MCE TV Tuner Roundup: Featuring ATI's Theater 550 & NVIDIA's NVTV
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 12, 2005 6:26 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Platform
Not everyone is looking to build their own MCE box, and luckily, prices have come down tremendously on pre-built MCE machines. For this review, we had a chance to play around with WinBook's PowerSpec MCE 410 - a $999 MCE 2005 system (after $200 mail-in rebate).
The system is configured with a Pentium 4 530 (3.0GHz), 512MB of DDR400, ATI X300SE, a 160GB hard drive and a 16X dual layer burner, all on a FIC 915G motherboard.
The case of the MCE 410 is a little too shiny for our tastes, but still very subtle and it looks quite at home in your home theater. We would've preferred something with a matte finish or maybe even something with a silver/aluminum finish, but the MCE 410 is one of the nicer looking systems out there.
A jog dial controls the volume
Front mounted card reader...
...and front mounted USB/Firewire/audio ports
Because of the low profile, the MCE 410 can't really function as a gaming box - you can only install low profile graphics cards, which limits you to the X300 class of GPUs at this point. Thanks to a riser card, you can install two normal height PCI cards, but they can't be longer than about 6.5"; otherwise, they will interfere with the DVD drive.
Low profile X300
The performance of the Pentium 4 530 is more than acceptable for an MCE machine. The program guide is quite fast and responsive and we didn't have any hiccups during our use of the system.
Quite possibly one of the biggest attractions to the system is the fact that it relies on a single fan, the power supply fan, to cool the entire system (including the CPU). Because of this, the Samsung SpinPoint HDD is the loudest component in the system - which, for the most part, means it's pretty quiet and you get absolutely no fan noise.
Also priced at $999, WinBook offers a 30" LCD TV with a 1280 x 768 native resolution. WinBook sent us the display to try out with the system, and while we thought that the panel itself was decent, our biggest problem with it was its native resolution. At 1280 x 768, there's inherently a small amount of scaling for 720p content, which isn't desirable for the role of a LCD TV.
Now, you have an idea of our test platform. Although, a custom built MCE box would do just fine as well, so let's get to the contenders...
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
61 Comments
View All Comments
Denial - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
beyond - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
I'll admit I was very suprised to see the PVR150 Left off the comparo...Anyways, if anyone's interested htpcnews just posted a 550 review / comparo between it and the PVR150 a few minutes ago.
http://www.htpcnews.com/main.php?id=powercolor_t55...
vailr - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
Re:Quote: "what we wanted to see was a hardware MPEG-4 encoder from ATI and what we got instead was the promise of the best hardware MPEG-2 encoder ever".
How about the Plextor ConvertX PVR, External USB?
http://www.outpost.com/product/4279394?site=sr:SEA...
Would MCE recognize this as a compatable TV tuner?
Or, are only PCI slot tuner cards recognized?
ViRGE - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
I agree with the comments about the PVR150; it was a good review as far as methodology goes, but the lack of a PVR150 is a very big oversight that compromises the usefulness of the review. No one is going to be buying a 250 these days, they'll be after the 150.krose - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
The Hauppauge PVR250 is not equivalent to the PVR500, the PVR150 is. The 500 is the 150 with dual tuners. The PVR150MCE can be had as OEM for as little as $65. It should have been used in the review.krose - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
segagenesis - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
Having used Hauppauge TV cards since 1998 I would have to agree with some other comments here. The PVR-150 replaced the PVR-250 line, and its $99 retail using the newer conexant chip... so really reviewing the original PVR-250 (which is nearly 2 years old?) is obsolete. And yes, the PVR-500 is dual tuner going for about $150 retail. I would say the PVR-150 is a better deal even if its sans remote.One factor unmentioned is the PVR cards are fairly robust when it comes to support, they will work both in Windows (outside of MCE with other apps) AND Linux with MythTV using IVTV drivers. They dont come with remotes which is a nice gadget addon for the ATI card but you can always get one seperate for the Hauppauge one. Also if the color oversaturation is really that much of a problem on the PVR cant it just be turned down?
gbrux - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
My step by step to install the ATI HDTV Wonder in a new Windows XP Media Center Edtion 2005 box can be found in the Forums in the Operating Systems section.http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...
Fallen Kell - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
It is an intresting review and pretty good, but I had a few issues with it especially with the price given for the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250. I personally just bought the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-500MCE for $145 two weeks ago, so I know for a fact that the quoted price of $140-160 for the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 is well off spec of what it is really going for. Is this difference enough to change the recommendation, well I would say yes, since you get a dual tuner solution in a single card for the same cost as the ATI TV Wonder Elite, and you said it in your review that there was very little in turns of differences that you could notice other then some of the colors being slightly off. That issue is fixed by simply changing the settings on the card/decoder/encoder.Again, it was a great review, just simply has the wrong price data for certain cards. And you are correct the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-500MCE is simply two Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250's on the same card.
Traire - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
The Saphire Theatrix 550, which is identical to the ATi card only with a different remote, can be found for ~$75.