16. AVerTVHD Volar MAX USB TV Tuner

• AVerTV Hybrid Volar...
• • CompUSA
  • $59.99
• • NextWarehouse
  • $85.84
• • UnbeatableSale
  • $89.46
• • Limited Goods PG East
  • $105.38

$69.99

If your dad currently has dominion over the living room’s big screen TV, you may want to encourage him to stay in the office (freeing up the big TV for mom or kids, it’s a win-win gift) with a juiced-up TV tuner for his PC.

This TV tuner plugs directly into the USB port (and looks rather like a flash drive), with a separate antennae that can sit just about anywhere, for over-the-air channel reception. This way, he dad can get regular digital channels (available across the U.S. as of June 12), as well as high-def digital channels. The tuner can handle 1080i resolution, which isn’t true HD, but it doesn’t look half bad up close on a 22-inch monitor once the Acer MediaCenter software is installed. This software also gives dad a software interface for using his PC as a DVR (already an option in Windows Media Center). The recordings can be easily converted via this software to portable video players like iPods in 320x240 resolution.

If dad has a cable connection in the office, he can also get many unencrypted digital cable channels via this tuner’s ClearQAM capability. This is another product designed with the Mac daddy in mind. The tuner works with both Mac and PC platforms. Via the AVerTV For  Mac software, Mac OSX also gets a DVR make-over.