X-bit labs

Six PCI TV-Tuners Roundup

Category: Multimedia

by Sergey Samarin

[ 02/16/2004 | 11:05 PM ]

Today we are going to take a closer look at such an interesting device as TV-tuner. There is the whole bunch of these solutions in the market today, but we will discuss 6 of them to figure out the major peculiarities and functions of these devices and point out the most important things you should pay attention to when buying a TV-tuner for your system.

Table of contents:

• What is a TV-Tuner?
  
• TV-Tuners Variety
  
• Universal Electronic Stuffing
  
• Conexant Fusion 878A
  
• Philips SAA7130HL
  
• 3DeMON PV951T (3Dvision)
  
• AVerMedia AVerTV 203
  
• AVerMedia AVerTV Studio 305
  
• Genius Video Wonder Pro III
  
• LifeView FlyTV Prime 34FM and LifeView FlyVideo 3000 (Model LR138)
  
• Captured Freeze-Frames for LifeView FlyTV Prime 34FM:
  
• TV-Tuners Evaluation Criteria
  
• Conclusion
  

As the time passes any “future technology” turns into something quite common, which is of no surprise to the generation it grew up with. All the greatest innovations of the mankind one day turned into every-day things, so that we barely imagine our life without them. Ask a house-wife where the electricity comes from, and she will point to the wall-outlet. Ask about the car engine, and you will learn that there are gas stations where you can fuel your car to make it go. Mass consumers do not need to know all the ins and outs of the technologies: they just need to learn to use the fruits of civilization.

The situation with television is just the same. You come home, and hit the power button on the remote control unit of your TV-set, which is a window to the world for you. It is really hard to imagine how people could live without TV long time ago. What did they do on the long winter nights?

The statistics claims that today most of the info comes from television. And only a small part is delivered by the radio, PC and printed media. I am not talking only bout such info as political and economic news, but also about cultural life of the society.

I would call the today’s time the days of active development of global networks. Theoretically these networks are predicted to be ousting or replacing regular television one day, although no one knows when this is going to actually take place. Television is very unlikely to give in so soon. On the contrary, television continues developing, we see that they start using new digital formats and stereo-sounding, and are constantly improving these technologies day by day. Despite the forecasts of WEB-TV adherents, the situation will hardly change in the near future. And since there are a lot of TV-shows and other programs, then there should be a comfortable way to enjoy them. Today every family has at least one TV-set. However, if you have a small place, it might be a hard task to fit a second TV-set into the interior. But if you have a PC (and if you are reading this article on our site, then you definitely have one), you can equip it with a TV-tuner and this way solve some of your problems. Moreover, a TV-tuner in a PC offers much more flexibility than just a PC or just a TV-set. I am not talking about the digital quality, because over 50% of the price of any TV-set is the price of the television tube (or LCD panel), and in case of a computer TV you have the monitor to work as a TV-tube.

All in all, a TV-tuner is a very useful and interesting device. Today we are going to take a closer look at some models available in the computer market. But before we start introducing the actual solutions to you let’s dwell on a few general peculiarities of any TV-tuner.