[Electronics-talk] Another way to Watch TV

[Baracco, Andrew W]

This came from the Handiham newsletter.

This may be something we could use.

TV tuner works with screenreader

This comes to us from Luella, KE0RF, via Ken, KB3LLA. It was posted 
on the AccessComp list at Yahoo Groups. This is great information 
from  Steven Clark of Kansas City.

Hi, I got a new toy delivered today. It is also the first item I 
bought from www.woot.com, and doubt it will be the last. I got a 
Sabrent USB 2.0 Digital HDTV Tuner. This thing is great from what 
I've found so far. It turns your computer into a TV. It receives 
those cool new HD channels that are out there floating around in 
Kansas City and other cities as well.

It comes with a small HD antenna that screws onto the device. The 
tuner plugs into a USB 2.0 port and will not work with USB 1.0. I've 
found it to be very easy to use with Window-Eyes. After installing 
the software and the USB hardware, it will ask to scan channels. From 
what I understand it will work with digital cable but since we just 
have standard cable, nothing to try out there. So I chose to have it 
scan using the antenna for channels and it found 22.

A list of channels is presented in a grid format with the station 
letters and channel in each grid entry. It was very simple to arrow 
around through the channels and find the one I wanted. Once I was on 
the channel I wanted to watch, I pressed the context key and then 
enter on the first item which Window-Eyes told me is play.

I knew that Nova on KCPT is described and after it started playing 
that channel, I pressed the context key again and went down to the 
audio settings. The first selection was checked and I found another 
audio choice below. I selected the second choice, pressed enter and I 
heard the TV show and the described show in my left ear. Yeah, I'm 
using headphones, but it sounds just as good through the built in 
speakers on my netbook.

You can also set the audio to only be on the left or right for 
anything you are watching.

It comes with a remote and the buttons are setup in a grid. Ruthie 
made me an Excel spreadsheet with what each button does.

I'm very happy with this purchase and am happy to find everything so 
accessible. I haven't tried recording anything yet, but I did find in 
the options menu one can select to record both video and audio or 
just audio. The options menu works fine with Window-Eyes as well.

I bought this great device for $29 from www.woot.com, and while 
shopping around to get a second one for Ruthie, I've seen them 
selling for about $39 or so plus shipping.

Editor's note: Woot.com sells items out quickly, so you probably 
won't be lucky enough to locate one there, but your dedicated 
Handiham staff searched and found them at TigerDirect for under $40:
http://tinyurl.com/mq3zps