The AVerTV Hybrid Ultra USB might look a tad on the dull side, but the little gray box contains a TV tuner for receiving both standard- and high-definition broadcasts and has an MPEG-2 hardware encoder as well. Plus, there’s an FM tuner built in for those of you that still listen to FM radio and want to listen and record it on your computer.
The $129.99 (MSRP) package is designed to work with Windows XP Media Center Edition and Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate Edition operating systems and includes a Windows Media Center Remote Control and receiver, so you can instantly add HDTV-pausing and -recording abilities to your MCE PC and control it from your couch.
There are less expensive (and smaller) options for getting both SD and HDTV signals to your Windows system, but the AVerTV Hybrid Ultra is a more complete solution. (Though Hauppauge has an answer to that problem as well.)