4 posts tagged “my cinema u3000 mini”

Previously on Fresh Plastic... Anthony had an Eee PC 701, a USB digital TV receiver and posted an article showing the two working together.  Meanwhile the Eee PC decided to split, the USB dongle lay dorment and ultra tiny laptop TV seemed a long forgotten memory.

Well, those days are long gone and I now have an Eee PC 900 and she ain't going anywhere (fingers crossed).  She has a much bigger screen but housed in almost the same sized case (although she's a tad bit heavier, psst - don't tell her that!)  So I introduced her to the digital TV dongle and, after a lot of matchmaking, they got it together!

Getting them working together really was a hard task.  ASUS has made it even more difficult than before.  A lot of head scratching, a lot of Googling, a lot of reading and re-reading of the forum posts on eeeuser.com and a hell of a lot of trial and error.  Got there in the end though - check out the pics below...

Here's two dongles, USB dongles to be a bit more precise.  These dongles are primarily designed for laptops but can be used on desktops too.  The dongle on top is for digital TV, the dongle down below is for mobile broadband.  Because of the size at the sides, trying to insert each into adjacent sockets might be a squeeze (certainly on the Eee PC).

Broadband and digital TV - side-by-side dongle comparison

I've just thrown up a tonne of photos of my ASUS Eee PC hooked up to an ASUS My Cinema U3000 Mini (just rolls of the tongue that one does, doesn't it?)

Haven't got time to do a full review or upload video of it in action so just check out the pictures (there's more in my collections if you really feel the need...)

One thing I will point out is the amazingly bad build quality of the device.  Mine came pre-broken (plastic case-wise) but as it was so cheap I figured it would be more hassle sending it back for a replacement.  It's gonna get battered anyway.

U3000 mini next to stuff

U3000 with antenna extended

U3000 with antenna not extended

U3000 in action

It's really using an external aerial

Yeah, er, reception isn't really great on the tiny supplied antenna.  But that's to be expected.  The surprising thing is sometimes (in some places) it does work.

U3000 Mini: Brian and Stewie like it

03032008509

U3000 channel selection

PiP action... well kinda