The Card
The DualTV MCE fits into a PCI slot and operates alongside your video card much like ATI's Theater 550 Pro. The card is passively cooled and has no external power connections, making installation very easy. It comes with a CATV/TV antenna input, two S-VIDEO and audio inputs, and an FM antenna.
The card comes bundled with all the necessary connectors for a wide variety of home theater and audio setups, as well as a standard remote control for use with Windows Media Center. The card takes a standard single cable input and splits it into two signals internally, and the on board amplifier and splitter ensures better signal quality than having an external splitter do the job. The DualTV MCE's MPEG encoder is made by a company called Vixs, and the two tuners on it are made by Philips. Below is an illustration of the card's basic architecture.
Features
As far as features go, the DualTV MCE is fairly straightforward. It's biggest feature would be the fact that, as its name indicates, it offers dual video in, allowing you to watch and record two programs at the same time. This is essentially what cable services like TiVo and DVR offer, however because it is recording to your computer, the capacity for how much can be recorded and stored is potentially much higher.There are other smaller features of the DualTV MCE, when used with Windows Media Center Edition, that add to the overall package, such as something called MediaSqueeze. MediaSqueeze basically lets you record live TV at a lower bit rate without a major loss in quality. It also lets you translate video that's already been recorded to a lower bit rate, with 4 different quality settings: fair, good, better, and best mode. This allows you to make better use of your disk space for video archiving. NVIDIA's PureVideo is incorporated into the package, which ensures good quality digital video decoding. PureVideo can be purchased for use with any NVIDIA GPU, but the fact that it is bundled with the DualTV is a good thing. We would like to see PureVideo come bundled with graphics cards in the future as well.
Windows XP MCE
Windows XP Media Center Edition is a version of Windows that offers a variety of audio and video applications beyond what you get with the standard Windows XP OS. An interesting side note is that MCE 2005 includes many of the performance enhancements of Windows Server 2003, so it can actually outperform XP Pro systems by a small margin. The main interface for multimedia applications is easy to navigate and full of options.
Windows MCE is listed as a minimum requirement for the DualTV MCE, and is not included with the card package. Unfortunately, there is no software provided for non-MCE Windows installations. This seems a little strange to us, but our focus for this review is on the card itself, and we will be looking more in depth at Windows MCE in a future article.
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nullpointerus - Friday, May 19, 2006 - link
First, it was my understanding that MCE cards are sold sans PVR software. Frankly, I prefer it this way because I'd rather not pay the hardware manufacturer for developing crappy PVR software that I'll throw away in favor of something more serious like Sage. So there are people who view the lack of bundled software as a plus.Second, it's hard to understand why companies would be developing new analog tuners right now (at least in the U.S.). When the government-mandated switch to digital TV occurs, each of these analog tuners will require a converter box AND either a serial cable or an IR blaster just to keep working, right?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you've already said that CableCARD requires Vista, and as we know that OS won't be out until the holiday season or even later (depending on who you talk to). And without CableCARD, there simply aren't any digital tuners for the PC that can completely replace the analog tuners currently in use.
GoatMonkey - Friday, May 19, 2006 - link
There you go.
derekblankmccoy - Sunday, May 21, 2006 - link
For those of us that live here in the first world, we have several dvb-t and dvb-s cards. I have a Sweetspot MCE in my machine, works like a dream, recieves Freeview, and if i want to watch and record 2 differenct channels, I just have to add in another one, simple!nullpointerus - Friday, May 19, 2006 - link
Nonsequitor. nVidia didn't have to enter the analog tuner market; what we're talking about is whether it makes sense to develop new products to enter a collapsing market. Your selective quoting didn't bother to address that.Look, would you buy a 3D card right now if i told you that in six months you'd need an expensive dongle, some luck, and a bit of spare time just to get it to work almost as well as it did when you bought it? It's insane.
I can't wait to see the tech support calls:
techrep: Hi! blah blah blah What can I help you with today?
user: Yes, my TV tuner stopped working a week after I bought it. I can't get no signal on any of the stations. It's all staticy.
techrep: Can you verify that you still have cable on your other TVs?
user: Yes, they're all working fine.
techrep: I'll give you a ticket number. It's 493027583.
techrep: Have you tried reinstalling the drivers?
user: I don't understand what would have changed.
user: Oh, sorry, I'll try that now.
*lost connection*
techrep: Hi! blah blah blah What can I help you with today?
user: Yes, my TV tuner stopped working a week after I bought it. I can't get no signal on any of the stations. It's all staticy.
techrep: Can you verify that you still have cable on your other TVs?
user: Yes, my ticket number is 493027583.
techrep: Oh...wait a sec.
techrep: OK, I'm reading your chat log.
*several minutes pass by*
user: Hello?
techrep: Yes, I'm still here. What software are you using to watch TV on your PC?
user: Windows XP MCE SP2
techrep: Have you tried reinstalling it?
user: No, but I don't think that's the problem. It records OK - they're just static.
techrep: I think you need to reinstall MCE.
user: Isn't there anything else we can try?
techrep: Can you play the files back in Windows Media Player?
user: Just a sec.
techrep: OK.
user: Yes, they play back, but the sound and video is just static.
techrep: I think your system has been infected by a virus. At this point, the only thing you can do is to reinstall MCE.
user: OK, whatever.
*several hours pass by*
techrep: Hi! blah blah blah What can I help you with today?
user: ticket number is 493027583
techrep: Oh...wait a sec.
techrep: OK, I'm reading your chat log.
user: Reinstalling MCE didn't work.
techrep: OK, I think I know what your problem is. In compliance with new FCC rules, your cable provider has switched from an analog signal to a digital signal. The tuner card you purchased last week can't handle the new signal.
user: You mean I didn't need to reinstall MCE? Darn.
user: So how do I update the firmware?
techrep: I apologize for the inconvenience of reinstalling MCE. We're updating our support department on these new cases as we speak.
techrep: There is no new firmware. The tuner simply won't work with a digital signal.
user: What the...? I just bought the damn thing last week!!
techrep: I'm sorry, sir, but it just won't work.
techrep: Some people have gotten it to work by purchasing a serial cable or IR blast.
user: Where can I get one of those?
techrep: We don't provide any support for that.
user: What?! How the **** am I supposed to fix this stupid ****?
techrep: I'm sorry, but we don't support third party products like those.
techrep: Is there anything else I can help you with today?
*lost connection*
What fun.
GoatMonkey - Monday, May 22, 2006 - link
It's at least 3 years away.I would hope that I wouldn't be using any video card for that long.
NegativeEntropy - Friday, May 19, 2006 - link
The mandate in the US to switch from analog to digital is for Over The Air only. Oh, and it is currently set for Feb 17 2009. It has already been pushed back several times. I think the original date was 2002.Cable companies own their networks (line sharing not withstanding) and thus can do whatever they want. Hence your worries will be all based on your provider, unless you're a big user of OTA broadcasting. I don't know about you, but the only people I know that use an antenna are:
1) People that only want 4-7 channels total
2) People that use it for local channels that choose to not or cannot get via sattelite
3) People getting OTA HD (which is analog?)
Trisped - Sunday, May 21, 2006 - link
Of course the fact that my cable company has been tring for years to get us off analog and all onto digital doesn't do much for my desire to own another TV tuner. When they come out with one that does HDTV, DTV, and SDTV and uses a PCIe slot I will start looking into getting it, not before.nullpointerus - Saturday, May 20, 2006 - link
Really? Man, I was terribly confused. Thanks for clarifying that!From what I can tell, OTA HD is digital, not analog. I've read about the signal either being on or off - IOW not staticy - and then there's this site which I found this morning:
http://www.dtv.gov/consumercorner.html#howdoiget">http://www.dtv.gov/consumercorner.html#howdoiget
...which gives advice on how to get OTA DTV.
gplracer - Friday, May 19, 2006 - link
I thought that I read somewhere that the cablecard tuners will only come with systems made by manufacturers. If one is building a computer he/she will not be able to purchase this tuner. I find it hard to believe this will happen but who knows.nullpointerus - Friday, May 19, 2006 - link
Oh, one more thing: As for why there isn't a version bundled with MCE, think of the support issues. People expect software bundled with a piece of hardware to "just work" when it is installed, but having to replace your OS or install it on new hardware? It's just too much work - MS should handle the MCE problems. This would be different if MS figured out that MCE is just an application and should be sold as such. Application solutions such as Sage or BeyondTV often sell software+hardware bundles through their store especially with Hauppauge cards.