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Plextor PX-TV402U-NA ConvertX PVR Personal Video Recorder for PC

3.0 3.0 out of 5 stars 17 ratings

Hard Disk Interface USB 2.0
Connectivity Technology USB
Brand Plextor
Special Feature Portable
Hard Disk Description Mechanical Hard Disk
Compatible Devices Personal Computer
Installation Type Internal Hard Drive
Color silver
Specific Uses For Product Personal
Item Weight 16 ounces

About this item

  • PVR to record television programs to PC
  • DivX certified PVR records up to three times more video without quality loss
  • Integrated TV tuner for highest quality video and to pause and time shift live TV
  • Ulead VideoStudio 8 DVD authoring software included
  • Backed by 1-year warranty

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Plextor PX-TV402U-NA ConvertX PVR Personal Video Recorder for PC


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Product Description

Product description

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Amazon.com

The Plextor ConvertX PX-TV402U is the ultimate personal video recorder (PVR) for the PC. You can use it to connect a satellite TV, cable TV, or broadcast TV signal and to record programs to your PC. You can then watch the video from the PC or burn it for playback on a DVD player. You can also connect a camcorder, VCR, or DVD player to record home videos to the PC. Use the built-in multi-format encoder chip to convert video to DivX, MPEG-4, MPEG-2, and MPEG-1 formats as it is being recorded to the PC.

DivX Certified
The PX-TV402U is the world's first DivX Certified PVR. The DivX format can record up to three times more video than other formats without sacrificing quality. It also gives you the ability to record video into resolutions perfectly suited for playback on portable and handheld devices. In addition to DivX, video can also be captured in MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 formats for compatibility with all computers and players.

Pause Live TV and Easily Record Shows for Later
The integrated TV tuner is of outstanding quality to assure the highest quality video. After connecting it to a satellite, cable, or broadcast TV signal, you can watch TV shows, pause them, and record them to your computer. The integrated programming guide makes it easy to schedule recordings for shows at any hour of the day or night. After they are recorded, you can watch your shows whenever you want to.

Home Video and DVD Authoring
If you have a camcorder, you can connect it to the ConvertX and record your home videos to the PC, cut out unwanted scenes, add titles and transitions, and then add special effects. Everything you need for home video editing is supplied.

When burning a DVD, you can choose between menus and background clips for a professional-looking DVD.

Easy to Install and Use with Exceptional Software Setup is as simple as loading the software and then plugging the PX-TV402U into a computer and connecting a video source. For a limited time only, Plextor is bundling, free of charge, Ulead VideoStudio 8 SE DVD video editing and DVD creation software, a versatile application for people of all skill levels. For people wanting a nicely edited movie without putting in the work, VideoStudio has a Movie Wizard. Just select a video, select a style template, and VideoStudio will automatically edit your video complete with titles, transitions, and special effects. For users who want to create a masterpiece from scratch, the VideoStudio Editor has all the high end video editing features you could want, including titles, transitions, special effects, automatic background music generation, picture-in-picture, and video overlays, as well as DivX and MPEG-2 smart rendering. For people wanting to record their video directly to a DVD disc, VideoStudio's Direct to Disc feature will record directly from any camcorder, VCR, TV, or DVD player to a recordable disc in the VCD, SVCD, DVD, or DivX format.

The ConvertX PX-TV402U is backed by Plextor's industry leading service and support program. Plextor offers a 1-year full warranty (parts, labor, or replacement).

What's in the Box
PX-TV402U-NA ConvertX personal video recorder, AC adapter and power cable, USB cable, S-Video cable, Composite Video cable, Composite Audio cable, software CD-ROM (Ulead Video Studio, Intervideo WinDVD Creator, InterVideo WinDVR), device driver installation manual, and user's manual.

Customer reviews

3 out of 5 stars
17 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2013
    HORRIBLE. Thought that your site was reparable? I purchased this unit since it was advertised as a new unit. When I received it, the box was opened, the disks were used, and cables were missing. I have sent this back and will never order another item from amazon.com again and will tell my friends about it. This was deceptive advertising. IT DID NOT MEET MY EXPECTATIONS. Also, even though I am getting my credit back, it cost me $10.40 to ship a used unit back to the sender. The seller was 23MLB.
  • Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2012
    I had problems with this product, namely no sound when capturing and the image was smaller than in the original. But the biggest problem has been inderstanding the return policy. I am sure that when inquiring that a 90 day return was indicated (which I thought was nice) and the shipping labels will still print but amazons policy is 30 days, which had passed. I have inquired several times to try to verify this before investing even more money in return postage & insurance but get some kind of automated response with a link to print out a label. No answer to our actual question.
  • Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2005
    I was disappointed with some things:

    1) MPEG-1 streams are not VCD compliant. So in using the tv402u to capture to an mpeg-1 file, you end up with something that must be re-rendered before burning to a VCD because it has a variable bitrate averaging 716 kbps, when it should have a CBR of 1500 kpbs. Rerendering knocks the quality down a notch, and makes it pointless to use the mpeg-1 capture feature in the first place. They might as well have left the MPEG-1 capability out.

    2) Occasionally video frames are dropped on a P4 that is compliant with the requirement specs. It's infrequent enough that it would almost go unnoticed, however, the bundled software is not good enough to drop the corrosponding audio frames, or to interpolate the missing video frames, so the video can get ahead of the audio, leaving you with something that's out of sync. Downloadable freeware will fix the sync, but that's no excuse for Plextor bundling tools that lack this capability.

    3) So it has some advanced features, but it's missing the most basic feature that all cheap capture cards have: frame grabbing capability. So those who want to perform extensive editing are forced to capture in a lossy format and re-render. And considering the limitations of the MPEG-1 codec, it would be useful to at least have the ability to capture a raw stream.

    4) The codecs can only be used to compress analog streams. It would be useful to be able to send a digital stream from the computer to the hardware codec to have it compressed external to the main cpu. This capability is not offered in the ConvertX.

    5) No HDTV support.

    6) This may be nit-picky, but the included WinDVR tool has an irritating bug that creeps up on you. That is, when you select a program to record from your browser (Firefox or IE), it will schedule the recording, but it will record nothing. It's not obvious what the problem is, and took me some time to figure out what's broken, and how to remedy it. The scheduling feature only works if you select it from WinDVR's internal browser. There's also a WinDVR bug such that scheduling a recording via the composite input fails because the TV channel field (which is grayed out because the tuner is not used) was randomly set to a channel that is out of range.

    I'd like to mention some positive points:

    1) DivX!

    2) External USB is a magnificent way to design this type of product. Most competing products use lame internal designs, and more vulnerable to EMF. This USB box is easy to install, the ports are very accessible, and it's simple to hotplug it from one computer to another.

    3) The linux community is (unofficially) supporting this hardware. So some of the software shortcomings can be overcome by using (GNU) MythTV.
    7 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2007
    I'm presently using this device under Windows XP in Beyond TV 4.5.

    It's hooked up to satellite television via S-Video so the input signal is very good.

    Pros:

    It encodes in DiVX (~MPEG4) using hardware, which results in smaller file sizes and very little CPU usage.

    It's external and has a nice little light that lights up when it's in use, which reminds me of how my TiVO would change colors when it was recording.

    Cons:

    Poor encoding quality.

    Limited to DiVX and a subset of the MPEG4 standard, specific resolutions and specific bitrates. This is common amongst most MPEG4 encoders and decoders at this time.

    May not be able to use more than one of these in a single box depending on your software.

    Long Winded Review:

    The quality of the MPEG4 encoding is disappointing. The device is also limited to certain resolution/bitrate combinations (as is typical of this kind of device). It properly records to the DiVX Home Theatre profile, but don't use that as any sort of indication of the kind of video you're going to get. Since it is recording "live" it is doing so single-pass. This means that scene changes or high-motion video tend to get seriously botched.

    Just for kicks I tried encoding using the software DiVX codec from a live feed and found the software codec to be superior at the same settings.

    In addition to MPEG4 encoding, it is capable of MPEG2. At equal bitrates, same source, same S-Video connection, my Hauppauge PVR-250 produces a better picture.

    As a tuner with cable television, it seems to perform similarly to any other tuner card (there a greater lag when channel switching, but the picture quality when taking into account that the encoding isn't great, is fine).

    Beware of one point: If you intend on using two of these in the same PC for multi-tuner configuration, make sure your software supports it. Although the drivers seem to indicate that they do, Beyond TV and others do not.
  • Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2006
    We had good delivery and have had no problems on an XP Prof machine.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2014
    Drives do not work on windows 7 or newer and could not find any updated drivers, as far as I can tell this product is no longer made or sold.
  • Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2007
    I have not used the unit a lot, but when it worked, it worked very well. However, it no longer works at all. It lights up, it's all plugged in correctly. I've reinstalled the drivers two times. Checked it on two computers. It's done. So, this is very disappointing and I now have to figure out where and how to get it replaced. It's been handled gently, too, if you wonder. It's just sat on my desk the whole time I've had it. Just now, it's dead.
    5 people found this helpful
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