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MEDIA CENTER PC REVIEWAverMedia AverTV GO 007 FM
Introduction
In many ways it's the component that defines the media center PC. If you want to watch TV on your computer (illegal downloading excepted) you're going to need a TV tuner card. There's a wide variety on the market and a wide variety of prices. We've been given a card at the lower end of the price scale to try out - in fact manufacturers, AverMedia, claim it's the best value card on the market. Well, they would, but at £29.99 RRP it's certainly not going to require a second mortgage. We're going to have a Friday night in, save the taxi and beer money (we could probably buy a couple of tuner cards for that) and give the AverMedia AverTV GO 007 FM a try. What's in the boxThe GO 007 comes protected by a foam outer and a bubble-wrap bag. It doesn't seem to be in an anti-static bag, but we handled it with care anyway.  As well as the card itself (PCI of course) you get a software CD with drivers and tuner software, an FM aerial, a remote control with batteries and a remote control receiver. First impressions are that everything seems to be well made, although the remote is a bit plasticky and light until you get the batteries in, after which it sits a bit more snugly in the hand. InstallationIf you're confident opening up your PC case and installing a PCI card then you'll have no problem. The Go 007 is a smallish card with a low profile, so even if space is tight it should slot in easily. If you aren't happy being up to your elbows in PC components then look around for a USB tuner instead. Once you've sealed up your computer again there are several things to plug into the card. Most importantly you need a TV signal in the form of a standard co-ax cable. You could of course use the input from a VCR if you were wanting to digitise video tapes. There's also a jack to plug in the supplied FM aerial and a connector for the remote control receiver. This is one area where AverMedia have skimped a little on quality. The socket on the card itself was very easy to bend - in fact it hardly seemed to be connected to the circuit board at all, so the receiver jack was constantly falling out. The actual receiver itself was also very small and light. The only way we could find to keep it in a constant position was to blue-tack it to the wall - not what you really want if you have a classy-looking home theatre setup. Time to boot up the PC. The tuner card is instantly detected as a 'multimedia device' but following the instruction leaflet we click cancel and load up the software CD instead. From this point on, installation is a no-brainer and we soon have the tuner software installed. SetupWe'll be testing the 007 GO with a standard terrestrial signal so the first step is to let the AverMedia software do a channel scan and see what it finds. Our reception here is the bad side of poor so we'll really be putting it to the test.  First signs are good. The 007 GO finds all 5 channels and considering the quality of signal, the picture looks OK. It's a simple job to rename the channels for easy identification, but moving the channels around so that they can be located under their traditional numbers in the UK i.e. 1 for BBC1, 3 for ITV1 is a cumbersome process which we gave up on. So, let's watch (and record) some TV. OperationThe software that AverMedia supply is functional, but it's no looker. We're not fans of user interfaces that try to mimic a real-world consumer electronics appliance, but that's exactly what this tries to do. There is also no way of seeing the interface in 'large' mode, so if you're planning on using it on a TV screen from your couch, think again. However, that's not how AverMedia market the GO 007, so we got close up to the monitor and tested out the features. We were pleasantly surprised.  You can do pretty much everything you would expect from a basic PVR - screengrabs, recording and of course, time-shifting. We also liked the 16 channel preview which cycles through the tuned in channels and gives you a screen grab from each. The recording quality is set to low resolution and low quality by default. We turned up all the settings to get the best possible output and it was more than adequate. There was the occasional pixelation, but nothing more than you would expect when watching a digital satellite channel. We did notice that from time to time the sound and video went out of sync, particularly when time-shifting, but it didn't happen regularly or consistently enough for us to tie down the cause. AverMedia don't make any warranties as to whether the card will work with Showshifter, but we thought we'd give it a go. Showshifter doesn't complain about the card itself, but we could only get picture - no sound. There's probably a work around for this, but we didn't have time to play around, so it's back to the AverMedia software for now. RadioSetting up the FM radio is a similar process to the TV and is fairly painless. The software scans for available channels and saves their location. We didn't see any evidence that Aver TV would automatically detect the station name (as a car stereo would). The RemoteAverMedia provide a remote control with the card. As discussed above, it is fairly lightweight until you install the batteries, but once they're in it sits nicely in the hand. It's no looker, but it's free and it works so we're not complaining. ConclusionAverMedia have made a great value TV tuner with the AverTV GO 007 FM. If you are looking for a quick and easy way of watching and recording TV on your PC then this is a good option. However, if you want to use the card as part of a media center PC setup, you will have to hunt around for software that is compatible, as the supplied interface, although it does the job, isn't good enough for day-to-day use. |
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