Customer Reviews:
 Grand Tec Okay December 18, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Okay, here's the deal. I originally went with Radio Shack's new product with the remote ($100), but the picture ended up slightly blurry, and after much screwing around, I discovered that I couldn't optimize the picture on my television, so I returned it. While chatting with local product support folks from Radio Shack, I learned that Radio Shack used to sell Grand Tec products -- a unit that was a step down from this one ($70), and that the unit was considered quite good. But because the 70-dollar unit didn't state "high resolution" support, I went with this more expensive unit. It works.
I read reviews of the Hi-wire before ordering, and most of the reviews were thumbs down, but I went ahead and ordered it anyway. It seems to be best on 720P settings, although it supports higher settings. Product support sucks. The instructions are lame. You just have to play around with it, and while doing so, curse yourself for not purchasing a television with a VGA input. Refer to yourself as "genius" during the process -- it helps.
Worked for me June 28, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Worked as advertised for me. My application was getting PC VGA output to a 42" rear projection HDTV via component input. Can get 1080i HD at 1024 x 768 settings on the PC. I didn't rate it any higher because while it was easy to set up and performs as advertised, the resulting on screen legibility at 480p or 1080i is not much better than what you get with their cheaper unit at 480i output. My TV does not support 720p, so I can't say if the legibility would have been better at that setting or not. However, I have looked at most every option to get VGA output to my older (2004) model rear projection HDTV, and I think this is about the best you can do short of spending many hundereds of dollars for professional-grade gadgetry.
 I got it to work, but still unstatisfactory December 15, 2005
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
After a lot of frustration, I managed to get my laptop to output a picture to my HDTV in 720p mode. But the highly touted 1080i mode just gave me a rolling series of colored bars.
Now here's the catch: Your 4:3 laptop output is AUTOMATICALLY stretched to 16:9. On my HDTV there is no way to adjust the signal to stop this (I spent many hours trying.) Of course you can set the GRANDTEC to 480 mode, but then the screen becomes unreadable. So my plan to use the GRANDTEC to allow me to edit photos in my family room won't work, because the people look like they're standing in a front of a fun-house mirror.
It's possible there is a work-around, but since GRANDTEC makes you pay long-distance charges for a call to customer service, I didn't bother to find out. I took it back to the store.
PS to GRANDTEC: Your manual and Web site stink!
No instructions in box or online November 14, 2005
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
We took it back. We thought it would work with our HDTV compatible 65" wide screen TV for better clarity than what other PC to TV converters had to offer, which would have been really, REALLY nice, but we couldn't figure out the proper way to hook it up. The couple of printed pages inside the box only list the unit's specs and capabilities.
There are NO instructions about hooking it up. (Doesn't instruct whether the computer should be on or off when the unit is first connected, doesn't specify at which point during the installation the unit should be powered, doesn't explain about using the settings buttons on the top of the unit, and doesn't explain whether display settings on the computer likely need to be changed for the unit to display on the TV ... they do). We never got ANYTHING to apepar on our TV set after a few hours of frustration ... until we bought a DIFFERENT manufacturer's product (that explained about the computer display properties needing to be changed). When we finally did get a picture, it was horrible (no better than non-HDTV converters); definitely not usable for internet surfing.
We did see one sentence at the GrandTec website that says the unit will work with most but not all HDTV or HDTV compatible TVs, but there is no list of which TVs are known to work with it. Their website is worthless too. No help is provided on it.
Coupled with the previous reviewers comments about the customer service for this product, I strongly suggest you consider a different brand!
We later purchased AverMedia's AverKey 300 Gold. It's more expensive, but is by far superior product. It comes with a remote (the GrandTec does not). It has a terrific manual, is very easy to hookup and use, and has really fantastic features. The button text on the remote is a little hard to read, but manageable. The remote is laid out well and works nicely. This is a really cool unit, but unfortunately is still not really usable for searching the Internet on your TV. Again, the text is just too hard to read. I got around OK on pages I was already familiar with, and for using items I was familiar with on my computer, but if you really don't know what something says without reading, you're in trouble (unless you are willing to zoom in and out between the 4 corners and center of the page, which is a pain to read anything with). It killed me to have to return this unit. It would have definitely been a keeper, with better TV text readability.
We looked at the TView Gold, by Focus, but didn't purchase it presuming its text on TV is probably poor like the other units. Unlike the other units, it does require computer software. The packaging doesn't list that its compatible with Windows XP, which is the main reason we didn't give it a try. It does state that it works with Windows 2000 and Windows ME.
We have since given up on trying to use a PC to TV converter. As much as we didn't want to go the route of a subscription service, we bought the MSN TV 2 box, keyboard and remote instead. It's a nice unit that displays Internet text on the TV better. It easily auto-detected our Comcast broadband internet and Microsoft router, so we were up and running in a blink. (I made about 5 calls to MSN TV; nobody could confirm that my router was compatable. I was concerned because MS quit making it a few years ago. If that's your situation, rest assured that the router will work with it.) MSN TV 2 will also give you access to your computer photo files if you're networked, and some music and video content on your computer if it's in the right format for Windows Media Player (the only player that works with the unit). You can access these things even without being signed in to your MSN TV 2 service all the time. Unfortunately, even though you may be on a network, it doesn't allow you to do everything you could do from your computer; dang! Paying a monthly subscription, having limited computer access, and the fact that the PageBuilder web page builder is no longer included (was part of the earlier WebTV/MSNTV model), is really the only downside to going the way of the MSN TV 2.
This has been a very frustrating experience. It took us about a month to research, buy, test and return a number of products before we came to this conclusion. I'm sure better options will become available in the future.
God help you if it doesn't work May 31, 2005
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
1. Tech support is only available by calling an individual at GrandTec, during business hours, long distance and they expect that you'll be sitting in front of the HDTV during the call. If you happen to do something else during business hours, like . . . work, you're out of luck and open to outright hostility for being a "stupid customer".
2. Before I had a chance to even explain what was happening, I was interrupted and accused of not "working with" the person on the other end of the phone. He then warned sternly that trying to troubleshoot it on my own was likely to result in the device destroying my TV.
3. When the device doesn't work (which mine didn't), all you get is 2 big red bars on the screen. None of the menus will work until you already have everything set correctly.
4. When I said that if I needed to stay at home to fix this device, I'd lose more money in lost wages than just scrapping it and getting something else, I was informed that since they are the only ones on the market with such a device, I wouldn't find a replacement.
This arrogant manufacturer had better change their tune given that they're providing what is essentially technology that fills a short-term gap as HDTV expands into the market or they'll end up left in the dust.
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