Introduction
I think no one will argue with me that today the Russian market is saturated with TV tuners for personal computers. For any computer and for every taste - internal, external, autonomous - they all have similar functionality, often common advantages and disadvantages. You can talk endlessly about bad TV tuners. Indeed, when buying such a device from an unknown manufacturer, the user runs the risk of encountering not only low-quality software, but also the lack of support for the SECAM format, which today broadcasts most television channels in Russia. As a result, you will have to enjoy only black and white images. Strange as it may seem, this is a very common situation. And about non-working drivers and inconvenient software, you can talk for days on end.
Speaking of good TV tuners, you immediately remember the proven manufacturers Aver, Pinnacle and Prolink (PixelView). During their presence on the Russian market, these companies have done everything to make their products a quality standard. But today this trio will have to make room, because a new company, a new name in the TV tuner industry, GoTView, is claiming their place, whose tuners were specially developed taking into account the specifics of the Russian user and Russian broadcasting. We meet the first TV tuners for Russian roads from GoTView! To date, there are two models in the GoTView TV tuner line - an internal one with a PCI interface and an external, stand-alone one, connected through the cut between the monitor and the computer. In this review, we will consider the internal tuner GoTView PCI version with a built-in FM receiver.
GoTView PCI
A small cardboard box with a rather simple design somehow did not fit into the total mass of other boxes from computer hardware. Probably because the design of the box was done entirely in Russian. Such localization, although it seemed unusual, left a very good impression.
Inside the box are:
- GoTView PCI TV tuner itself
- Remote control
- T-shaped radio antenna
- Audio cable for connecting the tuner to the sound card
- IR receiver (eye) for remote control
- TV tuner installation instructions
- Two software CDs
Before proceeding to a more detailed examination of the TV tuner itself, I suggest that you familiarize yourself with its characteristics and understand what all the delights of localizing this device for a Russian user are.
GoTView PCI TV Tuner Specifications
- Interface - PCI, 32-bit
- Chip - Conexant BT878
- 125-channel analog block manufactured by TCL
- Support for PAL/SECAM/NTSC standards for TV broadcasting
- FM stereo decoder for radio playback
- Extended range of VHF-FM radio broadcasts
Connectors:
- Coaxial connector for TV antenna
- Coaxial connector for FM antenna
- Composite RCA video input
- S-video video input
- Line stereo audio input
Software Features
- Ability to scan the specified range with a given step
- Channel frequency tuning in 0.01 MHz steps with the ability to enter a specific wavelength value
- Preset settings for the main channels of Russian television and radio
- Individual picture and sound settings for each channel
- Resolution selection for preview and full screen
- Ability to capture individual frames in BMP, GIF and JPEG formats from 80x60 to 768x576 at the touch of a button or by timer
- Capture video in resolutions from 80x60 to 768x576. Ability to set timer recording
- Capture and encode audio with any codec installed on the system
- Ability to set application priority when capturing
- Ability to play recorded AVI and WAV files without exiting the program, as well as directly during recording
- Full Capture Information:
- size and duration of the captured fragment
- free disk space
- possible recording time based on available free disk space
- number of captured and dropped frames
- Video editing program from InterVideo with great editing capabilities, a wide range of professional features. Completely in Russian.
- Automatic saving of settings.
- Ability to reserve disk space for recording a fragment.
Many of the software features are unique to GoTView tuners. Those who do not record programs from television and radio to a computer will never need many of them, but fine-tuning channels and searching with a given step will clearly appeal to those users who are in the zone of uncertain reception of high-frequency signals. We will dwell on some of the features of the tuner software a little later, but for now it's time to take a closer look at the device itself.
The TV tuner itself is made on a printed circuit board covered with dark brown varnish. The board is rather small in size - its length does not go beyond the pins of the PCI slot. The board panel has a golden color, on it (from top to bottom) the following connectors are located:
FM antenna
TV antenna
IR sensor socket
RCA video input
TV input jack
Line audio input
S-video video input
Line-out audio
To the right of the sockets located on the board panel, the tuner has two four-pin connectors for connecting a sound card via the internal input and output.
The sound card can thus be connected to the tuner using standard audio cables from a CD-ROM. The presence of such internal connectors can be attributed to the advantages of the board, because although in modern conditions nothing prevents sound transmission via the PCI bus, but in the case when you need to transfer the audio stream directly through the sound card, such a connection is more convenient than using a cable through the sockets on the tuner and sound card bracket.
The heart of the TV tuner is the Conexant Fusion 878A chip. In general, this is almost a standard solution for modern TV tuners. This encoder has proven itself well over the past years and today is already that "good old, proven" solution that can be used without fear of consequences.
The analog TV tuner unit is manufactured by TCL. By today's standards, of course, it looks a little anachronistic, since analog blocks on modern TV tuners are several times smaller, but this is not a cause for concern. This analog unit combines a television and radio receiver and, as we will see later, does an excellent job.
As any normal tuner should, the GoTView PCI has an IR-powered control panel. True, this remote control, unlike many others, is very convenient. The remote control is powered by two AAA batteries. Oddly enough, but against the background of the total Russification of the TV tuner, the remote control is distinguished by English-language inscriptions. Although, if you think about it, how, for example, to translate the signature "Sleep" or "Mute"? These words are already so familiar to our Russian user that it is time to enter them into the explanatory dictionary of the Russian language.
Some expensive TV tuners and combo boards that combine a powerful 2D/3D accelerator with tuner functions use radio wave based remote controls. You can't say anything - such a solution is very convenient, but in this case the remote control will cost much more, and we are talking about a tuner for the Russian market, and here the price is of great importance. Therefore, to control the tuner in GoTView PCI, infrared rays are already familiar to us.
The IR sensor is connected directly to the TV tuner board and can be placed anywhere on the computer case. We did not find stickers for fixing the sensor on the computer in the kit for the GoTView remote control, but the fact is that before us the GoTView PCI tuner visited some other test laboratories, so it is possible that the sticker was lost somewhere with them, because they didn’t want to so that they "intentionally" forgot to put it in the box to the tuner.
Installation and testing
After installing the TV tuner in a free PCI slot and booting the system, you need to install drivers and software. Under the Windows XP operating system we use, the drivers installed themselves when the CD was inserted into the CD-ROM drive. Installation of the program for receiving TV and radio programs is also done with a few keystrokes.
As software, GoTView offers us software based on the best software for TV tuners - Fly DS. The original program, adopted by thousands of users around the world as an alternative to the default viewers supplied with the tuners, has been redesigned by GoTView programmers specifically for this tuner.
This program has already recorded the frequencies of Russian television channels and FM radio stations. That is, after installing the tuner, you most likely will not have to go through the procedure of scanning and sorting channels. Although, this is not a fact, because if you have TV programs broadcast on cable TV, you will have to scan the entire range. True, the scanning here is top notch. You can scan both the entire frequency range and selected ones, with a given step. For each channel, you can manually set the frequency with an accuracy of 0.01 MHz. Here you can also adjust the sound volume and brightness, contrast, warmth and color saturation for each channel individually.
A special task scheduler will help organize the inclusion and recording of TV programs at the right time. Here you select the channel, date and time when the tuner will be turned on and the duration of its operation or capture. It is very convenient, by the way, so as not to earn money at the computer and not to miss your favorite series. True, when capturing video in this way, you do not see any capture statistics and you may not know at all whether the recording is being made to the hard drive or not.
But manual capture, caused by one click on the button, is replete with settings. Here you can reserve disk space for the next video file, choose a resolution, apply filters, change the video and audio compression quality, as well as get full capture statistics - what frame rate is being recorded and how many frames are missed. At the bottom of the video capture window there is an indicator of the load of the central processor of the system, and if the load is high, you can manually increase the priority of the recording program.
Impression
Our test lab had cable TV, so the preset frequencies of Russian TV channels turned out to be useless and we had to scan the entire range. Scanning was carried out with a minimum step, so it took quite a long time. Of course, if there is not much time, then you can reduce the scanning step, but we were in no hurry. As a result, the TV tuner found all the available channels and even a couple of those that did not find the existing Samsung TV, which, according to the manufacturer, was also adapted to Russian broadcasting specifics. Such a high sensitivity of the tuner was very pleased, because more channels were available on the computer than on the TV.
The quality of the image produced by the tuner also pleased. Fine-tuning the frequency of the channels helped to minimize the noise on the channels where they were. Video capture and compression also did not cause any complaints. The abundance of settings and the convenience of the software allows you to maintain the very balance when convenience is not put at the expense of functionality.
As for radio broadcasts, as a rule, there are no complaints about tuners' radio receivers, and GoTView is no exception. The tuner received VHF channels and for their reception there was no need to run a separate module or a separate program - in the viewer it is enough to switch the channel and the computer will turn from a TV into a radio receiver.
conclusions
A TV tuner optimized for a Russian user will have a great future in our country. High sensitivity of the analog block, high-quality software, full Russification and a set of unique features - this is what a tuner for Russian roads should be like.
No shortcomings were found in GoTView during the testing process. Unless, the WinDVD Creator program for editing and creating your own video collection is less convenient than Pinnacle Studio 8. But again, inexpensive Pinnacle tuners come with a trial version of Studio 7 or Studio 8 with a 30-day validity period, and GoTView comes with a full licensed version of WinDVD Creator in Russian. True, if you wish, you can purchase any software for editing on the Russian market.
Summing up all of the above, we can state the fact that such whales of the TV tuner market as Aver, Pinnacle and Prolink (PixelView) will still have to move and share a place on the pedestal with the newcomer GoTView.
Mikhail Degtyarev (aka LIKE OFF)
02/10.2003
The models that will be presented in our review are selected by GotView as the most popular products of this brand. It is noteworthy that among them there are both built-in TV tuners for PCI and PCI-E buses, as well as an external model using the USB interface. First, let's try to compare them on some common characteristics.
Comparison table of GotView TV tuners
* The average estimated cost was taken from the website www.price.ru at the time of preparation of the materialNote: For a complete list of GotView TV tuner features, please visit the manufacturer's homepage: www.gotview.ru.
For information: the abbreviation "DVD" in the model name of the GotView TV tuner indicates the presence of a hardware MPEG2 encoder on the board.
Description of GotView Models
Almost the entire range of GotView tuners comes in cute and small packaging boxes, designed according to the manufacturer's corporate template. For the convenience of the buyer, the functional features of the models, equipment, service functions, etc. are presented in detail directly on them. Despite the small dimensions of the packages, a potential buyer will find many components inside. Their set for all GotView built-in TV tuners is almost identical, and includes the following:
TV tuner;
Low-profile bracket for installing the tuner in "thin" cases;
Antenna dipole for radio receiver (with Velcro);
RCA adapter (composite) - S-Video;
remote control;
Batteries for remote control;
IR receiver for remote control;
Composite video cable;
S-Video cable;
Stereo audio cable;
Software CD;
InterVideo WinDVD Creator 2 CD;
Installation Guide
All models of the company's built-in TV tuners have a low-profile PCB design, and additional low-profile brackets are included in the delivery kits of the models, which allows the use of products in specific small-sized system unit cases.
Many models of GotView TV tuners come with a multimedia remote control. With it, you can control not only the functions of the TV tuner itself, but also various applications. When studying the package, we found that in the GotView TV tuner lineup there can be at least two options for remote controls, the photos of which you see below:
GotView Remote Control Models
Reprogramming the keys on the remote control is carried out using
proprietary software shell
The remote in the black case is a "regular" remote control, and in the silver case it is a "multimedia" one, corresponding in functionality to the Microsoft Media Center Remote. This remote control allows you to turn your computer on and off, which is without a doubt a very useful feature. Such a remote also allows you to control any programs, including multimedia applications and Windows Media Center, as well as emulate a mouse and keyboard. The multimedia control panel is also sold separately, while its receiver is connected to the USB port, and not to the tuner. It is convenient that a driver is not required for its operation, and, due to its versatility, it can be used with any computer TV tuner in general.
The thin "regular" remote control loses to the "multimedia" one not only in functionality, but also in convenience - it does not fit well in the hand, and the same membrane buttons are extremely inconvenient for blind work.
GotView PCI DVD2 Deluxe
DVD2 Deluxe in retail packaging
GotView PCI DVD2 Deluxe appeared on the computer market in 2006, replacing the outdated GotView PCI DVD model. One of the main advantages of this model is the initial equipment with a multimedia remote control that allows you to turn the computer on and off.
Thanks to an additional low-profile bracket, the tuner can be installed not only in a standard-sized system unit, but also in the “thin” computer cases popular among HTPC system builders. By the way, the vast majority (if not all) of GotView's built-in TV tuners have a low-profile PCB design.
PCB PCI DVD2 Deluxe
Side view of the tuner
The GotView PCI DVD2 Deluxe tuner is built on the basis of the top model Philips FM 1216ME/I H-5 (Mk5) RF unit, which has proven itself in business for a long time. It allows you to confidently receive both television and radio channels, with good selectivity and low noise level. On the printed circuit board, the RF unit is distinguished by a blind shielding.
Conexant CX23416
The encoder/decoder is a combination of CX25843 and CX23416 chips manufactured by Conexant. It must be admitted that such a bundle is a well-tested solution, and is used by many manufacturers not only in the design of TV tuners, but also in video capture cards. Due to the capabilities of the CX26843 decoder chip, the tuner has a three-band equalizer, as well as support for stereo broadcasting in A2 and NICAM formats. The CX23416 chip provides real-time MPEG2 video capture at bit rates up to 15 Mbps without loading the computer's CPU with such tasks. It also has hardware noise filtering with smooth noise reduction level adjustment.
In operation, the tuner performed quite well, demonstrating the excellent quality of broadcasting a television picture. GotView PCI DVD2 Deluxe has very good sensitivity and can be recommended for those who do not have the most ideal receiving antenna.
GotView PCI Hybrid
GotView PCI Hybrid in retail packaging
The GotView PCI Hybrid TV tuner is a budget model, but the interests of this consumer audience do not seem to be infringed in any way. On the contrary, a rich (even overly rich) delivery set, which, by the way, includes a remote control, all kinds of cables, and a low-profile bar, will appeal to even a sophisticated user.
Tuner circuit board
Side view of the tuner
Perhaps this is such a corporate identity - all printed circuit boards of GotView built-in TV tuners are united by a purple color of varnish (or, more correctly, masks). The high-frequency part of the tuner is served by the XC3028 hybrid chip manufactured by Xceive Inc. (as you can see, the chip and its environment on the PCB, unlike analog receivers, do not need external shielding). The selector allows you to receive both analogue and digital broadcasts. As an analog-to-digital converter, the manufacturer chose for the PCI Hybrid a fairly common 10-bit ADC CX23883 from Conexant, which supports all types of video standards.
In operation, this TV tuner proved to be quite good, demonstrating an acceptable quality of broadcasting a television picture. However, during the initial channel setup, the tuner could not automatically determine the color standard (PAL or SECAM), which had to be set manually. It should be noted that the GotView PCI Hybrid is the cheapest model of TV tuners in the family, which, in relation to its rich package bundle and quality of work, makes the model a very good purchase.
GotView PCI DVD3 Hybrid
PCI DVD3 Hybrid in retail packaging
This model is a hybrid TV tuner with MPEG2 hardware compression, capable of receiving both analog and digital TV and radio channels. The tuner comes with a remote control, made in a thin case with membrane buttons. In addition, rich equipment and software adapted for Russia (typical for all models of GotView TV tuners) will surely appeal to many buyers.
PCB PCI DVD3 Hybrid
Side view of the tuner
The tuner's input device is based on the Xceive 3028 chip and does not require additional metal shielding. For this reason, in hybrid models, we do not see the tin casing inherent in analog tuners that protects high-frequency circuits from interference (they are simply not among the mounting elements on digital receivers).
Conexant CX23418
The highest level of integration falls on the Conexant CX23418 chip, which plays the role of an MPEG2 encoder with built-in audio and video decoders. For portable solutions, such a selection of the element base would give an advantage in low power consumption and in small dimensions of the product, but the GotView PCI DVD3 Hybrid board is already designed for a low-profile design (an additional special bracket is included in the package), and built-in TV tuners have no power supply. there are no restrictions.
The CX23418 hardware encoder is capable of real-time high-quality MPEG2 video capture at bit rates up to 15 Mbps without loading the computer's CPU. The chip has a hardware image noise reduction filter with smooth adjustment of the noise reduction level (the level is set in the TV tuner driver).
Assessing the quality of broadcasting a television picture, we found a very strange behavior of this tuner in dynamic scenes: the frames seemed to be layered on top of each other, forming a stub trail. This is especially noticeable in cartoons, where the number of frames is significantly less, and the difference between two adjacent ones, respectively, is large. You can see it in the following screenshots:
In more or less static scenes, the trail is not so noticeable, and the screenshots look completely excellent:
However, the reason for such a "bifurcation" of frames, as it turned out, lies in the tuner settings - more precisely, in setting an excessive level of noise reduction. With a decrease in this level, the described effect becomes invisible.
GotView X5 DVD Hybrid PCI-E
X5 DVD Hybrid PCI-E in retail packaging
The GotView X5 DVD Hybrid TV tuner is the company's first model with a PCI-E interface. Let me remind you that this new interface has increased bandwidth, and the connector has fewer pins than standard PCI. In the near future, PCI-E should completely replace the PCI interface, and even now PCI-E devices are already relevant - the number of classic PCI slots on modern motherboards is steadily decreasing.
PCB X5 DVD Hybrid PCI-E
View of the side plank
As a channel selector, the tuner uses the latest Xceive development - the XC5000 chip, which allows you to receive both analog and digital (DVB-T) radio and TV channels. Compared to the XC2028 and XC3028 chips, the new selector, with the same miniature dimensions, has better selectivity and sensitivity, which ensures good TV picture quality even at low signal levels.
Conexant CX23887 decoder
Due to the fact that this TV tuner uses the PCI-E interface, the Conexant CX23887 chip was chosen as the decoder. This microcircuit is the latest ADC, which also integrates a matching bridge with the PCI-E bus. In addition, the hardware feature of the chip is an integrated 3D Comb Filter, whose task is to separate the brightness and color components of the signal, which allows you to successfully suppress moiré, improving image quality. This advantage is especially noticeable at the edges of high-contrast transitions, where light tones alternate with dark ones.
The GotView X5 DVD Hybrid TV tuner demonstrated the outstanding quality of broadcasting a television picture, as you can also see by looking at the attached screenshots. By and large, there is nothing to complain about.
GotView X5 3D Hybrid PCI-E
X5 3D Hybrid PCI-E in retail packaging
Immediately after the release of the TV tuner model discussed above, GotView prepared another novelty for the PCI-E interface. It was the GotView X5 3D Hybrid model, which differs from the X5 DVD Hybrid in the absence of a hardware MPEG2 encoder on the board. In all other respects, the novelty is completely similar to its older "sister".
Tuner circuit board
View of the side plank
The design of the tuner's printed circuit board is very similar to the above model, with the only difference that the places for the hardware encoding chip and the accompanying memory chip with a power stabilizer remained empty. It can be stated that the X5 3D Hybrid is intended for those users for whom the video signal recording function is not of great interest.
This model also uses the Conexant CX23887 chip as a 10-bit ADC, capable of working with PAL/SECAM/NTSC video standards and NICAM/AM/BTSC/EIAJ/A2 audio standards, automatically detecting them.
The high-frequency part of the tuner is based on the XC5000 silicon hybrid chip. In the photo of the board, this chip is hidden under a golden metal screen, which is rather done purely for aesthetics (unlike analog RF units, digital ones do not need external shielding). The XC5000 accepts both analog and digital programs.
Having examined the screenshots of TV channels, it is extremely difficult to see any big difference in quality with the above model. The GotView X5 3D Hybrid delivers TV picture quality just as well as the older model.
GotView USB2.0 DVD2
USB2.0 DVD2 in retail packaging
In addition to built-in TV tuners, the GotView line also includes external devices connected via USB. This is GotView USB2.0 DVD2, which is an upgraded TV tuner with MPEG1 and MPEG2 hardware compression and now includes a radio. To connect the device, two free USB ports are required: a USB cable is connected to the first one, an additional power cable is connected to the second one.
Included is a stand for vertical installation of the tuner
The body of the device is aluminum, with plastic inserts on the ends. For ease of placement on the table, a plastic stand is included in the package, which you can see along with the tuner in the photo above.
View of the front panel
On the front panel of the tuner there are connectors for connecting external multimedia peripherals. These are composite low frequency video input, stereo audio input and S-Video input. In addition, there is also a button to turn on the tuner (during the operation of the device, it is highlighted with a red LED).
Rear panel view
On the rear panel there is a number of "main", so to speak, connectors. This is an input for USB power, TV and radio antenna jacks, and a USB input.
Tuner circuit board
The reverse side of the tuner circuit board
The tuner is based on a modern element base: a 10-bit ADC Conexant CX25843, a hardware MPEG2 encoder Conexant CX23416 and a Philips FM1216ME/I H-5 (Mk5) RF unit.
The only problem that I had with this TV tuner was the delay and loss of frames of the television picture. The solution was found in the video card driver, namely, in changing the hardware deinterlacing mode to software. There were no complaints about the quality of the broadcast of the television picture.
Screenshots were prepared using software deiterlacing.
Software
The software package is unified for all GotView TV tuners, so the story about it can be taken out in a separate chapter. So, the performance of the TV tuners of this review is provided by the GotView Pro 5.0 program. Its greatest advantage seems to be, perhaps, excellent functionality along with complete Russification. It is good news that the manufacturer is constantly working on improving the program, and since updates are checked automatically, the user will receive an update notification almost immediately after the release of a more recent version on the manufacturer's website.The initial installation of the software from the CD will not cause problems: after determining the tuner board and automatically substituting the driver, even restarting the computer is not required. The user will be greeted by a completely friendly interface of the GotView Pro program, and it will not take much time to learn how to navigate it. The program has the ability to use the so-called "skins" (graphic shells of the main program panel). There are only a small part of them in the standard delivery, and the user can easily find the rest on the GotView website.
Initially, the program included a table of all on-air television and radio channels with their frequency values. Thus, in some cases, after installing the program, all television and radio channels will already be tuned, only residents of certain regions and subscribers of cable networks will need to use the channel search function.
Window for setting TV channel control settings
For channels with uncertain reception, the automatic search of which did not give the desired results, you can use the manual search, or manually set their broadcast frequencies. Further, for the found channels, you can specify their name, select an icon, and also sort in the light of your own preferences.
TV tuner general settings window
The hierarchical structure of the general settings window allows the user to quickly find the desired section to make any changes to the TV tuner. Each group of parameters has its own icon, which allows you to quickly find what you need.
The work of the noise reduction filter is also interesting, whose level can be adjusted smoothly and even separately for each channel. This filter allows you to significantly improve the image, both when recording and when viewing. It is only necessary to take into account that for the filter to work in program mode, additional resources of the central processor will be required. If there are not enough computer resources, then it will be preferable to use a tuner with hardware compression: only in this case the filtering will be done in hardware, without loading the CPU. Let me remind you that GotView PCI Hybrid belongs to TV tuners with software operation of the noise reduction filter, and GotView PCI DVD, GotView PCI DVD2 Deluxe, GotView PCI DVD3 Hybrid and GotView USB 2.0 DVD (applicable to TV tuner models of this review).
TV Schedule ("TV Week")
For GotView TV tuners, it is possible to receive a weekly TV schedule via the Internet. The database can be loaded either manually or automatically. It is convenient that if there is a fresh TV program, when switching channels, information about the current program is displayed on the screen, as well as the time it starts and ends. The "degree of completion" of the transfer is also visually displayed as a percentage in the form of a status bar.
Video capture settings window
GotView software allows you to capture video with a variety of recording options. The ability to automatically split the recording into files of a given size has been implemented, which is sometimes necessary (especially when creating a large video).
Window of information about the brightness components of the image
To obtain information about the current video picture, the manufacturer has provided a "graphic observation window". Here, based on the graphically presented data about the picture, you can independently set the levels of white and black, as well as get information about the signal-to-noise ratio. From the graphs, you can quickly determine whether the video image is overexposed or too dark, and on this basis, fine-tune the picture more accurately.
Proprietary software has a very high functionality. We have considered only a small fraction of its main functions. The interested reader will get the rest of the information from the manufacturer's website, where, among other things, there is a "hot line", a forum, and answers to frequently asked questions.
Conclusion
In general, the range of modern GotView TV tuners made a good impression. Given the complete and high-quality localization of software, as well as the adaptation of models to Russian conditions, any GotView model can compete with the recognized giants of the Russian market. A large selection of models, designed for different categories of users, allows you to easily select a TV tuner according to your needs, and the high quality of broadcasting a television picture will not cast doubt on the correctness of the choice made. I will also note the modern element base that the manufacturer uses when designing models.Personally, I liked the X5 DVD Hybrid for the PCI-E bus, the DVD2 Deluxe for the PCI bus, and the external USB model the most. The only thing I cannot guarantee is that the picture quality on your television antenna will be as good as mine.
Other materials on this topic
Pinnacle PCTV 110i: the tuner is not for everyone
Behold TV 507 RDS: the ultimate PC tuner
Behold Columbus - a tuner for you and your laptop
One is grey, the other is white.
folk song
Despite the fact that the spread of digital terrestrial television in Russia recently does not give much cause for optimism, the domestic market for computer TV tuners is developing at a much faster pace. To date, such models have been presented by almost all major market participants. The price difference with analog tuners is usually small. In addition, in light of recent government initiatives to switch to H.264/AVC broadcasting, compared to some DVB-T-enabled MPEG2-enabled consumer devices, computer tuners only require software support for the appropriate decoders.
The company for several years has been stubbornly creating a reputation for itself as a prophet of hardware MPEG2 compression in its own country. In particular, the first tuner from GOTVIEW with DVB-T PCI DVD3 Hybrid support had a hardware encoder, which at the time of the start of sales provided this model with functional leadership. However, such an approach inevitably affects the final cost, so that the place of an affordable hybrid solution in the lineup remained vacant. Obtaining a junior model from an older one by cutting off excess circuitry in this case could not work due to the lack of a PCI bridge in the used ADC, so the element base was changed as a result of simplification. Note that the tuner considered in this review has become the first device under the GOTVIEW brand since the PCI 7135 that does not have a hardware compressor.
In order for our readers to better understand the positioning of GOTVIEW PCI Hybrid, here is a list of materials on potential competitors of this model:
- Compro VideoMate DVB-T300 - a hybrid TV tuner without significant drawbacks
- Leadtek WinFast DTV2000 H - hybrid TV and FM tuner with classic receiver and original antenna connection
- TV and FM tuner AVerTV Hybrid+FM PCI - a hybrid version for a common interface from AVerMedia Technologies
- Compro VideoMate E650 - hybrid TV and FM tuner with PCI-Express interface
Contents of delivery
The white-lilac color scheme has already been used by GOTVIEW in the design, however, none of the boxes with the latest models has this combination of colors.
Despite the modest dimensions of the box, you can find quite a few items inside:
- Tuner
- Remote control
- Remote sensor remote control
- Portable DVB-T Antenna
- FM antenna
- S-Video to RCA adapter for connecting composite video sources
- Adapter 2 RCA - mini-jack for connecting audio sources
- S-Video to S-Video cable
- RCA to RCA cable
- Bracket for installation in low-profile cases
- Tuner Installation Guide
- 2 CDs with drivers and software
The package bundle is completely identical to that of the PCI DVD3 Hybrid, so the manufacturer's attention to this aspect is once again worthy of praise.
Additional software is traditionally presented WinDVD Creator 2 from , designed to create VCD, SVCD or DVD. The serial number is on the disc sleeve.
The codecs installed with this program also provide MPEG2 programmatic recording and Timeshift delayed viewing functionality.
Construction and specifications
PCI Hybrid illustrates the concern for the owners of compact cases and barebones, traditional for the latest products of the company, the board has a standard length with a low-profile design. In the tradition of GOTVIEW, there is also a combination of purple textolite and a gilded bar (oddly enough, unlike the PCI DVD3 Hybrid set, the additional bar for installation in low-profile cases is not coated).
Reception of digital and analog signals lies on the silicon shoulders of the XC3028ACQ semiconductor hybrid RF unit from the Californian company, which is currently the leader in the production of receivers of this type.
According to the specifications, the microcircuit is protected from interference and does not need additional shielding. However, it should be borne in mind that achieving maximum reception quality when using the XC3028 and its analog counterpart XC2028 requires compliance with certain binding requirements. You don't need to look far for examples, PCI DVD2 Lite is noticeably inferior to PCI DVD3 Hybrid in this indicator.
The ADC is somewhat surprising. While most competing PCI models use Philips analog-to-digital converters (the semiconductor division is now a stand-alone company with corresponding changes in new batch labeling), the PCI Hybrid carries a 10-bit CX23883-39 on board with support for all existing video - and audio standards from Conexant Systems, Inc. . However, the image quality provided by this microcircuit is in no way inferior to the popular SAA713x. As for the potentially interesting differences in the additional features of different ADCs, we will talk about them later in the text.
Digital mode support is implemented using the COFDM (Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) demodulator Intel CE 6353, until the transition in November 2005, along with other solutions developed by the ZL10353.
Unlike the PCI DVD3 Hybrid, the PCI Hybrid board layout does not provide for the installation of additional chips.
As for the older model, the specifications indicate power stabilization to reduce interference from other devices. The absence of a hardware encoder and buffer memory made it possible to reduce the number of integrated stabilizers that help reduce possible voltage ripples from 5 to 3. An additional benefit from installing several stabilizers is an increase in the efficiency of heat load distribution, when the tuner is operating, there is no noticeable difference in heating of individual sections.
With the exception of hardware compression support, the PCI Hybrid is not much different from the older model in terms of its capabilities, the list of which includes the following:
- Support for terrestrial and cable TV
- Support for all television standards of analog broadcasting PAL / SECAM / NTSC
- Support for digital TV and radio broadcasting in DVB-T format
- Scan channels in any specified range, with any given step
- Deinterlacing filters, including double frame rate filters
- Individual settings for each channel: volume, brightness, warmth, color, sharpness, encoding type
- Assigning an icon for each channel
- Motion Detector
- Function "Picture-in-Picture"(PIP) if there are two or more video capture devices in the system
- Optional mute during program start, search or channel change
- Eliminate edge defects in the image (scaling and cropping the edges)
- Software support for recording to AVI/DV/WMV/MPEG4 formats with any codec installed in the system
- Support for all modern containers (AVI, WMV, ASF, MPEG-1.2, fvASFDirect, Matroska, etc.) when recording
- Capture TV window frames in BMP, TIFF, PNG, TGA, PCX, GIF (including animated), JPG formats by timer or by pressing a button
- Ability to automatically change the file name.
- Full Capture Information
- Processing the recorded image with filters
- Lazy View Mode timeshift
- Ability to temporarily pause recording
- Ability to correct settings (changing brightness, contrast, etc.) during recording
- Video over desktop
- The ability to turn off the image and sound in case of a long absence of a signal
- Network Broadcast (HTTP/UDP)
- Weekly TV guide support with update download option
- Displays the name of the current TV program, as well as the start and end time of this program, indicating the length of time elapsed from the start
- Ability to reserve disk space for recording a fragment
- Fully Russified interface
Test computer configuration
- Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E6420
- Motherboard Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 (Intel P965 + Intel ICH8)
- RAM 4 GB (4×1024 DDR2 PC6400 KingMax)
- Video cards HIS ATI RADEON X1900XT/NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX
- Sound card Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2ZS
- 250 GB Hitachi HDD (HDT722525DLA380)
- HDD 120 GB Maxtor Plus9-6Y120M0
- DVD ReWriter BENQ DW1640
- DVD ReWriter NEC ND-3500A
- Power Supply Thermaltake Purepower 680APD (W0049 rev. 2, 680 W)
- Operating systems Windows XP Professional (SP2) ENG and Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit) RUS
List of on-air channels during testing
The source of the DVB-T signal was a transmitter broadcasting in test mode on the 34th television channel. The antennas are installed on a mast located in the Khoroshevo - Mnevniki district of Moscow at the address: st. Demyan Poor, 24. Testing was carried out on the street. General Glagolev (near the Oktyabrskoye Pole metro station). Reception was carried out on a compact antenna from the delivery set.
Connection
The location of the connectors on the bracket completely copies the scheme used in the PCI DVD3 Hybrid. The TV antenna is connected to a standard IEC connector, the FM antenna is connected to a 2.5 mm mini-jack connector. Note that the identical connectors located nearby for connecting the IR sensor of the remote control and the FM antenna require some care when installing the tuner. The composite signal is completely removed from the S-Video connector, the corresponding adapter is included in the kit.
Despite the fact that GOTVIEW PCI Hybrid is one of the few CX23883-based tuners with the ability to transmit audio over PCI, the board has a connector for connecting to an additional sound card input.
Installation and setup
The single-level menu of the installation disk provides access only to the software, the driver is installed by the standard means of the operating system.
To remove the driver, use the utility available on the same CD and on the manufacturer's website. DriverTool, which can also help when installing / removing other devices (the program's capabilities are expanded by launching with an arbitrary key up to "/" without additional parameters).
Traditionally, we recall the presence on the CD of detailed documentation in HTML format, which can reduce the entry threshold for inexperienced users, and help called by the textbook button F1 when working with the regular program.
When testing, the driver version was used 3.0.2.2 and program GoTView PRO 5.0.0.506 beta 2.
After installing the driver in the section Sound, video and game controllers device manager can be found GOTVIEW Audio AVStream Device, GOTVIEW Hybrid TV Tuner Card and GOTVIEW TS Capture Device.
The icon of the remote control program appears in the system tray, which also acts as a resident scheduler program.
The program supports various design options, some of which are contained in the distribution, the rest are available on the manufacturer's website.
The manufacturer is not disingenuous at all, promising "wide opportunities for searching and setting channels." Standard search options by frequency (range and step set by the user) and the list of channels are not limited to available options, offering automatic frequency correction to the nearest standard values, faster search, saving time in the absence of channels with uncertain reception, and skipping of encrypted digital channels. A feature of the program is a general list of analog, DVB-T channels and FM radio stations.
This approach implies a common search menu with the ability to select the format and set the default video parameters for analog channels.
Inherent in digital channels VPID(Video Program Identification) and APID(Audio Program Identification) are view-only, but editing the cnls.ini file allows you to change these settings. The inconvenience of this approach is offset by the lack of need to adjust these values under normal conditions, moreover, some manufacturers generally do not provide access to such settings. Individual adjustment of video parameters (brightness, contrast, warmth, color, sharpness, gamma, software noise reduction) for digital channels requires image output using Video Mixing Renderer9. However, this mode is supported by almost all video cards on the market.
The CX23883 does not have a built-in equalizer, so the corresponding settings are not available. The lack of a full-fledged system of automatic color system detection compared to the ADC from Philips / NXP and Conexant of the next generation could be considered a disadvantage if it were not for the ability to manually set the standard for each channel individually.
In the latest versions of the program, there are several tabs with large and The tree-like structure of the settings interface, which simplifies navigation through sections, occupied the m number of parameters on each.
Chapter Video contains scaling settings (common for all channels), aspect ratios (4:3, 14:9, 16:9, 16:10), deinterlacing filter settings (hardware and several types of software, including doubling the frame rate). In the conditions of our broadcasting, the ability to swap fields or shift a frame by a line may be in demand.
In subsection Options you can find the video stream output settings in the view mode - select resolution and renderer (VMR7 and VMR9 are supported). The tuner architecture eliminates the need for additional color conversion, so that owners of weak configurations may not be afraid of an increase in CPU load. The ADC works with standard formats, so the corresponding setting is not available.
There are also checkboxes responsible for switching the video standard and displaying the image on the desktop.
When working with digital channels, only the scaling settings, the choice of video renderer, and the parameters of the selected decoder are available.
Decoder selection is made by editing the file decoders.ini. If the values described there do not match (you can check them using the program), you can edit the file, or add a new decoder manually. The item is edited according to the selected decoder. Preferences, for example,
video=8
Audio=8
means that the decoder from NVIDIA is used with the parameters and . In the case of digital broadcasting in H.264/AVC, it is also enough to add the appropriate decoder, depending on the type of compression, the program will automatically select the appropriate option.
Button Graphs calls the interface built into the program for measuring and displaying such parameters of an arbitrary visible line of a television frame as the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and the distribution levels of color components.
Subsection effects is responsible for selecting video effects when switching channels (not available in digital mode).
In chapter Sound for this model, only the choice of playback and recording lines is available.
To control the volume, a separate subsection is assigned, in which, in particular, the volume control interface (system mixer or DirectSound) is selected.
A unique feature of the program is the connection of third-party Direct Show (DS) filters and DirectX Media Objects (DMO) both during viewing and recording, for which there is a corresponding section.
The section on interface settings contains a lot of settings - from choosing a design to showing a TV program in the menu.
In subsection Control There are two new settings. If the indicator flashes scroll lock on the keyboard during recording and in the mode of delayed viewing belongs to the category of pleasant trifles, then the checkbox that activates the mode master/slave deserves further explanation. Mode support picture-in-picture(Picture-In-Picture, PIP) if there is a second video capture device (the choice is made in the section Devices) was implemented in the program FlyDS, the developments of which formed the basis GoTView PRO. master/slave provides full work of two copies one programs with two devices without the need for this previously physical installing a second instance, followed by making changes to the configuration files. Regardless of the exit sequence, at the next launches the program works with the main device. The only limitation is the lack of support for third-party tuners.
Experienced users may find it useful to show additional settings checkbox, which is responsible for accessing hidden parameters. The same subsection contains the shutdown timer and forced setting of the region, which can help with non-standard settings of the operating system.
Traditionally, access to setting up keyboard shortcuts is provided, implemented in a separate subsection.
The OSD (On Screen Display) section is responsible for the OSD settings. It is allowed to change almost all parameters that affect the visual design.
We already talked about the appearance of the weather display function (Internet connection required) in the PCI DVD3 Hybrid review, we will focus on one of the new features - signal strength display in both digital and analog modes, implemented for all tuners of the company equipped with Xceive receivers . Despite the fact that when working with analog broadcasting, the result is given as two values with a step of 10 dB (“40-50 dB”, “50-60 dB”, etc.), even in this form it can greatly facilitate the search possible reasons for image degradation. The button is used to display additional information on the screen. "FROM".
The settings of the delayed viewing mode (autostart viewing, deleting the buffer file, blocking channel switching, launching at the program startup) are discussed in the section timeshift. Stream parameter settings are also available in the recording menu.
When using VMR9 in this mode, you can adjust the video parameters in real time.
In additional settings (recall that for display it is activated in the subsection Control) contains such options as accelerated launch of the program, operation on one processor/processor core, writing the operation log to a file (may be useful when contacting the manufacturer's support service) and launching the program without turning on viewing.
The recording interface with the ability to save and edit profiles has not undergone significant changes. Note, perhaps, the support for recording the Transport Stream when working with DVB-T.
Since the first introduction to the motion detector in the GOTVIEW PCI DVD review, this part has remained unchanged. However, the ability to upload screenshots to an ftp-server with the optional generation of an html page (!) that appeared in the program significantly expands the functionality of the tuner as a component of the security system.
Scheduler supports timeshift as a task and shutting down the computer/going into power saving mode after the task is completed.
In the settings of the TV program (available on the manufacturer's website, both manual and automatic updates are possible), export in HTML or text format has been added.
Quality
When working with digital channels, the display of signal strength is also workable. In contrast to the analog mode, DVB-T broadcasting provides a higher accuracy in determining this parameter (in our case, about 69 dB). Artifacts of MPEG compression and "slowdown" of the image, characteristic of unstable reception, were not observed during testing.
The image quality when working with DVB-T is determined by the provider and can vary from low resolutions with low bitrate to HDTV.
There was no desynchronization of image and sound in digital mode during testing.
PCI Hybrid did not follow in the footsteps of PCI DVD2 Lite, demonstrating good reception quality of analog channels. It remains only to rejoice, in the absence of hardware noise reduction, there would be nothing to correct the shortcomings of the receiving part.
The tuner provides good picture quality. Screenshots were prepared using hardware deinterlacing.
The filter with a cutoff frequency of 1.5 MHz for SECAM, available by default in the driver, which reduces image clarity in most CX23881/2/3 tuners, is disabled for PCI Hybrid, which also has a positive effect on quality.
Alas, it was not without drawbacks. Under certain conditions (in fairness, we’ll clarify that they are quite rare, the effect may not appear even once during the entire time the tuner is used), there is a possibility of artifacts typical for the ADC of this series in the form of small green spots on saturated colors.
Strange behavior of the program in full screen mode on widescreen displays with software deinterlacing also does not belong to the category of problems that significantly complicate life, but it is also impossible to remain silent about this.
Six months ago, we expressed hope that subtitles will be supported when working with DVB-T channels, but this feature has not yet appeared in the program.
FM tuner
The program has a common interface for TV and FM modes. As we said above, the list of FM stations is combined with television (in our case, analog and digital) channels, the search is also carried out in a similar way.
A pleasant surprise was the almost complete coincidence of the radio stations found during the automatic search with the real ones. Interestingly, neither PCI DVD2 Lite nor PCI DVD3 Hybrid could boast of such a result. And the reception quality makes it possible to attribute the PCI Hybrid to the group of the best TV tuners in this parameter.
The sound quality deserves a good rating (download test fragment, 471 KB, MP3, 192 Kbps, 48 kHz).
There was no delay when switching radio stations, as well as the deterioration in image quality noted in the PCI DVD2 Lite review after switching TV-FM-TV in analog mode.
Remote control
The tuner comes with the same remote control as the PCI DVD3 Hybrid/PCI DVD2 Lite, which is a classic example of slim design. The standard sizes and distribution of the buttons in the functional areas provide good ergonomics, and the membrane technology ensures that there is no internal contamination. The remote control is powered by the included CR2025 3V battery.
Self-configuration of buttons is supported, up to turning off the computer with a long press of the button power.
Emulation of multimedia keyboards allows you to use the remote control in some third-party applications, including MS MediaPlayer, Zoom Player, BSPlayer, Winamp, etc. In order to prevent potential conflicts, this function can be disabled in the settings.
conclusions
pros
- DVB-T format support
- Support for all used analog video and audio standards
- Stereo decoding
- Low profile design
- Good reception quality in digital and analog modes
- Good picture and sound quality
- Software support for third-party codecs
- Individual color system setting for each channel
- Individual video and audio settings for each channel
- Support for hardware deinterlacing
- Ability to connect third-party filters Direct Show and DirectX Media Objects both during viewing and recording
- Full function "Picture-in-Picture"(if you have a second video capture device)
- Mode master/slave(with a second tuner from GOTVIEW)
- Multi-channel preview
- Video playback over desktop
- Motion detector with the ability to post captured frames on an ftp server
- TV program support
- Network Broadcast (HTTP/UDP)
- Ability to turn off the computer after the end of the recording
- Ability to use the remote control to work with other applications
- Russian-language interface
- Support for Windows 2000/XP/2003/MCE 2005/Vista (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Availability of additional software
Minuses
- Lack of automatic color standard detection in case of PAL/SECAM
- Possible image artifacts under certain conditions
- Lack of subtitle support when working with digital channels (relevant at the time of the review release)
GOTVIEW PCI Hybrid is somewhat different from other current products from the company. In contrast to them, this model does not pretend to various kinds of local revolutions, being, so to speak, a workhorse. On the other hand, the quality of reception and the capabilities of the standard software distinguish the tuner from its closest competitors, and the reasonable price makes PCI Hybrid one of the most likely purchase candidates among hybrid devices without hardware compression support.
GOTVIEW PCI Hybrid in Moscow retail: N/A(0)
Introduction
Have you ever wondered what your computer is missing? Every time I get to the computer market or to any store, the same thought visits me: What else can I buy for my computer? At the moment, my computer has a good configuration, an original case, a great monitor, a comfortable keyboard and mouse, the only thing I lack is something multimedia that turns my EZ-Buddie into a real home entertainment center. To solve this problem, I used one very interesting solution provided to me for testing by GoTView - an internal PCI TV tuner of the same name.
At first sight...
To be honest, while I knew about this tuner only in words, and very in general terms, my attitude towards it was as pessimistic as towards other tuners I have tried.
The fact is that for the most part, the picture quality obtained with the help of most tuners is not so good that it would make me give up the TV.
So, having received this small, superbly designed box, on the way to the editorial office, I studied in detail what is written on it. On the box, I found everything that made me with great interest proceed for a more detailed study of GOTVIEW PCI.
In general, one can speak no less about the thoroughness of preparing the box than about the device itself. The most important thing is that on the way home, each of you will fully familiarize yourself with the capabilities of the device, as well as with the features of use and connection.
The board itself does not have any striking features, except for a large number of different connectors on the back side, and a large Russian-language sticker on the radio module.
In addition to the board in the box, we found a very brief manual for installing the software and a bit about installing and connecting the board itself, a CD containing all the necessary software, including a 70-page manual for installing the program and its operation in PDF format. L license disk with software from Intervideo, which allows you to do video editing. The disc contains two programs: WinDVR (for video capture) and WinDVD Creator in Russian (for editing video).
Also in the box there is a cable for transmitting audio accompaniment to the sound card, a remote control, a miniature IR receiver and an FM antenna.
InstallationGOTVIEW PCI
Installing a GOTVIEW PCI TV Tuner is a bit more complicated than installing a PCI sound card or modem. First of all, you need to install the board itself in a free PCI slot. In our case, the board was installed in an EZ-Buddie barebone case with a single PCI slot.
It's no secret that due to the limited internal space of barebone platforms, problems may arise when installing various boards. In our case, there were no problems, and the nearby FX5600 video card with a sufficiently powerful cooler will allow us to evaluate the effect of a direct flow of warm air on the TV tuner, as well as what the installation of an additional PCI card threatens our video card with.
After installing the tuner into the computer, something similar is obtained on the back side.
Before we continue with the installation process, let's look at what connectors are available on the TV tuner. On the right there are connectors for connecting FM and TV antennas, then there is a small connector for connecting an infrared port, a regular video / audio and SVIDEO inputs necessary for connecting external audio / video signal sources, and finally an audio output.
Continuing the installation process, you need to connect a small adapter cable from the audio output of the tuner to the line input of the sound card. This is necessary to transmit the audio signal to the computer while maintaining high quality.
Having connected all the necessary cables, you can begin to install software, thanks to which you can realize all the features that will not make you regret purchasing this tuner.
The software installation process begins with the automatic installation of the necessary drivers and programs. During installation, I encountered a strange problem. After installation, the tuner refused to play TV and FM programs. The problem turned out to be the incomplete installation of drivers for all the devices necessary for the operation of GOTVIEW PCI.
To solve the problem, I used a very simple and familiar method - I simply deleted all unknown devices in the device manager. After rebooting, Windows XP automatically detected the missing devices and installed them one by one. As a result, everything worked and four new devices appeared in the system, serving various functions of the tuner.
The program itself, serving the tuner, despite a fairly simple interface, has really great potential. Before I consider them in detail, I would like to draw your attention to the Russian interface of the program, which makes it easier to work with the program, and the readiness of the settings to work in Russian terrestrial networks. The program interface consists of two windows: the main control window and the actual TV screen.
The main working window of the program includes all the necessary functions that allow you to control the tuner.
As you can see, on the top of the floor with the GOTVIEW logo there is a frequency bar that allows you to fine-tune the frequency in 0.01 MHz increments. To the right of the frequency are two arrows that allow you to move between preset frequencies (stations), but for faster movement it is best to use the mouse wheel or just the up and down arrows on the keyboard. Next to these buttons is a description of the selected mode and the signal source (TV / AV / SVIDEO). Finally, on the right side is the volume control. By the way, you can also change the volume using the left and right buttons on the keyboard.
Now let's move to the bottom of the main window. Here, on the left side, there are controls for brightness, contrast, saturation and color, which allow you to change these parameters on the fly when watching TV or video. Four function buttons follow. Here I would like to dwell in more detail. The first button is responsible for "capturing" data. The GOTVIEW PCI TV Tuner allows you to capture video (AVI), audio (WAV/MP3 and other formats) and "Snapshot" that allows you to capture a TV/Video screen.
The capture function is built in such a way that not only professional users, but also beginners can use it. For example, video capture (AVI/MPEG1/2). This window has everything you might need during the recording process.
The user can change various parameters for recording video and audio, as well as specify the time and date of the start / end of the recording and the duration of the recording. For example, when using the DIVX5 codec, we were able to record a video clip lasting 30 seconds and 5.7Mb in size.
The audio capture mode includes significantly fewer features, which, in principle, are enough to record from your favorite radio stations.
Finally, the "Snapshot" mode allows you to record the contents of the screen in a graphic file (BMP, JPEG and GIF) with a resolution of up to 768x576. The user can set the capture mode to every n-seconds (default is set to every 3 seconds).
We move on. To the right of the "capture" button is a station search button. As you can see, the search function is implemented in the most convenient way for the user, allowing you to specify not only the name of the station or channel, which is displayed in the title of the main program window and the TV window, but also to individually set the system, volume, contrast, warmth and color.
By default, the program comes with pre-installed channels, however, in our case, not all channels matched, so we had to search for channels.
The search process itself turned out to be much easier than on a regular TV. You just need to set the scan range, step and system. In principle, you can not install anything, the program itself knows everything.
For additional convenience and for solving some specific tasks, the program has a built-in scheduler that allows you to schedule the viewing and recording of the programs you need. For example, you can automate the process of recording news in automatic mode. Or, knowing the program, set the sequence for viewing and recording channels. In addition, at the bottom of the scheduler window there is a function to automatically exit the program and turn off the computer.
And finally, the last button is the tuner setting. There are a number of useful functions here that allow you to further customize some of the tuner's parameters.
Among the most useful, I want to note the resolution setting. This function may be needed when starting the tuner for the first time. So, for example, at the first start I got such a picture.
After changing the resolution, or rather the encoding scheme on YUY2, everything worked fine.
In addition, we want to check the "Sound source" option, where you can set which connector of the sound card the tuner's sound output is connected to.
In work...
Unlike previously tested external tuners, this internal version has a lot of possibilities and allows you to solve really a variety of tasks. For example, it turned out to be very useful for me to be able to watch TV in a window while working in the application I need, such as MS Word or IE, and when I want to watch TV normally, I open the window to full screen (double click on the TV screen). Another example is for those who want to have documentary evidence of the events shown, for example, people involved in the analysis or preparation of reports on current events. Using the "Snapshot" function, you can get a good selection of photos from the current news release.
And the last example is related to the ability to record video and audio content on the fly. For example, a TV channel is showing a movie that you would like to have in your movie collection. You simply select the desired format, provide the required amount of hard disk space and record. The same can be said about the song you like on the radio.
Finishing the conversation about the work of the tuner, I would like to recall the stability. I remind you that in my barebone case, the tuner is located very close to the video card. On the one hand, this noticeably heats up the card, on the other hand, it limits the flow of air to the graphics card, which, theoretically, can lead to problems, but during use, I did not notice any problems either when watching TV or in complex 3D games.
About the quality...
The reception quality depends primarily on the quality of the receiving antenna used. When receiving FM stations, we did not notice any problems at all, but our TV let us down a bit. Although the picture quality was quite comparable to conventional TV, I never managed to get the digital quality of satellite TV.
Conclusion...
In conclusion, I would like to once again note the unique features of the new tuner, such as really high quality reception of both TV and FM channels, the ability to view in a window and full screen, and impressive service functions that allow you to create video, audio and graphic content. If all this is correlated with the recommended price of ~$70, then it turns out that GOTVIEW PCI can really replace several important devices at once for quite reasonable money.
P.S. I almost forgot to remind once again about the software, which is optimized for Russian broadcasting, and allows both a professional and a novice user to work without problems.
We thank the coordinating representation of GOTVIEW, www.gotview.ru . For consultations, please call in Moscow: 284-1053, 287-9648
Recently, it is very pleasant to observe the tendency of IT companies to adapt their products to Russian-speaking users. Today you will not surprise anyone with a Russian interface in software, Russian menus in monitors, Russian inscriptions on the boxes of various components and user manuals in "great and mighty".
But if you look at such a class of products as TV tuners, it becomes clear that some of them have gone much further in this very noble cause. For example, the well-known company AverMedia has been producing specially adapted products for the Russian market for a long time, which, however, also turns out to be perfectly optimized for many other countries of the former Union of the Unbreakable.
Another manufacturer that produces TV tuners with the inscription "Adapted for Russian TV broadcasting" on the boxes is GOTVIEW. Her solutions are also in high demand. It is worth noting that this is facilitated not by the low price (it is just at the level of competitors), but by the high quality of execution and excellent software.
Today we got a TV tuner GOTVIEW PCI 7135. Judging by numerous reviews, it is a very good product. However, it is always better to verify something yourself to be sure. This is what we are going to do next. So let's get started.
GOTVIEW PCI 7135
GOTVIEW PCI 7135 is a newer version of the previously introduced PCI 7134 model. There are not so many differences between them. In particular, we can highlight another Philips MK3 RF unit, which replaced TCL. In addition, the PCI 7135 uses a new chip from Philips, the model of which is included in the name of the tuner in question. It has advanced audio processing capabilities, but we will talk about this in more detail below.
Contents of delivery
The PCI 7135 comes in a small box containing a very good bundle. In particular, the following components can be distinguished:
- directly the TV tuner itself;
- remote control;
- batteries for the AAA remote control;
- infrared port for remote control;
- radio antenna;
- cable for external connection to a sound card;
- cable for internal connection to the sound card;
- CD with proprietary software;
- CD with WinDVD Creator 2;
- user manual in Russian.
The set is very, very good. Of particular note are the presence of two cables for connecting to a sound card, as well as the presence of a second CD containing the WinDVD Creator 2 program. GOTVIEW bundles all its TV tuners with it, and this one is no exception. This application is for video editing and DVD authoring. So, for example, it can be used to create appropriate content from the material recorded from the tuner.
The remaining elements of the delivery set do not deserve special attention - they are standard for most TV tuners.
Specifications and design
GOTVIEW PCI 7135 has standard dimensions for this class of devices. The printed circuit board will only protrude a few millimeters beyond the PCI slot.
Directly on the PCB is a Philips MK3 RF unit, a Philips SAA7135HL ADC, and two internal audio jacks. And now more about each.
The Philips MK3 HF unit was installed to improve reception quality compared to the 7134 which had the TCL2002MB-33F unit.
ADC Philips SAA7135HL, which the company decided to use in this solution, has some features in comparison with other chips of the same class. In particular, it supports decoding of all modern stereo sound standards:
Dolby ProLogic support;
- Virtual Dolby Surround (imitation of 4-channel sound);
- Philips Incredible Mono (pseudo-stereo for mono channels, surround sound effect);
- Philips Incredible Stereo (stereo enhancement).
This can be written in his pluses.
Of particular note is the presence of internal audio connectors. Today it is very rare to find such a solution on the market. Their presence allows you not to use the line input of the sound card for sound transmission, which can sometimes be very useful. In addition, as is clear from the part of the article where it is said about the configuration, the TV tuner is equipped with a special cable for internal connection. Also, GOTVIEW PCI 7135 can transmit an audio signal over the PCI bus, so there is no need for a direct connection to a sound card, moreover, it eliminates the desynchronization of audio and video when recording the air and digitizing video material.
As for the front panel, the following connectors are displayed on it (from left to right):
- connector for FM antenna;
- connector for connecting a television antenna;
- infrared connector;
- four-pin S-Video input;
- audio input;
- composite video input;
- audio output.
Now let's briefly summarize the main specifications of GOTVIEW PCI 7135:
- resolution support up to 768x576;
- extended radio range from 66 MHz;
- support for PAL / SECAM / NTSC television standards, VHF, DM and cable channels are accepted;
- fine-tuning mode with the smallest possible step, as well as entering a specific value of the wavelength of a given television or radio program;
- individual settings for each channel;
- the ability to tune up to 255 TV and radio channels;
- capturing frames of a TV window in BMP, GIF, JPG format by timer or by pressing a button (with a resolution from 80x60 to 768x576);
- deferred task manager for recording video at a specified time;
- capturing and encoding sound with any codec installed in the system;
- TimeShift function;
- downloading the TV program guide and various ways of displaying on the screen (if the Internet is available)
- "Picture-in-Picture" (PIP) function if there are two or more video capture devices in the system;
- network broadcast;
- security functions (motion detection in the frame, video recording or frame capture).
Software
Installing drivers and software is quick and hassle-free. If, nevertheless, some questions may arise, then it is very likely that the answers to them will be found in the detailed documentation in Russian, which is supplied with the TV tuner on a CD.
When you first start the GoTView Pro software that comes with GOTVIEW tuners, a control panel with a Winamp-like appearance appears on the screen. As it turned out, the proprietary software supports changing skins and the one selected by default was called TVAmp. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Returning to the control panel, it is worth noting that it allows you to set some parameters, thereby removing the need to start searching for them through the wilds of settings. For example, you can adjust the channel frequency, switch the signal reception system, switch the video input, as well as adjust the brightness, contrast, color "warmth", the volume of sound sources and some other parameters.
Channels can be configured by selecting the "TV channels" item from the context menu that appears when you right-click on any of the software windows, or by clicking the "channels" button on the main control panel. The TV tuner can store up to 255 channels. In addition, not only their frequency is saved, but also the sound, image, and effect settings for each of them. Moreover, each channel can be assigned its own icon for better recognition.
It is worth adding that initially there are 18 pre-configured channels. Frequencies are given for on-air television in Moscow. For other cities, as well as for cable TV, there may not be anything on these frequencies. In this case, you will have to perform an automatic search or set everything manually if you know their frequencies.
For automatic search, click on the button with black binoculars on it, which is located in the upper left corner of the program. As a result, a window will appear on the screen where you can select search options. In particular, it is possible to scan both a given frequency range and the entire one. As an option, only the standard Russian broadcast grid can be scanned. But even if you are a resident of this endless country, then if you have any cable or satellite television, you should not use it. Next, click on Scan and wait for the tuner to go through the selected range.
The main window with settings consists of seven tabs. The first, as you might guess from its name, is used to adjust the quality and parameters of the received image. There are a lot of settings provided, which immediately introduces the user into some stupor. However, over time you get used to it and you begin to navigate what's what. As for the video signal settings directly, you can select its resolution:
In addition, there is the ability to observe screen proportions, the choice of render, color scheme, deinterlacing, noise reduction, full screen resolution, and so on.
The Sound tab is used to set up the sound signal. You can read all the features provided by the program in the screenshot, and we will only note once again the presence of the sound output function via the PCI bus (enabled by default), as well as the ability to set the sound source
The Interface tab is used to configure the main toolbar of the proprietary software and the behavior of the image display window during operation. Here you can customize the display of the mouse cursor during full screen browsing, the button on the taskbar, the skin, the shutdown timer and much more.
In the image output window, it is possible to display information about the current channel and settings. It is for what and how to display it that the OSD tab is responsible.
I am very pleased with the ability to set up hot keys for quickly calling up TV channels and other functions of the TV tuner. And in fact - it is not always the same to use the remote control to control!
On the Motion Detection tab, you can configure the function of the same name. It works as follows: while receiving a signal, any changes in the frame are monitored, which can be defined as the movement of objects. In this case, the software may perform some specified actions. In particular, you can record video and audio (or one of the two) information at this time.
This feature can be useful if you connect, for example, a surveillance camera to the tuner. This way, when motion is detected, the appropriate chunk of time will be written to the hard disk while it continues. Well, another plus for the PCI 7135.
Image quality
Before proceeding to the description of image quality, we note that the preset channels were not found correctly. Only a few matched. Other channels turned out to be different or nothing at all, although then the preset channels were found among those found by the tuner's automatics. This suggests that we are not broadcasting directly, but relayed via cable.
As you can see from the pictures, the Philips MK3 RF unit and the Philips SAA7135HL ADC do their job well: the image is of high quality. True, some extraneous grid is still noticeable on some channels:
However, a similar effect was found only on one, which among the available 100 looks minuscule. In addition, if you do not watch this channel constantly, then this problem will not affect you at all.
The sound quality is also not satisfactory. It is only worth noting that in some cases, when the tuner tried to decode the stereo signal, the latter did not have the highest quality. The result was a switch to mono. However, this may be due to a weak signal, and when receiving a high-quality stereo signal, such a problem should not arise.
Other features
The capture function is practically no different from a similar implementation in competitor products. Yes, each one has its own characteristics, but in general, approximately the same action always takes place - recording the received signal on the hard disk.
In our case, you can set the resolution of the received signal and the resolution of the output file, crop the edges, codec (can be any that is present in the system), apply your own filters when encoding. In addition, there is the possibility of recording according to the schedule. By the way, it is worth noting that for the correct operation of the TimeShift function and scheduled recording, you must install the WinDVD program, which was mentioned above. Along with it, the necessary MPEG2 codecs are installed, which are used when activating these features.
It is also very easy to set up parameters for sound capture: you only need to set the compression parameters, the path to the output file and other parameters, if necessary.
The capture of a single frame can occur both at a certain specified frequency, and one by one manually. Pleased with the ability to select the file save format (BMP, JPEG, GIF), as well as the resolution of the captured frame. By the way, when recording a picture in JPEG, you can even specify the compression ratio.
I really liked the possibility of getting a program guide for pre-installed channels from the Internet. The thing, I must say, is simply amazing. You just need to click on the button Download the database automatically and voila - in 30 seconds (depending on the speed of the Internet connection) you have a TV schedule. You can, by pressing the enter button, display the program on the current channel, on all channels, and when switching channels, the name of the program going there, the start and end times, and the percentage of its completion will be displayed in the form of a bar.
When you right-click on the program toolbar and select TV Channels from the drop-down context menu, the entire list of available channels appears, where for channels with a program downloaded from the Internet, the percentage of its completion is displayed! The function, however, is quite simple to implement from a programming point of view (you just need to calculate the time difference, convert it to percentages and display the result) and, in our opinion, it is very pleasant for the user.
FM tuner
All settings and management of the FM tuner is the same as for TV. Channel search is carried out in the same window (there are also preset stations):
And the management and switching of channels can be done on a standard control panel of proprietary software. It does not change at all when switching to the radio.
Remote control
The remote control that comes with the kit has 34 small buttons and spaced quite far from each other. The latter allows you not to accidentally press the wrong button.
I would like to note the possibility of programming any from buttons. Each of them can be assigned an arbitrary function.
conclusions
If you read the entire article carefully, it will be easy to guess that the conclusions will be the most rosy, because the product from GOTVIEW turned out to be very good. Let's start with the software. Its capabilities are very wide, which allows you to achieve great flexibility in using the TV tuner. What is the motion tracking function worth. True, there are so many settings that at first your eyes really run up and, frankly, you just don’t want to read what each checkbox and switch means :-). But on the other hand, the program implements context-sensitive help, called by pressing the F1 button, which describes each menu item in which you are accessible. So you can figure it out without difficulty, and the abundance of settings significantly expands the functionality of the program.
I would especially like to note the function of downloading the program guide. It will undoubtedly be very useful if you constantly watch TV. I also really liked the ability to customize each button on the remote control.
In terms of picture and sound quality, they are excellent. Of course, there are some shortcomings (grid on some channels, high quality of the incoming signal is required for correct stereo decoding), but we don't see anything wrong with them. And there are no ideal things.
However, we give GOTVIEW PCI 7135 our highest "Our Choice" award for its very wide range of software features and high signal quality and highly recommend this product.
We express our gratitude to the Russian representative office of GOTVIEW for the GOTVIEW PCI 7135 TV tuner provided for testing
