Works? Maybe?
Written: May 28 '05 (Updated Jun 02 '05)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Decent TV image, audio encoded with video stream (no external audio connection needed)
Cons: No driver included, no much in package, potential problem maybe card's fault (will update)
The Bottom Line: If you are looking for the most inexpensive MCE-compatible tuner card, this is it.
|
|
|
| nad_masters's Full Review: Avermedia AVerTV PVR 150 Plus (MTVPVR15P) Video Ca... |
I have recently purchased a Shuttle ST61G4 barebones miniPC and had plans on turning it into a Windows Media Center. I first purchased it along with a P4-3GHz CPU and purchased the KWorld MCE100 Creative TV Tuner, thinking it would work with Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. It did not, but it did come with its own software to provide a pretty-close mock-up of WinMCE's own interface. Still, it was not as slick or as functional either. But it was only $9.99 after rebates during Fry's Electronics’ 20th anniversary sale. My friend kept it. But I returned mine, deciding not to even play chance with the rebate.
After digging around Microsoft's site, I discovered a list of TV tuners that will work with MCE. I decided to go ahead and price them out. Though all my research, most users purchased the Hauppauge WinTV M150 card (an OEM), it costs around $100! I also heard the ATI TV Wonder Elite works, but it also costs $100. One of the major differences between what will work and what won't with MCE is a built-in MPEG I/II encoder. You can usually tell by looking at the tuner card and visually check for the chip. It will say "MPEG I/II". I found some at Fry's for around $75, but I never heard of such a brand (nor where they officially listed on Microsoft's site - neither is ATI's TV Wonder Elite, but I heard they work in MCE and HTPC forums). I decided to go with the AverMedia AverTV PVR 150 Plus. The M150 is similar (and about $4 cheaper), but does not come with an FM tuner. The cost? $65 at NewEgg.com.
I also purchased a generic MCE-compatible (and a near clone of Microsoft's own) remote with IR blaster and an NEC 3520A DVD recorder drive. NewEgg.com also had a sale with the DVD recorder so I decided to pick one up for the HTPC I am building.
White Box
Being a white-box item, not much came inside. The card, an FM antenna (which is just a very long wire), and a warrantee card. No instructions or driver CD included. The outside of the box lists the features of the card, including a URL to the driver on their website. However, the link does not work anymore, so you will have to visit their website and go to their support link and navigate to the driver on your own.
The Avermida AverTV PVR 150 Plus and the AverTV M150 (non-FM version) is not offered in the retail channels, so you can only buy them as a white-box (or OEM resellers). This goes the same for Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.
Installation
I would like to say installation was a breeze like with most PCI-based cards, but it was not. I'm not sure who to fault at this point. First, the Shuttle ST61G4 miniPC case has a close-top PCI slot opening so that a metal flap can screw onto it. Because of this I could not fit the card in because the metal bracket on the bottom would not clear the motherboard. That is also because the top part of the RF connector did not clear the close-top PCI slot opening. What a dilemma, right?
To work around this, I unscrewed two screws that held the bracket in place on the card, place the bracket where I wanted it to be on the PCI slot opening, and stuck the card in while maneuvering the bracket so I can have clearance for the connectors to poke through to their original openings on the bracket. I then pushed the card into the PCI slot. Afterwards, I screwed in the bracket back onto the now-installed card. Next (and finally), I screwed the flap that holds the cards in place (part of the Shuttle case).
So for me to remove the card, I could not just unscrew the flap and remove the card as usual - I would have to also unscrew the bracket from the card as well.
The card was also pretty large, so fitting it in such a small case was harder than I thought. For a card that is supposed to go into a HTPC, they should have designed it so it was less tall. Elongate it if you had to! Oh well, it is in. The clearance for the PCI slot opening, though, I fault Shuttle for the case design.
Software
The actual direct link to the drivers is here:
http://www.aver.com/support/faq_tvtuner_avertv_pvr_150_plus_wb.shtml
Or to just start downloading the zip file directly, here it is:
http://www.aver.com/support/Drivers/AVerTV_PVR_150_Plus_wb_Drv_v1.0.1.15.zip
They may change their locations, so these links may be no good after a while. But then again, this is true of all web links. After all, drivers get updated, web site gets updated.
No software is included, so you will have to use your own. There are many other HTPC software you can pair this card up with besides Microsoft's Windows MCE. Beyond TV and SageTV are among the highest regarded. There is also the dreaded InterVideo Home Theater software (that came with the KWorld MCE100 tuner card I returned). Although bundled with the KWorld, it is available for purchase for $100. However, for that price, you're better off with the other two, which is priced similarly.
Or you can pay slightly more for a complete operating system with the MCE interface built-in from Microsoft, which was my method. I will review Windows MCE at another time, as my impression of it is mixed, which I will clue you in later since it may have been with the TV tuner card as well.
In Use
After installing the downloaded driver, and setting up MCE, the TV image looked better than ATI's own TV Wonder and All-in-Wonder line of products (or at least the ones from the Rage chipset days). The TV Wonder Elite, I heard, was a huge improvement over the old ones, though.
After watching an XviD-based video for a while in MCE, MCE crashed and produced an error with ehshell.exe (MCE's front end GUI) and had a reference to xvid.ax. I updated the XviD codec, and I was able to play videos again, but before and after I updated (after the crash); the TV portion did not work! The DVD portion says that the video codec was in use, or not working, or missing. But it played before.
The television image and sound comes on for a bit, and then the screen pauses, and then the sound disappeared. I rebooted the machine with the same results. Overheating?
I opened up the case, and the same thing happened. Nope.
I decided I'd take a break and watch my videos again. After 3 hours (I was watching a series), I started the TV up and it started working again! DVD also started working as well. The only strange thing is there is a green bar once you get back onto the MCE interface. After viewing a picture slide show, you can see the photos where the green bar used to be on the MCE interface.
Weird. Maybe something with the overlay?
I am still having issues, but as far as TV image goes, it was very decent for a PC-based TV tuner especially considering I was using a TV antenna (I do not have cable or satellite). You can still tell that it was not an image produced directly from the television's own tuner, as there are some minor streaks during fast actions, and a slight MPEG-ish blur/artifacts on it, but it is no worse than digital cable or satellite’s MPEGII artifacts.
This makes sense, as all the card is doing is encoding the analog image and sound into an MPEG stream and injecting it into the PCI bus.
The radio portion did not pick up signals as well as my Aiwa bookshelf stereo in the same room. Even using the same antenna, the Aiwa sounded much cleaner and had less static than what the AverTV PVR 150 Plus produced.
Conclusion
For those who are willing to spend more, maybe the Hauppauge WinTV is a better bet. However, for those who need a TV tuner in a pinch, the AverTV image quality do not disappoint.
However, at this point in time, I will have to find out if I have a defective card, or a bad installation of Windows MCE. I will update with more info as it comes.
UPDATE: 6/2/2005
Turns out that the troubles were caused by the integrated ATI 9100 graphics. It was easily fixed: just go into the BIOS and dedicate 64 MB of video RAM to it, and you're set. I had it set to less than that to get as much system memory as possible, since the video memory is shared with the system memory.
There were utilities on Microsoft's website that check the system to see if it meets minimum requirements, and that was how I found out I needed to set the video memory higher.
MCE 2k5 also needs a DX 8 video card that has DX 9 compliant drivers MINIMUM. You would get better MPEG-2 quality and acceleration with a native DX 9 video card.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
nad_masters
|
 in Computer Hardware |
 - Top 100 |
|
Location: Chicago, IL, USA
Reviews written: 551
Trusted by: 114 members
About Me:
If you mind is in the gutter, where are your hands?
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.