Freecom DVB-T USB Stick Review

Overall Rating

When it works it has a good picture.
The sound is OK.
Small package.

System locks up.
You can't use the standard freeview channel numbers.
Unpredictable nature.

Initially the Freecom Digital TV USB Freeview Receiver looked like an ideal solution. There is no messing about plugging in PCI cards and connecting cables to the sound card. You just plug the device into a USB port and off you go. The device looks neat and tucks nicely into a laptop bag. If life had proved that simple it would have been wonderful.

The main body of the stick feels well made. It does get a bit warm when in use, so don't cover it up. The socket for the aerial is separate and has to be pushed into the end of the stick. This connection is a bit flimsy, and moving it does have an effect on the strength and quality of the received signal. I live in a fairly good area to receive the Freeview channels, and the small aerial has proved up to the job. It comes with a cable to run from the USB port. I have experienced problems trying to run it through a USB hub.

The software is an odd collection of screens. The main screen is graphical and some of the other screen wouldn't look out of place in Windows 3.11. The main screen gives you that standard video style control, and allows you to select your channel, and gives you information such as the current channel, signal strength, etc. It looks OK, but I feel it would have been better if it were a bit smaller. You can run the video screen in a window, but there doesn't appear to be any way to hide the caption bar at the top of the screen. It means if you have it shrunk to a fairly small window whilst you're working, the caption bar can be a bit overwhelming. A few simple lines of source code would have given the option to hide the caption bar. The first thing you need to do when you use the program is to scan for any available channels. You go into the set-up screens, select the channels tab and click on the Scan button. You can't get much simpler. Well that's the theory. My experience was that the PC consistently locked when it was about 60% of the way through. It took a whole weekend of fiddling with the software, it's drivers and windows, to get 100% of the way through. This was in between the PC locking up when starting the program. I don't get many applications that make my copy of XP lock up, but this Freecom software manages to do it frequently and unpredictably. I have tried installing it on a few PC's with mixed results. It has worked on some with no problems at all.

Back to the channels... Once you manage to scan all the channels you will notice that they are in the order they were detected. So, you then need to put them in order. It does not use the Freeview channel numbers. If you select channel 10, you get the 10th channel in the list. This gets a bit irritating if you are familiar with the Freeview channels. You now have to remember two sets of channel numbers. There are a few bugs (apart from the ones that make it crash) in the software. You can set the software to record programs at a particular time. This can be done from the Electronic Program Guide, which is good. Again the results I got were intermittent. It would report that it had recorded a program, but the file containing the program would be nowhere to be found on the PC. However, you could try it again and it would work without fault. I set it to record a 3 hour-long program on one of the Radio channels over night, only to be faced with a screen in the morning that said: "This program has performed an illegal operation". It got 40 minutes of the program before it messed up.

Being a software developer makes you look at software from a slightly different angle. The difference between a mediocre piece of software and an excellent piece of software is how much consideration is given to how the software will be used and attention to detail. Looking at the Freecom software I get the impression that it was completed in a rush. A few ideas about the interface were started but not thought out properly, and some parts of the software were just thrown together as quickly as possible.

I've registered with the support section of the Freecom web site, and reading the postings is interesting. Some people are complaining that they have tried to get support but get no response. Some say they got an immediate response. Some have problems with bits of the software and others say it works fine. It reflects my experience. The product is good in principle, but in reality the product and the company don't seem to have quite got it together properly. I think a few hours spent looking at the issues that people have raised with this product would easily turn it into a reliable and excellent product, but as it stands it is a case of buyer beware... it may work... It may not work.

Members' Comments onGerard H's Review

• bfdjng on 31st Jul 2009

  I found this review very helpful because...it makes me wonder why I should buy Freecom giving bad support on a questionable product.