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MEDIA CENTER PC REVIEWAverMedia AverTV Hybrid+FM Cardbus
Introduction
Mobile TV on your laptop – you can't beat it. In fact as we write we're watching BBC News 24 in the right hand corner of our screen. That's right, not only TV, but multi-channel DVB-T TV. The gadget that's letting us do it is the AverMedia AverTV Hybrid+FM Cardbus and we can tell you now, when the AverMedia courier comes to collect it, we might just pretend we're out of the office and go on the run. Or buy one if we ever want to get review kit from AverMedia again. We've seen a few AverMedia TV tuners here at MediaCenterPCWorld.com and each one is better than the last. In a previous review of the DVB-T USB 2.0 we loved the DVB-T support, but wondered why AverMedia hadn't bothered to include analogue in the equation. They must have been listening (we flatter ourselves) as the next device to wend its way from AverMedia Towers is an analogue tuner, an FM tuner and a DVB-T tuner – all in a pocket-sized Cardbus package. What's in the boxThe Hybrid+FM Cardbus comes packed in foam in the obligatory static-proof bag. Also included in the package is an installation CD, an FM aerial, an S-Video/Component Video connector and a mini TV aerial. The mini TV aerial is the same as that supplied with the DVB-T that we reviewed earlier in the year and it is similarly pointless. We tested the Hybrid+FM Cardbus with the supplied aerial in an area of decent Freeview reception and it didn't pick up a thing. Still, this is a mobile solution, so perhaps it makes more sense than including it with a USB-based device as there is the potential for you to move the aerial around and try to pick up a signal.  The Cardbus takes the form of a standard PCMCIA card with an attachment about the size of a matchbox on the end. When inserted into your laptop's PCMCIA slot it sticks out by about 5cm. Once an aerial is plugged in there's an extra 5cm of protuberance. All the surrounding ports remain accessible. The remote is the same as that supplied with the DVB-T USB 2.0. It's a little light, but quite nice in the hand. The infra-red receiver is built into the main Hybrid+FM Cardbus itself, so there's no need for an external receiver as you find commonly with PCI or USB tuners. InstallationInstallation is easy and just involves running the supplied installation software. Once installed the AverTV software boots up and invites you to run a frequency scan to find available channels. This being a three-in-one hybrid there are three scans to perform. We were particularly interested in the DVB-T channels and in our test location 51 were located – the full Freeview selection from the local transmitter. The channel order was slightly illogical and resulted in the early numbers being very BBC heavy while some major channels were buried deep down the listing. For reasons that we'll cover in a bit that is quite significant. The facility is there to order channels to your specification, but here at MediaCenterPCWorld we're a little impatient so it was on to try out the AverTV software. Watching TVIt works. By default the picture launches in a minimised window approximately 200 pixels wide. That's great for keeping an eye on a footie match, but no so good for using your laptop as a bona-fide TV. Fortunately it's possible to full screen the picture, which also hides the AverTV controls. In full screen the picture is good, but not brilliant as with all software-based solutions. All programmes we watched had a 'filmic' fuzzy quality about them, but it was impossible to tell if this was down to the quality of our TFT screen or the software. The first weakness we come across is when switching channels. The box that the hardware came in proclaims 'fast channel switching'. All things are relative. Things have improved in recent times, but we still found ourselves waiting....and waiting for the channel to change. The number of channels makes it necessary to use double figure numbers on the remote i.e. pressing 1 then 5 for 15. This was a little unreliable so we thought that using the up and down channel buttons would be easier. All is fine until you hit a radio station in the listings. At this point the software would lock onto the channel and the up and down buttons would become useless. The only way of getting out of it would be to type in a specific channel number. Another alternative is using the EPG (Electronic Programme Guide). This was a bit of a non-starter as the only channel listings we could ever get were for BBCs 1 and 2. This also hampered the PVR functionality somewhat as it was difficult to schedule recordings for other channels. The software hang also became a problem when attempting the 16 channel preview. As the software cycles through the channels, taking a snapshot of each screen, all seems well, until a radio station is reached, at which point all subsequent screenshots were black. So what of the PVR? We covered the AverTV software (which is unchanged from the DVB-T USB 2.0) in previous reviews, so we won't go over old ground. Recording, or time-shifting are all possible, indeed simple. However, we found that there were often problems with lip sync in a recording and there was no consistent way of resolving it. It terms of picture quality, a recording was indistinguishable from live TV. You would think from the negative write-up of the AverTV software that we're not impressed with the AverMedia AverTV Hybrid+FM Cardbus. Not so. The hardware is impeccable and it achieved exactly what we wanted to it to – we watched digital television on our laptop, on the move. The software is the usual letdown, buggy and no 10 foot interface (sorry, AverMedia – it's that old bugbear once more, although we believe that a future version of the software will fix this). To get the most out of this card you would have to use a third party PVR such as Showshifter or Meedio TV. We tested the Cardbus with Showshifter and it performed faultlessly with no lipsync problems, so we know that the fault lies with the AverTV software and not the hardware. ConclusionWe can heartily recommend the AverMedia Hybrid+FM Cardbus, but if you want to do more than just watch live TV, invest in some third party PVR software to do so. Just check first that the Hybrid+FM Cardbus is compatible with the software of your choice before you hand over the cash. STOP PRESS AverMedia have contacted us to say that many of the software issues we encountered with this, otherwise great, piece of hardware are being fixed with the next version of the AverTV software which should ship in time for Christmas 2005. We've got our hands on a beta version so we'll be trying it out in the next few weeks. |
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