Note: I apologize for the lack of pictures, but I did not have a digital camera available at the time of this review.

Introduction

When it was finally time to start getting everything ready for college, I realized something: I'm not going to have jack for space. My roommate at the time brought a 13-inch TV; my 17inch monitor was noticeably larger than that! When the summer came, and after switching roommates, I decided that, if I wanted to have any sort of TV access, I'd have to supply it myself. Given the already cramped quarters, I thought it wise to have everything serve more than its original purpose, if possible. So I bought an internal ATI TV Wonder VE card for my computer. The size of my monitor would even be an improvement over what I had dealt with the year before. I know many people, even computer literate ones, who have no experience with the installation of, well, anything to their computer, and are afraid to even open the case.

Fortunately, there are solutions external solutions available (some USB based, some not), for those that dare not tread near the innards of their computer. One such solution can be found in AverMedia's "AverTV Box."

What's Included

AverMedia, in all promotional material I've seen (and received), stresses the "no-computer-required" facet of this product. As such, there's no drivers required, no hardware configuration process to go through, and, therefore, software included.

The AverTV Box requires only two things not included in the box to watch TV on your monitor: a monitor, and speakers.

The package I received looked to be a standard box that one might find off the shelves, and included the following:

• The AverTV Box itself
• Remote control (requiring 2 AAA Batteries, which were included)
• Audio cable (left/right to a 1/8th inch jack)
• VGA cable (a pass-through cable, from the computer to the box)
• The user manual

The packaging itself was solid. The TV Box itself was packed in snug-fitting bubble wrap. All the wires were neatly twist-tied, and the batteries were plastic-wrapped (not plastic wrapped, per se, but enclosed in plastic) separately from the remote. The manual was on the bottom of the box. The sensor, the black area on the top of the unit in the picture below, was also taken care of. It has a semi-sticky piece of plastic covering it, so as not to allow it to be scratched. Impressive packaging, not in a glamorous sense, rather, in that all the little things that are often taken for granted were well taken care of.

One thing worth noting is the fact that, on the box that was sent to me, under the "Features" section on the back of the box, it says "Available in NTSC or PAL Versions", however, where it said "…PAL Versions," it was instead crossed out with a black marker (I was still able to read through the marker, however). In the media kit sent to me, this correction was not made. Having checked out AverMedia's website, the same material present in the media kit was available, with the omission of "…PAL Versions." Though I managed to figure it out, apparently some units, and even media kits, have been sent out that have not been updated to reflect the fact that there are no PAL versions available.

Features

Inputs

• Y,PB,PR Signal Input
• Coaxial TV Antenna
• Composite RCA input (2x)
• Stereo Audio (2x)
• S Video

VGA adapter input

• Outputs
• Surround Sound Output audio
• Composite video
• VGA

Resolutions

• 640 * 480
• 800 * 600
• 832 * 624 (Mac)
• All resolutions have refresh rates from 50-75 Hz.

The TV Box also has support for up to 181 channels, "picture-in-picture" display, sleep timer, plus all the other goodies used to control how the video actually appears in terms of brightness/contrast etc that are normally found on a TV.

Installation/Usage

The "installation" processes is little more than plugging in a few wires. It's truly "plug-and-play," at least, in theory. I had one little problem where I couldn't get sound, but I changed one setting, and that fixed everything (which, surprisingly, I can change back, and it does not cause the unit to stop outputting sound, so perhaps it was a fluke).

To hook it up to your computer, plug in power, the video input (whether that be cable, antenna, etc), the monitor, and speakers, and you are set. Power on the unit, and literally, there is nothing more that needs to be done. The setup is (slightly) more complicated if there are several devices (such as a Nintendo, or the like), or if the TV Box is to be setup in conjunction with a computer. If it is the latter, then the VGA pass-through cable is needed (if a Mac user is to do this, they may need an adapter), and have the audio pass through to the line-in of the soundcard. Despite having a stereo audio output cable being provided, I found that it worked better merely to have a dual 1/8th inch jack plug into the speaker output of the TV Box, and into the line-in on the soundcard instead (I had better sound quality, for whatever reason).

The "Picture-in-picture" features, which allows ¼ of the screen to be seen as a close-up of the action, wasn't working, for whatever reason. Not that this mattered much, to me, at least, because I don't particularly care enough to zoom in.

As for the quality, I would say that, in terms of TV, Nintendo, VCR, etc, it was approximately that of the ATI TV Wonder VE that I currently have, if not slightly superior. However, when it comes to the quality during normal computer use, I was highly disappointed.

In order to get the signal from the computer to the screen, it must first pass through the TV Box itself. This is somewhat analogous to how the pass-through cable system of the Voodoo2's of several years ago. The distortion to 2d quality was somewhat similar too, though in this case, it was worse. Though I wrote this review with the TV Box installed, it was by no means a fun experience. I may be one of the few who runs their monitor at 1280 * 1024, especially on a 17-inch monitor; at such a resolution, any blurriness of text is readily apparent, and in this case, the quality of my Radeon dropped dramatically (in the sense that the picture was noticeably blurred). It is similar to a "ghosting," in the sense that, where there are lines with a solid-color border, a faint, but noticeable, "ghosting" image occurs. As one who has to do a great deal of coding on his computer, I found this to be highly irritating. I only wrote this review with the unit still attached because I wanted to make sure that I really disliked it this much, and that it was, infact, as irritating as I had at first thought. I dropped the resolution, which mitigated some of the effects, but they were still noticeable. The lack of ability to go above 75Hz also does not help those who spend a great deal of time in front of their monitors (though admittedly this does not bother me, I know many for whom 75Hz is the bare minimum).

As for how to control the source of input that, is done by remote, as are the rest of the options such as color, brightness sleep timer, etc. This too was rather easy, however the thing that hindered its use the most was the very slow speed with which the TV Box responds to the press of a button in this mode. There were 5 "tabs" so to speak, each containing different options; the process of switching between these "tabs" was painfully slow.

Despite its size, the TV Box is actually noisy. When turned on, and viewing TV, if it weren't for my computer (or the sound of the TV, for that matter), I could readily hear the constant hum of the unit. While I have my computer on, this is of no concern, but it was noticeable, and irritating.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• It's very easy to setup
• Allows multiple inputs
• Intuitive to use
• Quality packaging

Cons

• Poor image quality on computers.
• Slow navigation
• High price (MSRP $159 USD)

Conclusion

AverMedia has found a solution for those that are afraid to meddle with their computers, and have little space for a TV when a computer monitor is already present. It doesn't even require a computer, though that somewhat defeats the purpose of getting such a unit, as a TV could be found for less than the MSRP. It is easy to use, and the TV quality is average, but the 2d computer quality is lacking, and is relatively expensive, when there are other, more fully-featured options available that require only moderate computer-hardware literacy.

SLRating: 7.5/10

Re-Printed From SLCentral

Fatal error: Call to undefined function view() in /home/slcentra/public_html/temp/layout/footer/reviews/hardware/video/print1.php on line 5