Eumax Compro VideoMate Live USB2.0 External Tuner

Reviews: Multimedia

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Richard Poelling
Kurtis
Iocombo
Mar. 30, 2004

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Testing

Now this was the tuff part. It was hard but I did it, I watched all sorts of TV with the VideoMate Live. I set up recording schedules to record programming, I did on-the-fly recording, and I also played with the Timeshift feature. All the features on the VideoMate worked as expected. As with anything technical, the proof is in the details.

The setup of the VideoMate was pretty straightforward on paper. Installation of the software including the drivers is done first before plugging in the device. After installation, the USB cable was plugged in and the fun began. Installation onto Windows XP was unsuccessful. Using XP drivers, all I was able to come up with was an "Unknown Error" that had caused the device to stop functioning. Since I was on a tight deadline, (and I personally despise XP) I restarted the whole process with a new build of Windows 2000 SP4. Even with Windows 2000, the installation of the USB was not straightforward. The OS would not locate the driver on its own, instead I had to specify its location. All in all I thought it was a very poor implementation.

Once I had the drivers and software up and running, most of the functionality was self-explanatory. I did have a problem with the channel naming function. I am unsure if I goofed or if there was an error in the program, but I got through all the channels (60- something), hit apply and watched everything revert back to its original unnamed format. To solve this problem, I added the name to the channel and then hit apply as I did each one.

Like any TV, you can channel surf with the VideoMate... Using the standard up and down arrow keys will get you through your 125 channels of programming. Because the device has a bit of a lag, there is a short pause when switching channels. You can also "scroll" through the channels by using your mouse wheel. If that isn't enough for you, there is also "channel surf" functionality. When activated, it will freeze the station you are watching and begin taking screen shots of up to 16 channels. Clicking on one of the screenshots will activate that channel for viewing. Although on paper, this feature sounds great, the time it took for the shots to show up was far longer than the time it would take to just flip through them. Good idea, not so great execution.

One of the biggest downfalls of this device is its enormous hunger for HD space. A 30 sec video recording clip takes up 15 MB of hard drive space. Sure this may not seem like much, but go and record a 2 hr program and you just lost 12.9 GB of space. The only way I was able to lower the amount of space taken up by the files was to lower the video bit rate that is defaulted at 4 Mbps. I tried with the quality set at 1 & 2 Mbps, and the lowest you could go that is of acceptable quality is 4 Mbps. I would like to note that the highest setting you can get is 15 Mbps. At that setting you had better have a very high capacity hard drive, or even multiple large ones...

Unlike a VCR, the software has to be active in order to record any programming. The software has built-in functionality to automatically mute programming while it is recording. This is fine, unless you want some form of sound. Unfortunately, the mute is actually muting the Wave output of the sound system. This is also what is used for games and all sorts of other fun stuff on a computer. This really isn't a problem if the machine you are recording on is not used for much else. If you happen to be gaming when the device starts to record, you will be kicked back to windows and then lose all your sound as the device is muted.

Even though the VideoMate will eat your hard drive for lunch, the recorded programming can be viewed full screen with no apparent loss of quality. There is something to be said for such a capability. If space concerns are a major hassle, re-encoding the video with the included software can help you reduce the HD overhead, unfortunately at the cost of picture size and quality. But even a modest change in picture size will still save you lots of HD room.

Something that has to be mentioned, and it isn't an item you would think about until it happens, is the screensaver. Most people have them on their computers. It is something we don't think too much about, until you are watching a video clip and the screensaver kicks in. I was very pleased to find out that the software has the ability to disengage the screensaver when it is active. No more diving for the mouse when your screen saver goes active. This is definitely a feature that ranks as the "didn't know I needed it till I needed it" feature list.

Unfortunately I don't have a PS2 or an Xbox, but I will try to get a hold of one and do an update to this review in the near future.

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: First Impressions & Features
Page 3: Testing
Page 4: Quality Check & Conclusion

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7 User Comments

1 - Posted by Nick on March 30, 2004 - 12:38 pm

Nothing like watching TV and surfing for...uhh...news.

I have a question on the quality issue you mentioned with recording at lower than 4Mbps. Were you viewing at full screen and what is your video resolution?

The reason I ask is that a standard NTSC TV signal is 640x480 and if you run 1600x1200 then the player is either stretching, cropping or adding black space to the signal while it resizes it. This alone will affect quality no matter what bitrate you record at. Anyway, enough about that. I just had a little test I thought might be interesting to see done:

Try recording at the lower levels and then watching playback in a 640x480 window. Then there will be no quality loss from resizing and you will see the true quality of the recorded video. It may not look nearly as bad.

The whole HD hungriness is pretty disappointing, they should have licensed Windows Media and allowed you to configure that as an output source.

I've used ATI All-in-Wonder and add-in cards and some Hauppauge and MSI TV cards and the ATI products perform by far the best.

2 - Posted by Kurtis on March 30, 2004 - 1:18 pm

I think he said in the review that 4mbps was the minimum you can record at to get good quality full screen... but yeah that would differ with resolution wouldn't it? :P He'll be doing an update soon to the review, so he can address that then.

3 - Posted by Rich on March 30, 2004 - 1:37 pm

Actually, the bitrate will also effect the video signal even if you are not recording. I set the bitrate to 1 Mbps and the picture was extremely pixelated. Compro's website recommended that a setting of 7 Mbps should be default. I only really noticed a deterioration in the picture at bit rates below 4 Mbps. I found more differences in the picture came from the channel signal more than anything, that is the cable companies fault more than anything.

4 - Posted by Guest on March 30, 2004 - 5:22 pm

You act like this is some new technology. I've had a both PCI and USB TV Tuners for years now. Try a comparison against something better. How about an ATI 9800 AIW Pro? Or Hauppauge's top of the line model. This is a junk unit compared to either of those two.

5 - Posted by Guest on July 20, 2004 - 2:23 am

Which would you recommend...

This or the Hauppauge USB II model?

6 - Posted by Guest on August 29, 2004 - 4:33 am

I recently bought a videomate 2.0usb tv box with VI and struggled with the installation, startup and shutdown procedures with the set-up, and want to share with my experience with those like me to a successful set-up of the unit:

1) install the bundled (or downloaded) usb driver and PVR software (both necessary) WITHOUT connecting the box to the usb port first, and then shut down pc

2) connect the box via usb cable to PC WITHOUT POWER CABLE connected to the Videomate box and bootup xp

3) xp would notify you found a new video usb device named "videomate" or some other proper name (may depend on the hardware build or language of xp you use)

4) click automatic search and let xp install the necessary drivers for you (go to step (14) to check if you did successfully and continue step (5))

5) shut down pc and do a 2nd time drivers installation as described below (it's a really tricky thing that let you trouble-free the rest of your life with Videomate usb 2.0)

6) connect the power cable to videomate usb box (pc still shut down)

7) power up the pc and xp boot

8) xp should found a new usb device with no proper name

9) DON'T use automatic search driver this time, DO a manual insallation for drivers

10) choose audio/video/game controller device catagory

11) choose install from diskette

12) locate the driver yourself (CD Rom or somewhere in your HD if you downloaded it from Comprousa yourself)

13) click next, next .... and FINISHED!

14) to check that you sucessfully did step (4) and (13) point your mouse pointer a while over the IR controller icon at the bottom right corner of your screen , it should show "Videomate". If not success, it shows "No Device".

15) remember don't bother to check the tv signal cable or start PVR before you completed the 1-14 completed sucessfully, otherwise it would mess you up with troubles not related to drivers installation.

Well, you should then play with the usb box anyway you like if you did follow strictly with the above setup procedures. The following are some of my findings with the usb tv box for your reference only, and could be ignored if you did well with the above 15 steps.

a) At his first glance XP won't recgonize videomate usb box with power cable connected to it, and its the status when both the usb and power LED lit up when you power up your pc with usb and power cable connected to the box.

b) even successfully installed usb drivers w/out power cable connected, xp still don't recgonize the box when you power up the box before xp boot up

c) xp would automatically recgonize the usb box afterwards if you successfully help xp to find the drivers manually the first time it found a "new usb device" without a proper devcie name

d) check that the Videomate power LED turned to red (about a minute after shut down PVR application) before you power down the pc, otherwise the box would remained turned on even pc was shut down. This of course shorten the life of the unit or you manually power down the box.

e) to get rid of any careless moments concerned with (d) i power the usb box using a free 12v power point from my 380W PSU. Well, i'm now TOTALLY trouble free with this sticky, but really really powerful and quality device. BUT DO IT AT YOUR OWN RISK IF YOU READ THIS since an unstable PSU may damage your valuable usb tv box.

my system:

Athon 1.2G CPU
Epox 8k7A socket A motherboard
256MB DDR 266
ASUS v3400 VIVO AGP 2.0
20G HD Seagate
ALi USB 2.0 PCI add-on card (also a sticky thing since it only work on some of the PCI slots of 8k7a)
unknown DVD Rom

7 - Posted by Guest on September 6, 2004 - 8:36 am

Cons
*Software appeared to be buggy
*Large files
*Failed to install in XP
*Scheduling feature could use some work
*You do have a 200GB hard drive don’t you?

Cons 2 and 5 are the same! And apply to ALL video capture devices no matter PCI or USB. That's not a Con, thats bloody expected! You're supposed to have a large HDD for this type of application!

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