Q-waves USB AV Kit

Overview

Q-waves Wireless USB AV Kit enables users to stream from any laptop, netbook or PC directly onto your TV screen quickly and simply, with full audio support. Great for PC Gaming! Make Skype video calls on your TV. Imagine BBC iPlayer on your TV - well now it's possible! Connect a TV or projector for home cinema, showing your photo's or playing your music and internet radio. Free yourself to watch what you want, when you want.

Key Features

• Wireless connectivity from notebook/PC to projectors, flat TVs and monitors
• HDMI with full video/audio support
• VGA video connectivity with audio support through 3.5mm audio jack (stereo)
• 32-bit True Colour depth for high quality images
• Up to SXGA+ (1400×1050) resolution (WXSGA+ optional)
• 48 kHz, 16-bit Stereo sound
• HD video up to 720P
• Quick setup with pre-associated (paired) USB adapters
• Fully standardised and certified solution (Wireless USB from the USB-IF)
• Worldwide regulations compliance

That is the claim from the Q-waves.com web site, sounds great doesn't it, I certainly thought so when I bought it, but sadly the USB AV kit does not quite live up to its own hype.

As I often download TV shows I have missed or watch BBC iPlayer, I though this device would be a perfect solution, so that instead of having to watch these shows on my laptop I could watch them on my home entertainment system, so I decided to spend the £109.99 this device costs.

Getting the device up and running is a snip, I installed the drivers, plugged the USB dongle into my PC and the receiver into my HDTV via the HMDI cable, and my laptop display appeared on the TV. Up to this point everything was cool, I could happily use windows and browse the internet all from the comfort of the sofa. So if this is what you want the device for then it should work well for you.

I did notice also that the picture quality was not as good as I had expected, especially via HDMI, however bizarrely the picture quality is better when using the VGA connection?. If I plug my laptop directly into the VGA port on the HDTV and do not use the USB AV kit at all then the picture quality is perfect, so it clearly does not live up to their high quality picture resolution claims.

But surfing was not the reason for my buying the Q-waves device, I wanted to watch video, and this is where everything went pear shaped. There is considerable frame dropping which really makes any video pretty unwatchable as it starts to give you a headache after a while, this combined with the lack lustre picture quality means that watching video is simply not viable, and as for watching HD quality video, forget it.

I did contact Q-waves support to see if there was any way to improve things, they sent me firmware upgrades and new drivers, neither of which really made any difference. During this time I did actually upgrade my laptop to windows 7, which did result in a slightly improved picture quality, whether this is down to the drivers or media player I do not know.

I actually tested the Q-waves USB AV kit on 2 laptops and 1 desktop PC with both windows XP and windows 7, with the same results in each case.

During testing I noted that streaming video to the USB dongle resulted in 70-100% CPU usage, which Q-Waves support have now claimed is the cause of the problem and stated that none of machines are powerful enough to use this device successfully. I balked at this response as all my machines should have more than enough power to simply stream video to a USB device, especially considering I use them, as development machines and they are all capable of running web servers, ColdFusion, virtual machines, Photoshop and more. In fact my work PC is a quad core and considerably more powerful than most people are going to have in their home. I tried to point this out to them, but sadly they stopped responding to me.

Laptop 1 : Intel Core 2 CPU@ 1.66ghz, 2.5gb RAM

Laptop 2 : Intel Core 2 @ 1.66 ghz, 1GB RAM

Desktop PC : Intel Core2 Quad CPU @ 2.66ghz, 8GB RAM

So according to Q-waves support the USB AV kit will only perform as advertised if you own a top that is more powerful than any of mine listed above. So if even my quad core machine is not up tot he job, then clearly this device is not going to perform as advertised on the average person pc's either.

To be honest I would be happy to simply have a long VGA and audio cable trailing from my TV to my laptop, but having 3 small children this is a recipe for disaster, thus why I wanted a wireless solution, but sadly for me the Q-waves USB AV kit has been a waste of money as it does not perform as advertised or do the job I wanted it to do, so I will be returning to the VGA cable solution.