PixelView PlayTV XP

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PixelView PlayTV XP

Aalaap Ghag, Sep 17, 2002 0000 hrs IST

A rather nifty TV-tuner card that helps your PC and TV get along with each other better than ever be

Good quality 640x480 TV at 30 fps, very good quality FM tuner

Bundled software incapable of recording FM streams

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Somehow, we always have some of the best shows at the worst times. It's like, don't you just hate it when they show Beavis and Butthead at ungodly hours on weeknights? It's almost like they want you to be late for college, or work the next day. If you can afford to be persistently late for work just because they're doing reruns of That 70's Show at half-past-midnight, the same ones that you missed earlier because they came on at 4pm and you were at work, then this piece of hardware might not be your best bet. For the rest of us, this is the light at the end of the CRT tunnel!
The Idiot box inside your Smart box?

The PlayTV XP is an add-on TV Tuner card for your PC that lets you view TV in a window, time-shift playback, record shows and movies and perform real-time MPEG encoding of the streams, when used in conjunction with the bundled software. With the FM model reviewed here, you can also listen to FM radio and record your favorite DJ's livesets on a Saturday night when you're out clubbing.
A PC TV-tuner is essentially the same as the tuner in your television set - it converts signals sent to it via your regular RF cable into images and audio that are passed on for further processing. While video decoding and display is controlled by software, the audio directly is sent out to your sound card for output. This is about all that the card does, and the software takes over then for additional features.

For those who are really interested in its tech bits, the PlayTV XP is based on the Conexant Fusion 878A, and boasts of a maximum resolution of 640x480. It can also capture video at 30fps. The quality is good, provided your cable broadcast quality also is. The OEM software to view/record TV is quite plain vanilla when compared with some other commercial products available (like Cyberlink's PowerVCR and WinDVR, the latter being bundled along with the card), but it gets the job done.
Most of the advanced functions like time-shifted playback, scheduled recording, and real-time MPEG encoding are a feature of WinDVR or PowerDirector. The OEM player does however let you easily record transmission with just one click. And yes, you'll need a lot of free space on your hard drive, for this is uncompressed video we're talking about!

And radio too...
The FM module has very good quality tuning. The bundled software has an auto-scan feature and presets (channels), but surprisingly no record option! You need to use third party audio software, like Sound Forge or CoolEdit, to record from the Line-In of your sound card, which is where this card's audio output is piped (via a regular stereo jack).

The card also comes with a versatile IR remote control that really completes the couch-potato wish list...
If you really love TV, your Rs.3900 are a good investment in the PixelView PlayTV XP, but of course you need a nice big monitor if you're going to watch a lot of television on your PC, so prepare to fork out on that as well. Coupled with a nice TV-Out video card and your existing TV, you can do a whole lot more with this than you can with a regular TV that costs much more than twice as much, and doesn't play Radio Mirchi...

Test unit sourced from: Rashi Peripherals, Mumbai