By Terry Currier 
The ease of being able to still work on the PC and also be
able to watch your favorite TV show makes the AVerMedia so handy. You don’t
have to turn your head or look up to see what is happening. AVerMedia makes
some of the best products to make this work. The TVBox9 is an external TV
device capable of letting you watch TV 
on your monitor in full screen, or a
small box (picture-in-picture) so you can get that budget report done. There is
an interesting picture-in-picture transparency mode so you can watch the show
and still be able to see everything on the screen.
Being an external unit you don’t have to open up your
computer. In fact, you don’t even need to use the computer at all, the monitor
just serves as the screen. You hook up the device to the cable or antenna for
the TV signal. There are VGA ports for getting it to the monitor, and sound
output jacks. It does not have to be just for TV. If you want at the same time
you can also hook it up to a VCR, DVD player, and game console. There are RCA
jacks, and a S-Video plug in the front for simultaneous use. It will work with
CRT and LCD monitors. 
It supports up to 1280x1024 SXGA resolution. To eliminate flicker it has 3:2 full-down by transferring 24 frames per second movie signal into 30 frames per second, and convert standard interlaced video into progressive scan video. My favorite feature is the 13 channel preview. It presents the channel you are looking at in the center and shows you what in on the other channels in 12 smaller screens surrounding. It scans the other channels and when you find something else more interesting just select it.
Features include:
I’ve listed below some of their other products for comparison.
|
|
Resolution (maximum) |
Channel preview |
Personal Video Record |
Time Shift Mode |
MPEG Compression |
Price (from AVerMedia website) |
|
UltraTV PCI 300 |
1600x1200 |
16 |
Yes |
No |
Software |
$70 |
|
UltraTV PCI 350 |
1600x1200 |
16 |
Yes |
No |
Software |
$100 |
|
UltraTV Media Center PCI 500 |
1600x1200 |
16 |
Yes |
Yes |
Hardware |
$170 |
|
UltraTV USB 300 |
1600x1200 |
16 |
Yes |
No |
Software |
$130 |
|
TV Stereo |
1600x1200 |
16 |
Yes |
Yes |
Software |
$33 |
|
TV Box 9 |
1280x1024 |
13 |
No |
No |
N/A |
$180 |
|
TV Box 5 |
1024x768 |
No |
No |
No |
N/A |
$130 |
If your situation is that you can not put a PCI card in your
computer or you want a setup where you don’t need to use the computer for
watchingTV, then this is great for you. Otherwise, I would recommend getting
one of their units that will enable you to actually record the shows using the
PVR software. I reviewed one a couple of years ago and really was impressed
with the software, and now they even include DVD authoring software with those
units. I do have to tell you though I really liked their transparency mode the
more I used it, and this is the only unit they have it on (at least at this time).
AVerMedia www.aver.com
From out June 2004 newsletter
Membership in WINNERS is $20 annually for individuals with $5 for each additional family member. The newsletter is emailed to the members in PDF format.
 |
Winners is a member of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG) is an international, platform-independent, nonprofit corporation (incorporated in Washington, DC) devoted to helping user groups throughout the world. Almost 400 user groups are members of APCUG. http://www.apcug.net/ |