Last week (January 16 post) I gave my first impressions of the AutumnWave OnAir Creator USB TV tuner. Since that time, I've put it through its paces and tried hard to reproduce the problems that I was having with the WinTV device. No matter how long I leave it running, though, there's no system instability, there are no conflicts with other applications, no memory hogging - no problems whatsoever. It just works.

Running live TV on Vista Media Center consistently uses about 4-6% of memory and almost no processor time, as encoding is taking place on the device itself. The picture quality is much clearer and sharper than it was with the WinTV device, using the same cable source. With the AutumnWave, I can watch in full screen mode, which didn't look good at all on the other device. With the OnAir Creator, the output from an analog cable signal looks almost as good as digital.

Unlike the WinTV and other low-cost "stick" type tuners, the OnAir Creator has inputs for S-video and composite audio/video signals in addition to the coax connector for cable or antenna and it will support Dolby 5.1 sound from HD channels that broadcast it so you can play it through your computer's 5.1 speaker system.

Although there is little need for it with Windows Media Center, the included software is also much more sophisticated and user friendly than that which came with the WinTV tuner. The Channel Manager is designed much like Windows Media Center, with the same familiar controls for playing, stopping, recording, volume, etc. The Scheduler is much more user friendly than the web-based scheduling system used by WinTV.

 
The interface for the program is sophisticated and user friendly

I also like that the User Manual is in .chm (Windows help file) format instead of PDF as many online manuals are these days.

 
The OnAir Creator's Help files are in a nice format

The manual, however, is only for the included software and doesn't address using the device with Vista Media Center. Luckily, that's a no-brainer. Again, it just works.

I'm very pleased with the OnAir Creator and won't hesitate to recommend it to anyone who wants the best possible experience from a USB TV tuner. It's true that you might be able to get an internal tuner for less, but if you have a compact computer with no extra expansion slots, or you already have all the slots filled, or you want to watch TV on a laptop, or you just don't want to open up the box, this little device is the answer.