GoTView PCI DVD tuner: TV plus MPEG2 hardware encoding. Design and specifications

Introduction

Have you ever wondered what your computer lacks? Every time I go to the computer market or to any store, the same thought comes to me: What else could I buy for my computer? At the moment, my computer has a good configuration, an original case, an excellent monitor, comfortable keyboard and a mouse, the only thing I'm missing is something multimedia that turns my EZ-Buddie into a true 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...

Honestly, while I knew about this tuner only in words, and in very general terms, my attitude towards it was as pessimistic as towards other tuners I tested.

The fact is that for the most part, the picture quality obtained with most tuners is not good enough to 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 was written on it. On the box, I found everything that made me start with great interest for a more detailed study of GOTVIEW PCI.

In general, one can say no less about the thoroughness of the preparation of 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 rear side, and a large Russian-language sticker on the radio module.

In addition to the board in the box, we found a very short software installation guide and a little about installing and connecting the board itself, a CD that contains all the necessary software, including a 70-page instruction for installing the program and its operation in PDF format... L license disc 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 video editing).

The box also contains a cable for transmitting audio to a sound card, a remote control, a miniature IR receiver and an FM antenna.

InstallationGOTVIEW PCI

The process of installing the GOTVIEW PCI TV Tuner is a little more complicated than installing a PCI sound card or modem. First of all, you need to install the card itself into a free PCI slot. In our case, the board was installed in a barebone EZ-Buddie 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 motherboards. 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 the direct stream warm air on the TV tuner, as well as the threat of installing an additional PCI card to our video card.

After installing the tuner into the computer on the back, something similar is obtained.

Before we proceed with the installation process, let's take a look at what connectors are available on the TV tuner. On the right are the connectors for connecting the FM and TV antennas, then there is a small connector for connecting the IrDA, the usual video / audio and SVIDEO inputs required for connection external sources audio / video signal, and finally audio output.

Continuing the installation process, you need to connect a small adapter cable from the audio output of the tuner to the line-in of the sound card. This is required for transmission sound signal into your computer while maintaining high quality.

Having connected all the necessary cables, you can start installing the software, thanks to which it is possible to realize all those possibilities that will not make you regret purchasing this tuner.

The software installation process begins with the installation in automatic mode required drivers and programs. During the installation, I ran into a strange problem. After installation, the tuner refused to play TV and FM programs. The problem turned out to be an incomplete installation of drivers for all devices required for GOTVIEW PCI to work.

To solve the problem, I used a very simple and familiar way - I simply deleted all unknown devices in the device manager. After restart windows XP automatically detected the missing devices and installed them one by one. As a result, everything worked and the system has four new devices serving various functions of the tuner.

The program itself serving the tuner, despite its fairly simple interface, has really huge capabilities. Before I consider them in detail, I would like to draw your attention to the russified interface of the program, which makes it easier to work with the program, and the readiness of the settings to work in Russian efir networks. The program interface consists of two windows: the main control window and the TV screen itself.

The main working window of the program includes all the necessary functions to control the tuner.

As you can see at the top of the floor with the GOTVIEW logo there is a frequency bar that allows you to fine-tune the frequency in 0.01MHz increments. To the right of the frequency there are two arrows that will allow you to move between preset frequencies (stations), but for faster movement it is best to use the wheel on the mouse or just the up and down arrows on the keyboard. Next to these buttons there 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 on 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 "on the fly" change these parameters 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. GOTVIEW PCI TV Tuner allows you to capture video (AVI), audio (WAV / MP3 and other formats) and “Snapshot”, which allows you to take a snapshot of the TV / Video screen.

The capture function is designed in such a way that not only professional users, but also beginners can use it. For example, video capture (AVI / MPEG1 / 2). This window contains everything you may need during the recording process.

The user can change various parameters of video and audio recording, as well as indicate 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 30 seconds long and 5.7Mb in size.

The audio capture mode includes significantly fewer features, which, in principle, are sufficient for recording from your favorite radio stations.

And, finally, the "Snapshot" mode allows you to record the contents of the screen into a graphic file (BMP, JPEG and GIF) with a resolution of up to 768x576. User can set capture mode every n-seconds (default is every 3 seconds).

Moving on. To the right of the "capture" button is the station search button. As you can see, the search function is implemented as conveniently as possible 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 window of the program and the TV window, but also 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 do not have to install anything, the program itself knows everything.

For added convenience and solution of some specific tasks, the program has a built-in scheduler that allows you to schedule 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 of automatic exit from the program and shutdown of the computer.

And finally, the last button is tuner settings. There are a number of useful functions here that allow you to further customize some of the tuner's parameters.

Among the most useful ones I want to mention is the permission 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 mark the "Sound source" option, where you can set to which sound card connector the tuner's sound output is connected.

In work ...

Unlike the previously tested external tuners, this internal belief has a lot of possibilities and allows you to solve really different tasks. For example, the ability to watch TV in a window in parallel with working in the application I need, for example MS Word or IE, turned out to be very useful for me, and when I want to watch TV normally, I open the window to full screen (double-click on the TV screen). Another example for those who want to have documentary evidence of the events shown, for example, people involved in analyzing or preparing reports on current events. With the "Snapshot" function, you can get a good selection of photos for the current news release.

And the last example is related to the ability to record video and audio content on the fly. For example, according to TV channel show the movie that you would like to have in your movie collection. You just select the format you want, provide the required hard disk space and burn. The same can be said about the song you like on the radio.

Finishing the conversation about the tuner, I would like to remember about stability. Let me 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, in theory, can lead to problems, however, during use, I did not notice any problems either when watching TV or in complex 3D games.

About 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, however, our TV failed a little. Although the picture quality was quite comparable to conventional TV, the digital quality I did not succeed in satellite TV J

Conclusion...

In conclusion, I would like to once again note the unique capabilities of the new tuner, such as a really high quality of reception of both TV and FM channels, the ability to view in the window and on full screen and impressive service functions to create video, audio and graphic content. If all this is correlated with the recommended price of ~ $ 70, 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 are grateful to the GOTVIEW Coordination Office, www.gotview.ru. For advice, please call in Moscow: 284-1053, 287-9648

Today our test lab will review the lineup TV tuners of the Taiwanese company GotView. This manufacturer is already notable for the fact that for many years it has been dealing exclusively with TV tuners, and all of its products, which are easy to find in the vast majority of computer stores, are focused specifically on the Russian user. Interestingly, for many countries around the world, GotView is mainly engaged in OEM supplies to multimedia companies. In Russia, the manufacturer offers fully adapted products under its own trademark for the existing specifics of our television broadcasting; and this applies not only to Moscow or St. Petersburg, but also to all other regions of Russia and neighboring countries.

The models that will be presented in our review have been 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, and an external model using USB interface... First, let's try to compare them by some general characteristics.

GotView TV Tuner Comparison Chart

* Average estimated cost taken from the site www.price.ru at the time of preparation of the material

Note: full list features of GotView TV tuners can be viewed on the manufacturer's home page: www.gotview.ru.

For information: the abbreviation "DVD" in the model name of the GotView TV tuner denotes the presence of a hardware MPEG2 encoder on the board.

Description of GotView Models

Almost the entire range of GotView tuners comes in nice and small packaging boxes, decorated 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. The 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 (with Velcro);
RCA adapter (composite) - S-Video;
Remote control;
Remote control batteries;
IR receiver for remote control;
Composite video cable;
S-Video cable;
Stereo audio cable;
CD with software;
InterVideo WinDVD Creator 2 CD;
Installation Guide

All models of the company's built-in TV tuners have a low-profile design of the printed circuit board, and the delivery kits also include additional low-profile strips, which allows the products to be used in specific small-sized cases of system units.

Many GotView TV Tuner models 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 examining the package contents, we found that in the model range of GotView TV tuners there may be at least two variants of 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 control in the black case is a "regular" remote control, and in the silver one it is a "multimedia" one, corresponding in functionality to the Microsoft Media Center Remote. This remote allows you to turn the computer on and off, which is undoubtedly a very useful feature. Such a remote control 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 sold separately, but the receiver is connected to the USB port, not to the tuner. It is convenient that a driver is not required for its operation, but it can be used, due to its versatility, in general with any computer TV tuner.

The thin "usual" 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 box

GotView PCI DVD2 Deluxe entered 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 on and off the computer.

Thanks to the additional low-profile bracket, the tuner can be installed not only in a standard-size system unit, but also in "thin" computer cases popular among assemblers of HTPC systems. By the way, the vast majority (if not all) of GotView embedded TV tuners are low-profile PCB designs.

PCI DVD2 Deluxe PCB



Tuner side bar view

The GotView PCI DVD2 Deluxe tuner is based on the top-end HF unit Philips FM 1216ME / I H-5 (Mk5), which has long proved itself well in business. It allows you to confidently receive both television and radio channels, with good selectivity and low noise. On the printed circuit board, the RF block is distinguished by a blank screening.

Conexant CX23416

A bundle of CX25843 and CX23416 chips manufactured by Conexant acts as an encoder / decoder. It must be admitted that such a bundle is a well-tried solution, and is used by many manufacturers not only in the design of TV tuners, but also of video capture cards. Due to the capabilities of the CX26843 decoder chip, the tuner implements a three-band equalizer, as well as support for stereo broadcasting in A2 and NICAM formats. The CX23416 chip provides video capture in MPEG2 format in real time at a bit rate of up to 15 Mbps, without loading the computer's central processor with such tasks. It also has hardware noise filtering with smooth regulation noise reduction level.

The tuner proved to be quite good in its work, demonstrating excellent quality of broadcasting a television picture. GotView PCI DVD2 Deluxe has a very good sensitivity and can be recommended for those who do not have the most ideal receiving antenna.

GotView PCI Hybrid

GotView PCI Hybrid Retail Box

Hybrid TV tuner GotView PCI Hybrid is a budget model, but the interests of this consumer audience do not seem to be prejudiced in any way. On the contrary, the rich (even unnecessarily rich) bundle, which, by the way, includes the remote control, all kinds of cables, and a low-profile bracket, will appeal to even a sophisticated user.

Tuner PCB



Tuner side bar view

Perhaps this is such a corporate identity - all printed circuit boards of built-in GotView TV tuners are united by the violet color of the varnish (or, more correctly, the mask). 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 surroundings on the printed circuit board, unlike analog receivers, do not need external shielding). The selector allows you to receive both analogue and digital broadcasting. For the analog-to-digital converter, the manufacturer chose the fairly common 10-bit CX23883 ADC from Conexant for the PCI Hybrid, which supports all types of video standards.

In operation, this TV tuner has shown itself 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 the family of TV tuners, which in relation to its rich configuration and quality of work makes the model a very good purchase.

GotView PCI DVD3 Hybrid

PCI DVD3 Hybrid Retail Box

This model is a hybrid TV tuner with MPEG2 hardware compression, with the ability to receive both analog and digital TV and radio channels. The tuner is supplied with a remote control in a slim casing with membrane buttons. In addition, the rich bundle and software adapted for Russia (typical for all models of GotView TV tuners) will certainly appeal to many buyers.

PCI DVD3 Hybrid PCB



Tuner side bar view

The tuner 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 a tin casing inherent in analog tuners, which protects high-frequency circuits from interference (on digital receivers they are simply not included in the number of mounting elements).

Conexant CX23418

The highest level of integration falls on the Conexant CX23418 chip, which acts as 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 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 delivery package), and built-in TV tuners have no power. there are no restrictions.

The CX23418 hardware encoder is able to provide high-quality video capture in MPEG2 format in real time at a bit rate up to 15 Mbps, without loading the computer's central processor. The chip has a hardware image noise suppression filter with smooth adjustment of the noise reduction level (the level is adjusted in the TV tuner driver).

Evaluating 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 trail. This is especially noticeable in cartoons, where the number of frames is significantly less, and the difference between the two adjacent ones, respectively, is large. This can be seen in the following screenshots:

In more or less static scenes, the trail is not so noticeable, and the screenshots look absolutely excellent:

However, the reason for this "double" frames, as it turned out, lies in the tuner settings - more precisely, in the setting of an excessive noise reduction level. When this level is lowered, the described effect becomes unnoticeable.

GotView X5 DVD Hybrid PCI-E

X5 DVD Hybrid PCI-E Retail Box

The GotView X5 DVD Hybrid TV Tuner is the company's first PCI-E model. Let me remind you that this new interface has an increased throughput 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.

X5 DVD Hybrid PCI-E PCB



Side bar view

As a channel selector, the tuner uses the latest development from Xceive - 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 quality TV pictures even at low signal levels.

Decoder Conexant CX23887

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 a state-of-the-art ADC, in which a PCI-E matching bridge is also integrated. In addition, the hardware feature of the chip is the integrated 3D Comb Filter, whose task is to separate the brightness and color components of the signal, which allows successfully suppressing moiré, improving the 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 has demonstrated outstanding TV picture quality, which you can also see by looking at the accompanying screenshots. By and large, there is nothing to complain about.

GotView X5 3D Hybrid PCI-E

X5 3D Hybrid PCI-E Retail Box

Immediately after the release of the TV tuner model discussed above, GotView prepared another novelty for the PCI-E interface. It is the GotView X5 3D Hybrid, which differs from the X5 DVD Hybrid by the absence of a hardware MPEG2 encoder on the board. In all other respects, the novelty is completely similar to its older "sister".

Tuner PCB



Side bar view

The design of the PCB of the tuner is very similar to the above model, with the only difference that the places for the hardware coding chip and the accompanying memory chip with a power supply 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.

As a 10-bit ADC, this model also uses the Conexant CX23887 chip, which is 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 metal golden shield, which is done, rather, solely for aesthetics (unlike analog RF blocks, digital ones do not need external shielding). The XC5000 can receive both analogue and digital programs.

Having examined screenshots of TV channels, it is extremely difficult to see any big difference as with the above model. The GotView X5 3D Hybrid is as good at broadcasting TV as the older model.

GotView USB2.0 DVD2

USB2.0 DVD2 retail box

In addition to the built-in TV tuners, GotView also includes external devices connected via the USB interface. This is the GotView USB2.0 DVD2, which is an updated hardware-compressed MPEG1 and MPEG2 TV tuner that now includes a radio. To connect the device, you need two free USB ports: a USB cable is connected to the first, and an additional power cable is connected to the second.

The set includes a stand for vertical installation of the tuner

The body of the device is aluminum, with plastic inserts at the ends. For ease of placement on a table, a plastic stand is included in the package, which you can see with the tuner in the photo above.

Front panel view

The front panel of the tuner contains 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 for turning on the tuner (during device operation, it is highlighted by 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 PCB



Reverse side of the tuner PCB

The tuner is based on a modern element base: 10-bit ADC Conexant CX25843, hardware MPEG2 encoder Conexant CX23416 and HF unit Philips FM1216ME / I H-5 (Mk5).

The only problem that arose in my acquaintance with this TV tuner was the delay and dropout 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 TV picture broadcast.

The screenshots were prepared using software de-terlacing.

Software

The software package is unified for all GotView TV tuners, so it can be described 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 is, perhaps, excellent functionality along with full 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 a more recent version appears on the manufacturer's website.

The initial installation of the software from the CD will not cause problems: once the tuner card has been identified and the driver has been automatically substituted, 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 in it. The program has the ability to use the so-called "skins" ( graphical shells main panel of the program). There are only a small part of them in the standard delivery, and the rest can be easily found by the user on the GotView website.

Initially, the program contains a table of all terrestrial TV and radio channels with their frequency values. Thus, in some cases, after installing the program, all TV and radio channels will already be tuned, only to residents of certain regions and subscribers cable networks you will need to use the channel search function.

Window for setting TV channel control settings

For channels with poor reception, the automatic search of which did not give the desired results, you can use manual search, or manually set their broadcast frequencies. Further, for the found channels, you can specify their name, choose 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 during recording and during playback. It is only necessary to take into account that additional resources will be required to operate the filter in program mode. central processing unit... If the computer resources are insufficient, 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 TV tuners with software operation of the noise filter include GotView PCI Hybrid, and with hardware - GotView PCI DVD, GotView PCI DVD2 Deluxe, GotView PCI DVD3 Hybrid and GotView USB 2.0 DVD (as applied to the TV tuner models of this review).

TV schedule ("Telenedelya")

For GotView TV Tuners, it is possible to receive a weekly TV schedule over the Internet. The database can be loaded either manually or automatically. Conveniently, if there is a fresh TV program, when switching channels, information about the current program, as well as the time of its beginning and end, is displayed on the screen. The "degree of completion" of the transfer as a percentage is also visually displayed in the form of a status bar.

Video capture settings window

GotView software allows you to capture video with a wide variety of recording options. The ability to automatically split a recording into files of a given size has been implemented, which is sometimes necessary (especially when generating a large video).

Information window about the brightness components of the image

To obtain information about the current video image, the manufacturer has provided a "graphical observation window". Here you can, relying on the graphically presented data about the picture, independently set the white and black levels, as well as get information about the signal-to-noise ratio. From the graphs, you can quickly determine if the video image is overexposed or too dark, and on this basis, you can fine-tune the picture.

The proprietary software has very high functionality. We have covered only a fraction of its main functions. The rest of the information the interested reader will get from the manufacturer's website, where, among other things, there is " hot line", and a forum, and answers to frequently asked questions.

Conclusion

Overall, the range of modern GotView TV tuners has 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 various categories of users, allows you to easily choose a TV tuner according to your needs, and the high quality of broadcasting a TV picture will not make you doubt the correctness of the chosen choice. I would also like to note the modern element base that the manufacturer uses when designing models.

My personal favorites were the X5 DVD Hybrid for PCI-E, DVD2 Deluxe for PCI, as well as the external USB model. The only thing is, I cannot guarantee that the picture quality on your TV antenna will be no worse than mine.

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It seems that only yesterday a monophonic huge and noisy VHS video recorder was considered a luxury, and today compact and stylish household DVD players cost from $ 50 and provide incomparable the best quality sound and video. With the same emotions, in just a few years we will look back at DVD from the height of the possibilities of new and orders of magnitude more capacious HDTV media, more advanced compression algorithms and digital data transmission wirelessly. One thing can be noted already today - it is becoming less and less reasonable to purchase videocassettes and VHS-tape recorders, even with stereo support. On the counters of the capital, a standard VHS-cassette for 240 minutes costs 60-70 rubles, and a "blank" DVD + RW - about 30 rubles. If you are bargaining in bulk, then there is always the opportunity to take discs for 20 rubles, if not cheaper. It turns out that one cassette is three "blanks", which, moreover, can be rewritten many times, and over the years the video quality on DVD does not degrade. Dignity optical discs before the tape, you can list endlessly, and how much easier and faster it is to copy a DVD to your friends ... You can use another blank for this or simply copy the files to HDD... The latter, by the way, are getting cheaper almost continuously. It goes without saying that DVD takes up less shelf space than videotape.

A primitive DVD burner will set you back $ 30 (for a used model), while decent dual-layer discs (over 8GB per side) are readily available for less than $ 100. Even a system based on Pentium 4 or Athlon XP with a frequency of 1.5 GHz, which today can no longer be considered any top-end, can handle video recording in MPEG2 to a hard disk and its further processing. At the same time, not all Russians have such PCs - the installed base of computers in the country as a whole does not stand up to criticism. It is worth driving a couple of hundred kilometers beyond the borders of the Moscow region, and megahertz begin to flow downward at the same rate as the water tends to land in Niagara. And, nevertheless, progress, albeit slowly, is coming to Russia. So, according to the recently published IDC report, the volume of the Russian information technology market in 2003 amounted to 7.1 billion US dollars, and it is assumed that summing up the results of this year, it will be possible to speak about the market growth by 26%. IDC expects total IT spending in Russia to exceed $ 17 billion by 2008.

In his speech on November 10 at a meeting of the Federation Council, the head of the Ministry of Information and Communication Leonid Reiman noted that the number of subscribers mobile communications for 4 years increased by 60 million - up to 63 million, although earlier it was predicted that in 2005 this figure will be only 9 million. The number of Internet users also exceeded all possible forecasts: if in 1997 only about 1 million people had access to the Internet, now 18.5 million people already use the Internet. The active development of the Internet, in turn, contributed to the growth of the information technology market, which has tripled over the past five years and will amount, according to the forecast for 2004, more than 250 billion rubles. This, in turn, allows us to say that the computerization and informatization of the country is proceeding dynamically, and the day is not too far off when the "digital home" will turn from a futuristic concept into a completely ordinary concept. It seems to us that there is no place for classical tape recorders in the "digital home". If the computer is gradually replacing household appliances, then it is the TV tuner that should most organically fit into the concept of "Digital Home".

Actually, let's move on to the hero of the occasion.

The GoTView PCI DVD TV tuner is one of those devices, the descendants of which will become the de facto standard in computers of the near future and in a few years will displace video recorders from our apartments as a class. This model differs from the majority of TV tuners in the presence of modern hardware that supports encoding in MPEG2 "on the fly", without the need for a central processor. As a result, it allows you to record video in high quality to the hard disk even on relatively slow computers, since it is video compression on the fly in high resolution that takes up most of the system resources. In our recent review of the USB model AverMedia AverTV USB 2.0 for laptops, we noted a high load on the processor, and, in particular, it concerned the tuner operation on chips with a frequency of less than 1 gigahertz. On such systems, it is problematic to use timeshift and record TV programs to the hard disk. The GoTView PCI DVD tuner takes over the job of converting video to MPEG2, which is very beneficial for weak computers.

The key functions of the tuner became possible thanks to the use of two chips: a Philips SAA7174HL operating grip and a hardware MPEG decoder Conexant CX23416 with support for improved suppression of "noise". GoTView provides not only watching TV channels with stereo sound in NICAM and A2 formats (if they are supported by the operator), but also hardware compression of the video stream into MPEG2 format. Compression is also supported by almost any other codec, for example, you can use DivX, AVI, Windows Media Video, ASF, and so on, but this procedure is carried out programmatically, that is, the entire load remains on the system's central processor.

The disadvantages of the GoTView PCI DVD model include the lack of an FM tuner, which could allow you to listen to the radio on a PC. However, according to the statistical information we have, this function is not in demand among all users. Among the advantages of the component base, we note that traditionally Philips SAA7174HL demonstrates very decent quality video capture from external sources, and the integrated Conexant decoder is equipped with advanced noise reduction and pre-filtering functions, resulting in very decent video quality on the screen, as well as high-quality digitization. Having made a recording of a television film from the air and burned it to DVD using the bundled software, when viewed on household appliances you will not understand that the recording was made on a computer.

The GoTView PCI DVD package includes a tuner, an infrared remote control with a receiver typical for most tuners, an audio cable (mini-jack for two "tulips"), two CDs with drivers and WinDVD Creator 2 software, as well as instructions for operation in Russian.

The following connectors are displayed on the back panel of the GoTView PCI DVD:

• tulip input (RCA) for video;
• remote control (non-standard mini-jack);
• antenna;
• S-Video input for connecting a VCR, DVD or other device;
• mini-jack input for sound.

Unlike "budget" tuner models, GoTView PCI DVD supports digital audio transmission via the PCI bus without losses associated with analog-to-digital conversions. This, in particular, allows you to minimize interference to the audio path, improve sound quality and increase the maximum sampling rate. An important function of GoTView PCI DVD is the ability to hardware encode to MPEG2 not only TV broadcasts, but also video from an external source. You can connect a VCR or camcorder to the tuner with a "tulip" or via S-Video in order to digitize your videos made on conventional VHS cassettes. Also, a surveillance video camera can be connected to the tuner input, and the GoTView software supports the inclusion of video for recording at the moment when there is movement in the frame, with flexible sensitivity adjustment. In fact, you get an inexpensive way to track your car in a parking lot in front of your house or your own front door. The bundled WinDVD Creator 2 program is not a standard of functionality and intuitiveness, but it will help you burn video in DVD format to "blank" for viewing on household appliances. WinDVD Creator 2 supports a number of special effects and transitions between scenes, overlaying titles, a menu control with your own photos or video as a background, splitting video into segments, etc.

It is also important that hardware coding can reduce the load on computer resources during delayed playback (Time Shifting). With software coding, this feature is practically useless on a PC with a processor around 1 GHz. Finally, I would like to traditionally highlight the support of GoTView tuners for downloading TV programs from the manufacturer's website. This allows you to set up not only timer recording of movies, but also be aware of when and what programs are on all TV channels. When you press the right button, a menu appears, which even indicates in percentage how long a particular movie or TV show lasts, and how much is left until the end.

Hardware you can encode video in MPEG2 / DVD / Video CD formats, and programmatically in AVI and WMV. At the same time, for AVI, you can use the full range of codecs, including DivX, XviD, ASF and many others of your choice. The only feature is that you have to install most of the codecs yourself. The manufacturer does not supply codecs with the tuner. Sound can be encoded in any format using an external codec. Finally, the tuner allows you to capture not only a video stream, but also individual frames, saving them to your hard disk in BMP, GIF or JPEG format.

Among the advantages of GoTView PCI DVD, we note the instruction in Russian, the Russified program interface and the Russian user support site. www.gotview.ru .

Installing the drivers is smooth, but not very intuitive - you plug the card into the PCI slot, close the case, turn it on, and insert the driver CD into the optical drive. After starting Windows XP Professional, it finds a new device and produces automatic installation its drivers from CD.

After that, you need to start the GoTView Pro shell distribution kit from the "gotview" folder. Strange, but there is no installer autorun system or menu on the disk. Note that the drivers are not WHQL digitally signed, so you will have to select "Continue Anyway" when responding to the Windows warning. This does not affect the quality of the device in any way. After installing the drivers, a reboot may be required. If you plan to capture video from a tuner or external sources (via "tulip" or S-Video) in MPEG2 format (with hardware compression), and also do DVD authoring, then you should install WinDVD Creator 2 from the second disc.

The CD supplied with the tuner contains the following subdirectories:

• Acrobat - program Acrobat Reader 5 and 6 versions for reading the documentation;
• DirectX - a set of libraries DirectX versions 9c;
• DOC - Russian-language user manual in PDF format;
• DRV - drivers for 2000 and XP;
• gotview - distribution kit of the GotView Pro program; to install, you need to run GOTVIEW_setup.exe;
• IE6_russ - Internet Explorer 6.0, Russian version;
• WMV - Windows Media Payer 9.0 for working with the WMV format, as well as for transferring video over the network.

It should be noted the good and detailed instructions in Russian. It even takes into account the changes that have occurred since Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. As already mentioned, after the driver, we installed the GotView Pro software shell with a Russian-language interface. It allows you to implement all the basic functions of the tuner. Note that the GoTView software, which we have already described in our early reviews of this manufacturer's tuners, makes the most positive impression with its functionality. Unlike many Asian counterparts and even a number of well-known tuners, this shell demonstrates both a high saturation of possibilities and an intuitive interface. It remains only to bring the design of the appearance to international standards. Learn more about GotView Pro below.

GotView Pro version 3.0.0.441 is supplied with the tuner. We recommend that you look at the manufacturer's website before installing it. www.gotview.ru... The fact is that the program is very often updated, and by the time we tested the newest tuner model, version 3.0.0.445 beta had been posted on the site. We decided not to tempt fate and downloaded GotView Pro version 3.0.0.444, as well as the more current driver v.1.17.0.40.

Once launched, GotView Pro opens the main window from which you can access all device functions. Here, just a few tabs are focused on the key settings of the device. For each channel, you can adjust the image parameters (brightness, contrast, saturation, warmth, white balance and sharpness), set a personal sound volume, accurately calibrate the signal, and perform a number of other functions. The information window displays the channel frequency and encoding. By the way, image parameters are saved individually for each channel, so you don't have to change them every time - it's very convenient.

Six icons in the main window allow you to navigate to the bookmarks:

• video capture;
• channel settings;
• task scheduler;
• system settings;
• television programs;
• channel preview.

We'll look at these windows a little later.

Recording and capturing a frame can be easily turned on immediately on the main window of the program, using the appropriate keys, which is very convenient. Finally, the "TS" button enables the Time Shift viewing function. Thus, at any time convenient for you, you can distract from watching a movie or a news release, go for a smoke, drink coffee, have dinner, and then return and continue watching the same episode from the same place where you left off. The maximum interval for which video is postponed is determined by the size of the buffer. Theoretically, if you have a completely free hard disk, you can smoke for a whole week or even more, and if you compress video in DivX and in low resolution, then at least a year. Rather, the limiting factor in this case will be your lungs.

When you press the video capture key, the AVI panel opens by default. In this case, compression is carried out programmatically using an external codec. If you plan to compress video programmatically, so as not to convert it from MPEG2 in the future, or in order to save space on your hard disk, then, first of all, make sure that your computer has enough resources for real-time compression. This implies a processor with a frequency of 1 GHz or more, a fast hard drive and enough memory. By the way, at the bottom of the window graphs of the processor and hard disk load are displayed, which will help you navigate.

As rightly stated in the documentation, for high-quality and error-free capture to AVI, you should make sure that correct settings external codec. So be careful. In the lower right corner, you can select the video source (tuner, Cinch or S-Video input), as well as the audio source. Channels are also switched there.

All the necessary parameters are visible on the AVI capture panel. From interesting features note the presence of a deinterlacing filter (bypassing the "comb" effect at a resolution higher than 352x288), cropping and resizing a frame, setting a codec for video and sound. All functions are well described in the documentation, so we will not dwell on them in detail. The tuner allows hardware compression of the MPEG stream, so the most interesting is the MPEG2 capture panel. All parameters, again, are visible in the illustration and are described in detail in the instructions.

There are even fewer settings on the capture panel in WMV, and encoding is limited exclusively to profiles. It is worth noting that, in principle, in Windows you can edit these profiles and create your own, but this will require knowledge of Windows Media Encoder or other specialized utilities. Why bother with a format that is much less popular than DivX? The fact is that the new generation of personal media centers operates with video in the WMV format. Moreover, it is the files in this format that are best understood by PDAs running Windows Mobile 2003. In addition, this format supports network streaming, and channels recorded on the hard disk can be distributed over the local home network using additional software. Perhaps in the future, GoTView will release a skin that will support more Windows Media Video settings. So that you don't get the impression that WMV support is poorly implemented, we emphasize that for an average-experienced user, basic profiles are more than enough. Manual settings needed more by enthusiasts than by the majority.

In addition to video, you can capture audio and individual frames - all you need to do is use the corresponding panels. All settings are clearly visible in the illustrations.

The final "Network" panel is experimental - it allows you to broadcast the transmission over the network to another computer, laptop or Pocket PC. The function works only under Windows 2000 and Windows XP, and for it to work, you need to install Windows package Media. It should be noted that the possibility of broadcasting via local network, in our opinion, has interesting prospects. With its help, you can organize TV broadcasting in a home local network from one tuner, or turn an ordinary pocket PC with Wi-Fi into a TV. The system still requires improvement, in particular, it is impossible to control the stream transmitted to the network remotely. It would be useful to implement a kind of "IP-enabled remote control" based on PocketPC with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection.

During our tests, we repeatedly used network broadcasting to pocket PCs over Wi-Fi and to laptops over a 100 Mbps network. The only pity is that the maximum bitrate for encoding is 2 Mbit. Potentially transferable to mobile devices video with the same quality as shown by the tuner on the local PC. Of course, the PDA's processor will not be able to decompress such a massive data stream in real time, but any modern laptop will do it without any problems. And, by the way, video transmission over the network is carried out precisely in the WMV format - to the question of previous reflections about Windows settings Media Video.

After installation, the tuner already contains the specified channels for Moscow (with the names and icons set). If you live in another region or even in the near Moscow region and use cable TV, then you should conduct an automatic program search.

Right-click context menu.

In this case, you can search in a given frequency range or in ranges typical for terrestrial or cable broadcasting. After configuring the channels manually, you can set for each of them its own icon from the vast catalog, or draw your own logo.

Also, for each TV channel you can assign its own TV program guide, which will be useful if your cable TV broadcast schedule does not completely coincide with the standard one.

It should be noted that in this window you can adjust the image parameters for each channel individually. This is where the GotView PCI DVD tuner compares favorably with many TVs and competing models.

If the broadcast is broadcast in stereo, then the tuner has the ability to select the appropriate mode and standard.

The program allows you to set a schedule for recording programs using the "Task Scheduler". It is enough to choose the time, action, start and end time of the transfer - and the computer will do everything for you. A convenient function that eliminates the need to be tied to the broadcast time. Now you can watch your favorite program at any time. Recording is supported in any format - MPEG, AVI, WMV with the settings specified in the corresponding panels.

Note that, in addition to the basic functions of starting and stopping recording, the shell supports sounding a sound signal before and after encoding, message notification, switching to sleep mode, shutting down the computer and a number of other actions. Well thought out.

System settings

This tab contains basic settings tuner. They are divided into four tabs: "View", "Interface", "Time Shift" and "About".

Here you can set deinterlacing, select the noise reduction mode (by the way, performed in hardware), and also set other options. They are all visible in the illustration.

Again, all the possible options are visible in the illustration and are understandable, so we will not bother readers with listing them. The "Devices" button allows you to set the used hardware resources and connect a second tuner for the "Picture in Picture" function.

Finally, the third tab allows you to configure delayed playback (Time Shift). Recall that this function allows you to leave the monitor screen at any time, and then watch the program from the same place. The tuner encodes into an MPEG2 stream in hardware, and delayed playback will not overload your computer's resources.

One of the main advantages of the tuner is downloading a TV program from the site www.gotview.ru... Now you don't have to bother buying newspapers with the program and visiting different sites.

Everything is grouped in the interface and uploaded in one file, the size of which is about 250 KB.

After downloading the list, the screen displays the name of the program and the broadcast time.

Here, the screen alternately displays images of 16 channels, which allows you to quickly view current programs throughout the entire broadcast range and select the most interesting one. By clicking the mouse, you can focus on one of the channels - while you hold the cursor and the left mouse button, broadcasting will be performed for one "rectangle". It is also convenient that in the window you can see not only the image, but also the name taken from the program guide:

The green bar allows you to estimate how much time is left until the end of the show or movie. By double click on the "icon" the main window is switched to the display mode of the selected channel.

The package includes a convenient infrared remote control with many buttons allowing access to all desired functions... The receiving device is connected directly to the tuner via a mini-jack. Compared to earlier models of GotView tuners, the new remote control has become more stylish, compact.

The remote control keys can be programmed using the corresponding utility, so the user really has freedom of action. In addition to working with the tuner itself, the remote control supports a number of popular applications: Microsoft Media Player, Zoom Player, BSPlayer and WinAmp. In fact, you get remote control from the basic functions of your computer. It is possible that support for some other applications will be added in the future. In our opinion, it lacks the ability to control DVD playback programs such as PowerDVD or WinDVD.

We have tested the reception quality under standard conditions. When the tuner was connected to a cable local TV, the GoTView Pro program was able to detect all channels plus two phantom ones, which we removed from the list without any problems.

The GoTView PCI DVD noise canceling system has shown itself on the most positive side. Even in the "weak filtering" mode, most of the background "noise" is filtered out on channels with average reception quality, and in the maximum "noise" suppression mode, interference is significantly reduced even on highly noisy channels. Note that the more filtering you turn on, the more inertial the image becomes. Also, suppression somewhat reduces the sharpness of the image, but when watching a recorded DVD on TV, this is completely invisible.

Inexpensive TV tuner.

GoTView PCI DVD.

Pay attention to extraneous "noises" on the wall and faces. The screenshot cannot convey how it looks in dynamics, although everyone has probably come across "noises" on a regular TV, when one or another channel does not catch well. On the GoTView PCI DVD, there is much less noise, and the image, in general, looks smoother and softer than on budget tuners. We also note excellent image scaling - unlike inexpensive models, the GoTView PCI DVD tuner displays a picture without characteristic squares, with straight lines on contrasting edges.

The GoTView PCI DVD comes with the InterVideo WinDVD Creator 2 package. The program allows you to perform basic video editing functions - cut commercials from a recording, add titles, menus, segment movies for easy navigation on a household DVD-player. During testing, we digitized the clip "Black Boomer" from MTV channel into MPEG2 and then recorded it on DVD. Several screenshots illustrate the process:

We open the video in the program, cut out the extra places and divide it into segments (so that scrolling works on the DVD player).

We are looking for a picture on the Internet that is suitable for the topic to insert as a background.

We select the interface buttons (playback and viewing of segments).

Clicking "Make Movie" choose the best quality and name of the disc.

We select "save the resulting video to hard drive for later recording."

We record a disc when Nero help Burning ROM (it was possible just in WinDVD Creator, but the drive was installed on another stand).

Let's note the simplicity and intuitiveness of working with WinDVD Creator. Just a few clicks of the mouse, and you will be prompted to either save the video in DVD format to a hard disk for later burning it using third-party software (for example, Nero Burning ROM), or burn it directly to disc. You can insert the result into a household DVD-player and watch it just like any movie bought in a store. This allows you to record movies, clips or news broadcasts from the tuner to your PC using the scheduler, and then watch them on your TV at home or at a party. With a few clicks of the mouse, you can create a schedule for the day and, upon returning from work, watch all the programs you are interested in either directly on your PC or on a TV with a recorded "blank".

The GoTView PCI DVD TV tuner has demonstrated excellent quality and functionality. Hardware encoding in MPEG2 can significantly reduce the load on the system and implement video recording and delayed viewing (TimeShift) on systems with slow processors. We can characterize the reception quality of the tuner as exceptional. We separately emphasize the high-quality system of noise reduction and video deinterlacing, the possibility of hardware capture in high resolution not only from the tuner, but also from various external sources - a video camera, VCR or video surveillance system.

GoTView PCI DVD will be interesting not only for those users who would like to turn a PC into a high-quality and functional TV, but also for those who plan to transfer their videos from cassettes to DVD. Traditionally, software is implemented at a high level, very useful function downloading a TV program from the manufacturer's website. The GoTView Pro shell interface is intuitive, and access to all the main functions is well structured.

Based on the testing results, we award the GoTView PCI DVD model with the "THG RECOMMENDS" medal

Where can I buy this product?

At the time of this writing, the cost of the GoTView PCI DVD tuner ranged from $ 118 to $ 124. Detailed information and technical specifications of the product can be found on the manufacturer's website

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 have common merits and demerits. We can talk endlessly about bad TV tuners. After buying such a device from an unknown manufacturer, the user runs the risk of facing not only low-quality software, but also the lack of support for the SECAM format, on which most television channels in Russia are broadcast today. As a result, you only have to enjoy the black and white image. No matter how strange it may seem, this is quite a common situation. And you can talk about non-working drivers and inconvenient software for days on end.

Speaking of good TV tuners, one immediately thinks of the reputable manufacturers Aver, Pinnacle and Prolink (PixelView). During his presence at Russian market, these companies have done everything to ensure that their products become the standard of quality. But today, these three will have to make room, because a new company, a new name in the TV tuner industry - GoTView, whose tuners were specially developed taking into account the specifics of the Russian user and Russian broadcasting, claims their place. We meet the first TV tuners for Russian roads from GoTView! To date, the GoTView line of TV tuners includes two models - an internal one with a PCI interface and an external, stand-alone one that connects in a cut between a monitor and a computer. In this review we will look at the internal GoTView PCI tuner 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. Although this localization seemed unusual, it 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 CDs with software

Before moving on 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 localization are. this device for a Russian user.

GoTView PCI TV tuner specifications

• Interface - PCI, 32-bit
• Chip - Conexant BT878
• TCL 125-channel analog block
• PAL / SECAM / NTSC support 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
• Linear stereo audio input

Software capabilities

• Ability to scan a specified range with a specified step
• Tuning the frequency of channels with a step of 0.01 MHz with the ability to enter a specific value of the wavelength
• Preset settings for the main channels of Russian television and radio
• Individual picture and sound settings for each channel
• Selecting Resolution for Preview and Full Screen View
• Capture Capability individual cadres in BMP, GIF and JPEG formats with a resolution from 80x60 to 768x576 by pressing a button or by timer
• Capture video in resolution from 80x60 to 768x576. Timer recording option
• Capturing and encoding audio with any codec installed on the system
• Ability to set the priority of the application when capturing
• Ability to play recorded AVI and WAV files without exiting the program, as well as right during recording
• Full capture information:
  • size and duration of the captured fragment
  • free disk space
  • possible recording time based on available disk space
  • number of captured and dropped frames
• Video editing software 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. For those who are not engaged in recording programs from television and radio to a computer, many of them will never be needed, but fine tuning of 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 capabilities of the tuner software in more detail 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 lacquer. The board is rather small in size - it does not go beyond the PCI slot pins in length. The socket of the board has a golden color; the following connectors are located on it (from top to bottom):

FM antenna

TV antenna

Infrared sensor socket

RCA video input

TV-in jack

Audio line-in

S-Video video input

Linear audio output

To the right of the jacks located on the board panel, the tuner has two four-pin connectors for connecting a sound card to the internal input and output.

Thus, the sound card can be connected to the tuner using standard audio cables from the CD-ROM. The presence of such internal connectors can be attributed to the advantages of the board, because although in modern conditions nothing interferes with the transmission of sound through the PCI bus, but in the case when you need to transmit the audio stream directly through the sound card, such a connection is more convenient than using a cable through the jacks on the bar of the tuner and sound card.

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 endcoder has proven itself well over the past years and today it is already that "good old, proven" solution that can be used without fear of consequences.

The analogue TV tuner box is manufactured by TCL. By today's standards, of course, it looks a little anachronistic, since the analog units 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, it does its job perfectly.

As befits any normal tuner, the GoTView PCI has an IR remote control. 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 differs in 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 combine cards that combine a powerful 2D / 3D accelerator with tuner functions use radio wave-based control panels. You can't say anything - such a solution is very convenient, but the remote control in this case will cost much more, and we are talking about a tuner for the Russian market, and here the price is of great importance. Therefore, infrared rays are used to control the tuner in GoTView PCI.

The IR sensor connects directly to the TV tuner card and can be placed anywhere on the computer case. We didn’t find stickers for fixing the sensor to the computer in the GoTView remote control kit, but the fact is that the GoTView PCI tuner had been in some other test laboratories before us, so it’s possible that the sticker was lost somewhere because they didn’t want to it would be so that they "deliberately" forgot to put it in the box to the tuner.

Installation and testing

After installing the TV tuner into a free PCI slot and booting the system, you need to install the drivers and software. Under the operating room we use Windows system The XP drivers installed themselves when the CD was inserted into the CD-ROM drive. The installation of the program for receiving television and radio programs is also carried out with a few keystrokes.

As software GoTView offers us software based on the best program for TV tuners - Fly DS. The original program, accepted by thousands of users around the world, as an alternative to the viewers supplied with the default tuners, was redesigned by the 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 your TV programs are broadcast on cable TV, you will have to scan the entire range. True, the scanning here is at the highest level. You can scan both the entire frequency range and a selected one, with a given step. For each channel, you can manually set the frequency with an accuracy of 0.01 MHz. Here you can adjust the sound volume and brightness, contrast, warmth and color saturation for each channel individually.

A special task scheduler will help you organize the inclusion and recording of TV programs at the right time. Here you can 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 work at the computer and not to miss your favorite TV series. However, when capturing video in this way, you do not have any statistics on the capture and you may not even know whether the recording is being made to the hard drive or not.

But the manual grip, invoked with one click of a button, is replete with settings. Here you can reserve disk space for the next video file, and select a resolution, and apply filters, change the quality of video and audio compression, as well as get complete statistics on capture - with what frame rate is recording and how many frames are skipped. 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.

Impressions

In our test laboratory, cable TV was installed, so the preset frequencies of Russian TV channels turned out to be useless and we had to scan the entire range. The scan was carried out with a minimum step, so it took quite 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 could not be found on the existing Samsung TV, which, according to the manufacturer, was also adapted to the Russian specifics of broadcasting. Such a high sensitivity of the tuner made me very happy, because more channels were available on the computer than on the TV.

The image quality provided by the tuner is also pleasing. Fine tuning the channel frequency helped to minimize noise on the channels where it was. Video capture and compression were equally satisfactory. The abundance of settings and the convenience of the software allows you to maintain the same balance when convenience is not compromised by 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 there was no need to launch a separate module or a separate program to receive them - in the viewer it was enough to switch the channel and the computer would turn from a TV into a radio receiver.

conclusions

A TV tuner optimized for the Russian user should have a great future in our country. High sensitivity of the analog unit, high-quality software, complete Russification and a set of unique capabilities - this should be a tuner for Russian roads.

During testing, no shortcomings were found in GoTView. Unless, the program for editing and creating your own video collection WinDVD Creator is less convenient than Pinnacle Studio 8. But again, Pinnacle comes bundled with inexpensive tuners trial version Studio programs 7 or Studio 8 with a 30-day expiration date, and GoTView comes with a full licensed version of WinDVD Creator in Russian. However, if you wish, you can purchase any editing software on the Russian market.

Summing up all of the above, we can state the fact that such whales of the TV tuner market like 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

Revolutionary changes in the personal computer market are quite rare. The industry is developing gradually, acquiring more and more new qualities. This happens even somehow imperceptibly, by itself, but, looking back a few years ago, we notice how strikingly modern hardware and software differ from what we used recently. It would seem that what can change in the TV tuner market? But here, too, software, hardware and functionality are constantly evolving. GoTView tuners have always been famous for their well-developed drivers, high-quality and functional video capture, as well as the ability to transmit a TV signal over a local network. Not too long ago we tested GoTView PCI 7134 model, and today it has been replaced by a PCI 7135 TV tuner. Among the features of the new model, we highlight the new generally recognized Philips MK3 RF unit, which has better characteristics compared to TCL, which was used in the GoTView PCI 7134 model, as well as a Philips chip, whose number and entered the model name. Has the tuner become better, what qualities has it acquired, is it very different from the previous model? We will try to answer all these questions below.

Equipment

The GoTView PCI 7135 TV tuner is supplied in the typical packaging for most of the products of this manufacturer. All the inscriptions on the box, as well as the documentation and software shell, are in Russian, which once again confirmed the manufacturer's desire to fully adapt its products to the Russian market.

Inside the package, we found the following kit:

• TV tuner card;
• T-shaped FM antenna;
• IR receiver;
• double-sided sticker for fixing the IR receiver;
• remote control;
• 2 batteries type "AAA";
• a short audio cable for connecting to the line-in of a sound card;
• instruction in Russian;
• 2 discs with software

The GoTView PCI 7135 TV tuner is compact and does not pose any problems when installed in small cases. The board is limited by the size of the PCI slot, which is practically the norm in modern conditions.

The heart of the GoTView PCI 7135 is the Philips SAA7135HL chip, which offers enhanced audio processing over SAA7134 and earlier.

The 7135 uses the original Philips MK3 RF unit, which has the potential to provide better reception quality than the 7134. Whether our expectations came true or not, we'll tell you below.

As in the PCI 7134 model, the company uses high-capacity electrolytes with low internal resistance to minimize power supply noise, as well as a regulator to reduce voltage surges when powering the chip.

The GoTView PCI 7135 TV tuner, like its predecessors, is equipped with audio connectors directly on the board, which is quite rare on models from other manufacturers. These connectors are necessary in order to directly connect the TV tuner to the sound card inside the PC, which will not occupy the external line-in of the sound card. Note that these connectors are located on the outside of the printed circuit board, as a result, the user does not need to remove the TV tuner to connect or disconnect cables. However, the GoTView PCI 7135 TV tuner can transmit sound not only using an external or internal cable, but also via the PCI bus. This means that you do not need to connect it to your sound card.

The following connectors are located on the bar from left to right:

• connector for FM antenna;
• connector for connecting a TV antenna;
• connector for an external IR receiver;
• S-Video input (four contacts);
• audio input (mini-jack);
• composite video input;
• audio output.

Traditionally, we used home media center Depo Ego following configuration:

• processor: Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz with 800 MHz bus;
• motherboard: MicroStar MS-6743;
• RAM: DDR400 512 MB;
• video card: Intel Extreme Graphics II, integrated on the board;
• sound card: Creative Audigy 2 ZS;
• hard drive: Samsung 160 GB SATA;
• operating system: Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 installed and all updates from Windows Update.

After installing the GoTView PCI 7135 TV tuner into a free PCI slot and turning on the PC, Windows XP finds a new device. The driver is installed by means of the operating system. After installation, the following hardware appears in Device Manager.

Unfortunately, the disc with the software is not equipped with an autoload mode and a shell, but the installation process is described in some detail in the instructions. After completing the installation of the drivers and the program, it is advisable to restart the computer, but this is not at all necessary.

Previously, the laboratory site has already tested three internal TV tuners from GoTView. These were GoTView PCI , GoTView PCI 7134 and GoTView PCI DVD... The GoTView Pro software shell supplied with the company's tuners has not undergone significant changes, and therefore, in order not to repeat ourselves, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with our previous reviews.

The GoTView Pro version 3.0.0.449, supplied with the GoTView PCI 7135 TV tuner, implements new function- "Motion detector", which allows you to use the TV tuner as an inexpensive video surveillance system. You simply connect a video camera to the tuner with a cable with two tulips, display it on the window, and you can record video of your car in the parking lot or watch the area in front of the house on your PC. Similar "security" functions are now popular with other TV tuner manufacturers.

The software shell allows, in the presence of motion in the frame, to save individual frames, record video or sound on a hard disk for later viewing. A similar feature has already been tested by us in TV tuner Behold TV 403 FM, but it should be noted that the Beholder company specializes in the creation of software and hardware complexes for access control and video surveillance and, accordingly, tried to implement this function in its TV tuners, while GoTView does not deal with video surveillance systems, but its implementation of the system seemed to us quite worthy.

The function of the motion detector in the GoTView Pro software shell is implemented as follows: first, the user is prompted to select the interval of checks and sensitivity, and then set the action when motion is detected in the frame and the action when the motion is stopped. The difference from the similar function of the Beholder company is that there is no mask in the GoTView Pro software shell, which allows dividing the image into zones in which tracking would be carried out. In some cases, this can limit the use of the GoTView PCI 7135 TV tuner as a video surveillance system, since the software shell will not allow you to cut off areas that you do not need to monitor.

In general, we would like to note that the GoTView company has adequately implemented the function of the motion detector, and we are confident that in new versions of software shells this feature will continue to develop.

Picture and sound quality

An ordinary antenna is installed on the roof of the editorial office building, and the test laboratory is the sole user of the signal from it. However, the geographic location of the small laboratory building results in many channels “arriving” at the antenna with great interference. This makes it all the more interesting for us to test tuners in far from ideal conditions.

I would especially like to note that the GoTView PCI 7135 TV tuner demonstrated, in general, excellent image quality without any additional settings and the use of a noise cancellation system. When viewing channels with average reception quality, the "noise" suppression function allowed to significantly improve the image quality. On channels with poor reception quality, the "noise" suppression function also showed a good result, but as a result the image became more inertial, which, when viewing dynamic scenes, led to a blurring of the picture. Therefore, we do not recommend using the maximum noise reduction modes unless absolutely necessary.

In the laboratory, the tuner was able to identify all 15 existing channels, which indicates a good sensitivity of the Philips MK3 selector. It should be noted that the search on the standard frequency grid revealed only 6 channels. This allowed us to conclude that the channels in our antenna are not taken from the air, but are retransmitted by cable. Therefore, a search was carried out on the grid of terrestrial and cable channels, which made it possible to find 15 existing and 6 phantom channels.

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GoTView PCI 7135 TV tuner comes with new model remote control. Compared to the remote control supplied with the GoTView PCI and GoTView PCI 7134 TV tuners, the new remote control has a more thoughtful arrangement of buttons, as well as their increased number - 34 versus 30, which allows, for example, to control the deferred viewing function.

Remote control buttons can be programmed using the appropriate utility. In addition to working with the TV tuner itself, the remote supports a number of popular applications: Microsoft Media Player, Zoom Player, BSPlayer and WinAmp. In fact, you get remote control from the basic multimedia functions of your personal computer.

Conclusion

GoTView PCI 7135 TV tuner is a worthy representative of the line of internal TV tuners by GoTView... A well-designed board, the use of high-quality components, the use of the best RF-unit from Philips MK3 in conjunction with the SAA7135 chip allowed in the aggregate to obtain excellent image quality, sound and confident reception of radio stations. The rich functionality of the software shell, which provides advanced capture and deferred viewing capabilities, organically complements the well-developed hardware. We also note the channel preview function and the possibility of simultaneous operation of two TV tuners in one system, which makes it possible to implement the "Picture in Picture" function.