What are Digital TV Cards?

Digital TV PCI card is also called TV card and video capture card. As the name suggests, it is to watch TV through a personal computer. It uses a built-in analog / digital conversion chip to convert analog TV signals into digital signals that the computer can recognize. After processing, the TV picture can be presented on the computer display screen, and TV programs can be recorded at the same time.

TV card

Digital TV PCI card is also called TV card and video capture card. As the name suggests, it is to watch TV through a personal computer. It converts analog TV signals into a computer that can be recognized by a built-in analog / digital conversion chip.

TV card is a general abbreviation, which can be basically divided into four types: 1. TV box, 2. PCI TV card, 3. USB TV box, 4.

Box-shaped, with VGA interface, can be directly connected to the computer's display, no need to connect to the computer

Need to turn on the computer

The USB TV box is inserted into the USB slot of the computer, so that the computer can watch TV, and generally has the function of capturing video.

Dingjian SOHO TV Pro

Using BrookTree BT-878 chip, PCI slot, with remote control, the suggested selling price is below 500 yuan. It is currently the cheapest PCI TV card on the market. In addition to the TV card itself, the driver CD, and the Chinese instruction manual, the rest of the accessories in the box of Dingjian SOHO TV Pro are a remote control, an infrared receiver, and a connection cable for line-in connection with the sound card.

The PCB board used by Tingjian SOHO TV Pro TV card is black. The brand of the tuner is unknown.

The main chip of this TV card is BT878, SONY's multi-media MTS (Multi Television Sound), which is the decoder of Stereo / SAP.

In the interface part of this TV card, we can see that there is a space at the far left. This was originally the antenna connector of the radio. The manufacturer may cancel it to save costs, but it still left an unsightly hole. Next, we can see the Cable connector, audio output, S terminal input, audio input, AV terminal input, and infrared receiver connector in order. The audio output connector is used to connect the line-in of the sound card. TV sound effects are output through the sound card, and sound recording will only be included during video recording.

This TV card playback software uses window mode (Overlay mode), the default screen size is 320 × 240 RGB24 mode, the maximum window can be 640 × 480, and of course it can also play in full screen. The size of the image window can be adjusted at will, and you can pull it as you please.

You must scan the channel for the first time. You can customize the channel name for different channels. As for the "Fine Frequency Tuning" option, you can adjust the sharpness of the image.

The video function of this TV card can not be set to pre-record time, only manual recording, which is definitely difficult for TV fans to accept. It must be noted that the number of frames per second must be set to 30 so that no frames are dropped. Using hard disk video, obviously need to be compressed and stored. The driver provides some CODECs in video compression formats, such as Intel Indeo (Video R3.2, Microsoft Video1, Booktree YUV, etc .. The most disappointing is that audio recording cannot be compressed, and can only be recorded in uncompressed PCM format. Taking 44.1KHz 16bit stereo as an example, it takes about 600MB of hard disk space in one hour, which is obviously difficult to accept.

The broadcast program of this TV card also includes the tuner for radio programs. However, the software is useless because the functions of this part are removed from the hardware. In fact, there is no playback software for this TV card After any modification of the public version of the software, it is still relatively rough.

In the screenshot shown in Figure 6, we can see that the static picture quality is not very picky, but there will be horizontal lines similar to POWERDVD in dynamic pictures. This problem is a common problem of BT series chips. Very dazzling, if you look a little further, it has no effect.

UPMOST Dengchangheng UPT-200

This card also uses the BT878 series chip, comes with a remote control, and CyberLink Media @ Show SE version (multimedia playback software). This TV card also has the function of a radio. The suggested price is 600 yuan, and the actual price is about 500 yuan Can buy.

In addition to the TV card in the package, there are manuals and driver CDs in Chinese (including CyberLink Media @ Show SE version), and there is almost the same remote control as Dingjian SOHO TV Pro. Because SOHO itself does not have the function of a radio, the remote control does not have related buttons. The model of the remote control is MS-002, and the UPT-200 has the function of a radio. Therefore, the TV-FM is added to the upper left corner of the remote control. Switch button, the model is MS-001. In addition, the two remote controllers can be said to be identical. There are also infrared receivers and audio cables. The audio cable is thicker and thicker. Because this card has the function of a radio, it contains a radio antenna and an RF-RCA adapter.

The PCB of this card is dark brown, and it looks no worse than a black PCB. Basically, the colors of the two boards look similar. We noticed that the design of this card looks almost the same as Dingjian's SOHO TV Pro. The difference is that the receiver of the radio antenna is on the tuner of the UPT-200, but it is missing on the SOHO TV Pro. In addition to the SONY MTS circuit board, the arrangement of the connectors is the same, which is really doubtful if it is the same mother.

The UPT-200 chip is actually not the same as the SOHO TV Pro chip. Although it is the same BT-878 series chip, the author read the company's technical data and found that the 878A chip used by the UPT-200 is better than the SOHO TV. The Pro 878KHF is new and has different functions. The new version of the 878A has a DTV decoding function. This is a very special point. After reading the company's FAQ in detail, I found that the 878A basically corresponds to the old version of the 878 chip. The price is also similar. Customers can choose to use 878A as an analog or digital TV card according to their product requirements. They can also choose whether to enable the DTV function according to different software.

You can see an RCA connector on the far left of the baffle, which is used to connect the radio antenna, but this radio antenna uses the RF connector, so an additional RF-RCA adapter is attached, maybe for convenience of installation.

The following is a comparison of picture quality. After seeing the radio antenna connected, the picture quality of this card is obviously not as clear and sharp as that of the top SOHO TV Pro, and there is noise in it. This is because of the built-in radio TV card quality will be affected. After unplugging the radio antenna, the picture quality can immediately be seen to have improved significantly, but it is still not as good as the top SOHO TV Pro. The UPT-200 looks obviously fuzzy and not so sharp. In addition, compared with SOHO TV Pro, the volume of UPT-200 is obviously smaller, and the noise in the sound part is relatively high. You can clearly hear the difference. The noise part can be attributed to the antenna interference (even if the antenna is not (Plug it in), the volume part may have something to do with the SONY MTS on the SOHO TV Pro. The author thinks that the sound quality performance of the SOHO TV Pro is better.

ATi TV Wonder

This card comes from a famous Canadian manufacturer, and the price is about 750 yuan, which is a relatively high-end product.

TV card from ATI

The whole card looks a little bigger. The tuner is a Philips tuner. The chip still uses the well-known 8T878KHF. The layout of the PCB board looks no different from the two TV cards introduced earlier. The difference, especially the CD In / CD Out connector on the top of the card, although it is used to connect CD-ROM audio cable, most people should not do this, but there is a good place for this wiring, directly connect the card The CD Out on the cable is pulled to the CD In connector of the sound card, and the TV card and the sound card are connected in series. It does not need to pass through the external Line In / Out. It looks comfortable and the sound quality will be better than the external serial cable.

There are fewer connectors on the bezel than the first two cards, only Line In / Out, AV / S terminal inputs, and CATV Cable connectors. There are no radio and remote control connectors.

ATi-TV Wonder has few accessories, but is not the same as other products. In addition to the Line In / Out cable, it also includes a small microphone to RCA connector and two CD audio cables.

However, good looks alone cannot represent everything. The program is rich in features, the most special is its "image wallpaper" function. This feature is very interesting, it can transform the TV content into the wallpaper on the desktop when the playback software is minimized, and it will not affect the operation of the normal desktop and other programs at all. You can watch wallpapers and TV while working.

More practical is its schedule function, which can be specified at any time, any cycle to record or watch any channel program function. The price of ATi is high. One of the important reasons is that MPEG-1 compression software is included and fully integrated. There are many options for MPEG-1 compression, which can be set according to your required image quality or recording time. The volume of the ATi TV Wonder is quite loud, and it sounds like enough bass.

Although ATi-TV Wonder is more expensive than other TV cards, it has its value in both performance and software richness and practicality.