You can find product on the OnAirUSB-HDTV there and and buy from www.copperbox.com here

http://www.usbhdtv.com/

You can buy one in the US at:

http://www.copperbox.com/lite/sasem.php/

Avsforum thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&t hreadid=373490&highlight=sasem/

For those that don't have a free PCI slot, this is the way to go. Once the highest of powers grants me permission, I'll be grabbing one myself.

JA

go here: Sasem OnAir USB HDTV Receiver

ATI is by no means the first to produce a card like this. There has been a PCI HDTV card on
the market for over a year, produced by DVICO. Unlike most cards on the market, that keep the
HDTV stream off the bus, and overlay the video directly onto the vga signal and you don't get to
capture it at all, This card dumps the raw mpeg2 out to you. It will tune over the air HDTV as well
as the HDTV you will get on cable.

The Fusion III just came out last week, I think. It has the hardware capabilities of tuning that holy
grail cable QAM 256, as well as over the air. And you get to play with the raw hdtv data,
and process it however.

www.dvico.com - manufacturer
www.copperbox.com - retailer

A Korean company named DVICO has been working on a QAM HDTV card for a while. They
have released two cards allready, the fusion I and II, which supported over the air HDTV. The
Fusion III just came out last week, I think. It has the hardware capabilities of tuning that holy
grail QAM 256, as well as OTA.

www.dvico.com - manufacturer
www.copperbox.com - retailer

I guess everyone has a different opinion on what place a computer has in a home theater. To me a HTPC is most useful as a computer thats integrated into a home theater, not as a replacement for other home theater components like a tv tuner or DVD player. A moderately priced stand alone DVD player will outperform video cards in terms of picture quality. PVRs are relatively cheap and quite functional as is.

So what am I driving at? For those lucky enough to have a high def capable TV there is a better solution if you want to integrate a computer. Don't try to replace reasonably priced components that will far out perform a computer (like a DVD player or PVR) instead get a vga -> component transcoder. Transcoders will work with any video card and/or operating system provided you can modify the scan and refresh rates. The best part is that you can run your computer at high definition resolutions! UT at 1080i anyone?

All is not lost if you don't have a high definition capable tv though. If your TV has component inputs and your video card is capable of outputing an interlaced signal with the proper scan and refresh rates you can use a transcoder instead of using a card with TV-out for higher image quality.

There are several transcoders available ranging from $100-300. Copper box sells transcoders from Audio Authority, Key Digital and RCA. Avsforum has lots of discussion in its HTPC forum regarding customer resolutions and scan rates.

Everything I have read said that Halo supports only 480p. I think only a couple of games so far are supporting 1080i. I haven't really followed this too much though so I might be wrong.

They probably got the screenshots from the "PC version" (developer box version). I think there was some trick about pulling the upsampled images from the backbuffer when the box is running it through 4x AA (which I think most/all Xbox games will be running with).

As far as I know there is no official monitor adapter available (please correct me if I am wrong) other than getting a componant to HD15 adapter like this which cost a lot of money ($180).