Viewsonic VB50HRTV External TV Tuner

http://www.futurelooks.com/db_data/db_images/id113_images/product_shot.jpg

"Upon hearing the name “Viewsonic,” the first thing that many people think of is monitors. Considering their strong market presence in this category, it is certainly not surprising. Lately, Viewsonic has produced several other devices such as tablet PC’s, projectors, and even keyboards. The product being looked at today is another innovative idea from Viewsonic – the VB50HRTV TV Tuner."

Direct Link:
http://www.futurelooks.com/display.php?i=113&p=1

Great review Dennis. I've held off on TV tuners for the longest time as I would much rather just plunk a TV set next to my PC! :)

Great review. I have just started looking into some solutions for watching tv on my monitor. I do have a couple of questions though.

With this product, are you able to switch between the S-Video and the composite input? For example, can I hook up my PS2 via S-Video, and my VCR via the composite input, as well as cable to the coax input and then switch between the three?

Or does it simply switch between Svideo/composite (whichever you use) and VGA input?

Also, how big a monitor does it work with? I have a 19" Daytek 905DF.

Thanks very much for any replies!

Hey Firewire, you havent added the link on the the mainpage :)

Nice review though.

We used to use one of those for our consol demo station at work. We had the Gamecube and Xbox hooked up to it with a 15" Sony LCD screen.

Your link to ShopYahoo doesn't seem to work Firewire

How do these units get such good reviews since the color of the display is so bad? Are all the reviewers colorblind? The picture doesn't look like a TV display at all and it wouldn't fool anyone.
I get nearly perfect reception from all the Phoenix TV stations that look great on a regular TV set. While trying to watch TV channels on my VGA monitor with the VB50 the color is so bad it's really annoying. All the colors are kind of dark and muddy. Reds are too dark. Low light areas are green instead of gray and highlight areas have a pinkish tint. Skin tones are all too pink. The only color adjustment on the VB50 is a weird HUE adjustment that changes the picture from a purpleish hue through near normal in the center to really green in 24 discrete steps with no fine tuning. There is no adjustment for low levels or for bright colors to correct the picture.
I know it's not my VGA monitor since I've tried the VB50 with 4 different high quality 17" monitors that produce good displays while watching the TV picture from the WinTV-D card in my computer for comparison.
BTW, this is when using the VB50 as a stand alone tuner to display TV on the VGA monitor, there is no computer involved.
Does anyone know if there is an update to flash the BIOS on the VB50 or something to correct the color output or is my unit just defective?

Looks like the stuff being smoked is pretty good...

http://www.gamenationtv.com/hardware/viewsonic.shtml

...or maybe you got a bad one?