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Review Terratec Cinergy T Stick Black DVB-T

by: Tobias Winkler, 06/26/2010

Reasonable DVB-T receiver.

Especially in summer, mobile TV makes it possible to neither miss the nice weather nor the favorite TV series. Learn how well it works with the Terratec Cinergy T Stick in our review.

The Cinergy T USB-Stick features its own DVB-T receiver and requires to be used in a DVB-T coverage area. Alternatives with hybrid tuner, which support both digital and analog TV signals, are also available from Terratec and competitors.

The scope of delivery includes a small bar antenna with a sufficiently long cable, a USB extension cable, a credit card sized remote control (including coin cell) and a software CD. At the time of writing the street price is about 20.- Euro plus P&P.

many accessories
many accessories
Picture by Terratec
Picture by Terratec
Sendersuchlauf mit gefundenen Programmen
Sendersuchlauf mit gefundenen Programmen

It is installed quickly. Drivers and software can be separately selected. Terratec provides the Home Cinema software, which offers most of the basics, e.g., recording to hard drive or delayed TV. The channel search needs about 6 minutes, that is quite long, but, finds all senders available. In our coverage area, 100% signal quality is displayed for the TV channels (fluctuates). Also subjectively, the quality convinces. Another stick (Hauppauge Win-TV Nova T) used for comparison could not keep up with it.

We checked how long you can enjoy TV away from a power plug with our Probook 6540b (Intel Core i5-430M, Intel HD). At maximum brightness and in energy mode (absolutely sufficient for a smooth picture sequence) we recorded a battery life of 161 min. This gives a total energy demand of about 20.5 Watt with the 55 Wh battery of the HP 6540b. At the same settings we can work 238 minutes (13.9 Watt) with Open Office, but without DVB-T. So the Terratec Cinergy T USB-Stick increases the energy demand by about 6 Watt (including system load). The achievable runtimes depend heavily on the notebook and the settings used. E.g. it would be hardly be possible to use energy mode on Netbooks. The recorded values should just give a rough idea.

Control Center of the Home Cinema Software
Control Center of the Home Cinema Software
Handy: the sender list shows on mouse touch
Handy: the sender list shows on mouse touch

Verdict

The Terratec Cinergy T-Stick Black USB 2.0 convinces because of its price performance ratio. Everything needed to quickly set up mobile TV is included in the scope of delivery. Just like with other television receivers the battery life might drastically shrink depending on the laptop and the battery capacity.

Terratec Cinergy T at Amazon - starts at 19.90 Euro

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In Review: Terratec Cinergy DVB-T Stick
In Review: Terratec Cinergy DVB-T Stick
a rather slim DVB-T Stick in unobtrusive black
a rather slim DVB-T Stick in unobtrusive black
also the antenna port has an impact on the size
also the antenna port has an impact on the size
it might get cramped if the USB-ports are close to each other
it might get cramped if the USB-ports are close to each other
so, Terratec provides an extension cables
so, Terratec provides an extension cables

Shortcut

What we like

The focus on the essential things and the price performance ratio

What we miss

Less power consumption.

What surprises us

The scope of delivery includes everything needed.

The competition

is big and diverse: Hybrid-tuner, Dual-tuner, or HDTV-capable tuner cover many fields of application.

Tobias Winkler, 2010-07- 1 (Update: 2013-06- 6)