A USB TV tuner is a device that allows you to watch television programs through your desktop computer or notebook. A USB TV tuner has input ports to connect to the outgoing ports on your television or entertainment center receiver. The digital or analog television signals travel through coaxial or composite video cable respectively to the USB TV tuner, which translates the signals as necessary to view on the PC. The device utilizes an available USB port on the computer.

Using a USB, TV tuner one can simply watch TV or manipulate the data in various ways. Every USB TV tuner has its own hardware specifications and software, so not all products are equal in functionality, ease of use or picture quality. Most USB TV tuners allow live TV to be paused, rewound and fast-forwarded. Some models come with software tools to burn incoming programs to DVD, along with advanced editing features. Some allow the user to pull still images from streaming TV and convert them to various graphic files, or use them as desktop wallpaper.

A USB TV tuner is great for converting old videocassettes to DVD. Do you have a stack of videos that archive entire seasons of your favorite programs now off the air? Make your own DVD copies and get rid of the bulky cassettes. Home movies recorded to videocassette can also be transferred to DVD.

One of the nicest advanced features is the USB TV tuner that can act like a personal video recorder (PVR) to automatically record your favorite shows to hard disk. From there, they can be viewed at a later time, then deleted or burned to DVD. Some USB TV tuners can record two programs at once and allow you to watch one program while recording another.

Each USB TV tuner lists minimal system requirements. The faster the computer and the more memory and hard disk space available, the better. Though some USB TV tuners might be backwards compatible to the USB 1.1 standard, you might lose quality and necessary speed for certain operations. An available 2.0 USB port is desirable.

Prices range according to manufacturer and features. An external USB TV tuner is handy because it can be quickly moved between computers, or attached to a USB MultiSwitch hub for shared accessibility. Internal TV tuner cards are also available. Before buying, it’s best to read reviews to make sure the USB TV tuner you have in mind will perform as expected and includes all desired features. Prices range from about 49 to 200 US dollars (USD).