Compro VideoMate TV PVR/FM Card

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Compro VideoMate TV PVR/FM Card

Ameya Dalvi, Mar 17, 2004 0000 hrs IST

With the India vs. Pakistan cricketing encounters in full swing, the best place these days happens to be in front of your television set.

Good TV output, Good assortment of features, Uncomplicated and feature-rich software, Excellent remote control

Average quality FM tuner, Auto scanning in TV needs to be a bit more efficient

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The FM tuner is a mixed bag. The reception of certain channels was excellent, while there was a noticeable distortion in others. The provided wire FM antenna does a fair job, but there is scope for improvement. The software lets you tune the channels using the auto-scan option and also allows you to directly jump to a channel by simply typing its frequency. The second option is ideal for those who are aware of the exact channel frequencies. As I said before, this card also functions as an FM recorder. The audio can be saved in WAV, MP3 and WMA formats. The options for multiple bit rates are available when saving it to WMA, but all MP3 recordings are done at a 56 Kbps bit rate and takes up approximately 400 KB of disk space for a one minute recording.

Often people tend to ignore the fact that most TV Tuner cards also function as a personal video recorder, which means that you can connect your analog video devices like Camcorders and VCP/Rs to them and convert your analog video into a digital format. This card is no different. The composite and S-Video inputs are provided at the back of the card for connecting the analog devices. It not only lets you convert your data to MPEG format, but it also supports real time MPEG 2 encoding at resolutions up to 720 x 576 pixels. The file size at the above setting stands at around 15 MB per minute. In addition to this, it also supports features like multi-channel preview, scheduled recording and time shift recording.

As I mentioned before, a full function cordless remote control is bundled in the package. Almost all the features that the card supports, from channel surfing to tuning to video recording, including time shift recording are available at your finger tips on the remote. It has a robust build quality and it's got to be the best remote that I have ever come across in a TV Tuner card bundle. It works on a pair of AAA batteries, which were bundled in the package.

Before you proceed to buy this card I would advise you to have a look at the system requirements for the same, which range from a 400 MHz CPU for TV viewing to 866 MHz for recording and time shifting and up to 1.7 GHz CPU for DVD quality recording. At least 128 MB RAM is recommended for either of the above. For more details, please check the following link: http://www.comprousa.com/products/vmtvpvrhard.htm

The Compro VideoMate TV PVR/FM is available for a street price of Rs. 2,475, which is very impressive considering the quality and functionality of the product and the bundled software. If you don't care much about FM, you can save Rs. 250 by opting for a non-FM version of this card. All in all, it's a very good buy and certainly recommended. Now you can enjoy your Indo-Pak series in peace.

Test Unit Sourced From: Mediatech India, Mumbai.