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Introduction

For laptop users and owners of SFFs, a spare PCI slot is not always a luxury. The increased speed of USB2 has made high speed data transfer for external peripherals ubiquitous - external hard disks and external USB2 soundcards are some of the products that are taking advantage of this. Data transfer rates that can be sustained at about the 35MB/s range so while the bandwidth available is not as great as a PCI peripheral, it remains suitable for many applications. Today we look at another USB2 device, Leadtek's WinFast TV USB2 Deluxe. Unlike the Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP Expert or PowerColor Theater 550Pro we looked recently which are PCI based, Leadtek caters towards a more specialized audience - one that does not have a PCI slot or need the portability that an external device provides.

Features

• 3-Port USB Hub : Accepts 3 additional USB devices
• Record your favorite TV shows or home videos directly onto VCD/SVCD/DVD.
• Enjoy high fidelity stereo audio and crystal clear picture at the same time.
• MPEG-1/MPEG-2/MPEG-4/WMV/VCD/DVD video capture formats and MP3/WMA/WAV audio encoding format.
• PIP (Picture-in-Picture): Let you watch one live TV program and one recorded program at the same time.
• Time-Shifting : Allows you to play and record at the same time thru the Picture-in-Picture feature
• Enjoy TV, FM on your PC with a slim-type remote control.
• The fastest channel scan in the world. It also providesunlimited channel surf in a snap which enables you to preview all TV programs in one screen.
• Power-up Scheduling: Automatically "wakes" the PC up from power-saving Standby or Hibernate mode to capture scheduled TV or FM programs. You can also set up your PC to enter Standby/Hibernate/Turn-off after the task is done. This function enables you to schedule your TV or FM recordings in Stand by/Hibernate mode for power saving purpose.
• De-Interlacing Provides the Best Video Quality: No more noise and flickers on the edges of moving objects.
• Set Recording Schedule from EPG*: The PVR feature works seamlessly with the EPG ( Electronic Programming Guide), and let you schedule a single episode or series recording while browsing and searching the Guide. Set recordings of shows that match your interest in no time. (* EPG is only for Japan and USA)
• Closed Captioning: Enjoy TV without audio using complete, easily accessible closed captioning options.
• Secondary Audio Program (SAP): Access expanded audio content available on select broadcasts, such as a secondary language for English-language programming.
• Support WMV/WMA format for Web Broadcasting and Network Video/Audio sharing.
• Silent PVR Functionality: Performs scheduled tasks, such as Personal Video Recording silently in the background when the PC is not in use or when you use it for other entertainment or computing tasks.
• Resizable window allows you to watch TV and use other program at the same time.
• Transferring VCR, camcorder, LD/VCS/DVD player and play station to PC.
• Still image snapshot in JPEG/BMP/PNG/TIF
• Support video mail communication, and sleep timer.

The standard features needed for PVR functionality is there including time shifting, and scheduled recording. There are a few nice touches about the Leadtek unit including the USB hub functionality. Multiple recordable formats is a good thing though that seems to imply that it is the processor that's doing the work instead of the Leadtek unit. Picture in picture is not always something that is offered in other tuners and this is interesting functionality also. The power-up scheduling sticks out because the our reviewer for the WinFast TV2000 XP Expert unit asked me about that specifically as he needed to get something recorded while he was away for the weekend.