Kaiser Baas TVStick review

Another off topic post this week! Basically I wanted a digital TV tuner for my computer for obvious reasons and looking for a PC card style was a little challenging. There are plenty of motherboard card style hardware digital TV tuners available from multiple manufacturers with prices ranging from cheap to very expensive. However I quickly dropped the idea of getting one due to the lack of decent reviews and ultimately it was not the ideal solution for my use aka on the new notebook.

I then looked for a USB stick version much like the older Elagato tuner I had for my Mac Mini many years ago. While there are plenty to choose from I didn’t want to wait for a week for delivery so it had to check the local shops. I ended up with the Kaiser Baas TVStick, a brand I am not familiar with but willing to give it a go due to availability and price.

So welcome to the Kaiser Baas TVStick review. The  TVStick features DVBT and DAB+ or digital TV and digital radio reception which is great as I only expected TV. In the box I also got a infra-red remote control (with battery), small antenna and a CD containing the software. Note that this model ‘appears’ to be superseded based on the current brand website. Price was $49 AUD

In the box comes with a CD with the software packages called KBRadio and ARCSOFT Media … On first installation on Windows 8.1 both worked perfectly. The Arcsoft software for TV its self is not the best or easy to use or even finger friendly. It does take a little while to get used to it but at least everything worked as advertised. The video is saved in a protected format which software like VLC or MS media player can’t read which is annoying. Most people like me will assume that the computer will just work out which default program can read the file. If you have the Media center version of Windows 8 use that instead. The KBradio software runs the radio separately from the TV and the audio from is recorded in WAV format thus no compression which is as good as it gets. Thankfully the file can be played on other software.

The TVStick build quality is OK, its light without any weight or traditional quality feel to it. Reliability is so far Ok as its hasn’t created the computer. Forget using the little antenna because that doesn’t work – use a regular TV antenna plug from the wall. Apart form that no problems yet!

So in the end the Kaiser Baas TVStick does work although the included software needs some improvement. The biggest problem is that the recorded programs are locked to the software so if you really need to run the originally program which is not the best one around. So personally I would try to an alternate TV watching software that’s easier to use.