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Hercules SmartTV


Date
: 01/30/03 – 12:41:14 AM

Author
:

Category
: Misc

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer: Hercules
Price: around $55

Introduction

High-tech gadgets become more and more popular every day. And because they are produced and sold more often, the prices of these products go down very rapidly. We could call a TV card a very good example of such gadgets. But it's also safe to say that they have become more mainstream the past few years. A lot of video cards even have a built-in video-in decoder that enables you to watch TV from an external source like a VCR or a camcorder. But all of these VIVO video cards have one huge thing in common : They can't decode a cable signal by themselves!

TV capture cards have been designed to do just that. They can be divided into 2 groups : internal devices like PCI add-on cards (no more ISA these days) and external products like USB TV capture boxes.

The subject of today's review here at Overclockers Online comes right out of the first group, the internal devices. We present you the SmartTV add-on TV capture card from Hercules, a well known and respected video card manufacturer. Let's have a look at their first attempt at creating a cheap but exciting PCI card that allows us to have some fun with our cable TV channels …

Page 2 : Specifications

Specifications

To begin the usual chat about the specifications, let's have a small copy/paste with the very little information we found about this TV card on the Hercules website :

TV TUNER CARD

- High Quality image
- Automatic channel search
- User-friendly interface (Cyberlink Power VCR II 3.0)
- Multiple channel preview
- Capture still images from your favorite TV programs. Print and display those shots on your PC.
- Available in PAL, NTSC and SECAM standards
- BT 878 chipset

DIGITAL VCR / TIME-SHIFTING RECORDING AND PLAY-BACK

- Time shifting recording and play-back: record programs and play them while still recording.
- Record your favorite programs in MPEG 1 and MPEG-2. Capture more video using the same amount of disk space.
- Scheduled and live recordings

VIDEO EDITING

- Edit your recordings; remove commercials from your movies

VIDEO CAPTURE

- Composite analog VIDEO-IN for connecting camcorders, VCRs
- S-VIDEO-IN
- Easy video capture from U/I.

TELETEXT INFO

- Receive TELETEXT information: weather reports, the news, TV program listings, stock exchange and sport results

GET INTERNET TV PROGRAM GUIDE

- Access TV programs via the Internet
- Get more info about the shows to come.

CYBERLINK POWER VCR II 3.0

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

- Pentium II 450 (PIII 650 for MPEG-2 recording) & higher or compatible, 1 empty PCI slot, 1 sound board,
- Win 98,Win 2000,Win ME,Win XP,Win 98SE,

A Closer Look At The Specifications

According to Hercules, the Smart TV is the most comprehensive TV Tuner Card available on the market. Well, let's first open up the package to see what's inside. Here's the list :

- the PCI capture card
- a hardware & software installation guide
- an external sound cable
- a CDROM including Cyberlink PowerVCR II software (with license)

First of all, I want to try to explain the basic layout of every single TV card on the market today. All TV cards consist out of 2 major parts : a TV-Tuner and the A/D converter chip. The tuner unit analyzes the incoming signal and decodes the television signal. This signal is then passed on to the second part of the card which is called the Analogue-to-Digital converter chip. The A/D chip handles the conversion from the analogue television signal it got from the tuner into digital data. Your favorite channel can now travel throughout the entire system …

The SmartTV, like most add-on TV cards, comes with an A/D converter chip from Conexant/Brooktree (BT). Currently, the BT878A chips which can also be found on this Hercules card are very popular. That's just about all there is to say about the basic PCB layout.

On the backplate, we can see a wide range of connectors for both audio and video. From right to left, we see the Audio In, Video In and S-Video In connectors to hook up a VCR, analog camcorder, satellite decoder or DVD player. On the left of the S-Video In is the Audio Out connector. By using an external cable (supplied in the package), this connection is used to transport the TV audio signal to the Line In of your soundcard. And last but not least, we have the Antenna connector right next to the Audio Out. Just use this to power the card with the analog TV signal. Please note that we do not use the REMOTE connection on the far left side of the backplate because that remote control is optional in a more expensive package.

As far as features are concerned, the Hercules SmartTV card is available in PAL, NTSC and SECAM standards. It comes with the usual pack of connections on the backpanel (discussed in the previous paragraph) and recording software supporting Time-shifting, MPEG1/2, multiple screen preview and Teletext. You might ask : What in the world do they mean by "Time-Shifting"? Well, the story behind it is pretty short. TS allows you to record TV programs and play or pause them while they're still being recorded.

Too bad the cheaper version does not support stereo sound :(

Now that you know all about the SmartTV card, I believe it's time to put the card to the test! Head on to the next page and find out more …

Page 3 : Testing

Testing

Test System :

- ABIT IT7-MAX motherboard
- Intel Pentium4 1.6A @ 2.88GHz CPU (1.7V)
- 512MB Samsung DDR PC2700 memory
- Chaintech Xabre 400 video card
- Hercules SmartTV capture card
- 2 x Maxtor 60GB 7200RPM hard disk
- Windows XP Professional + latest drivers

INSTALLATION

It's very easy to put the SmartTV PCI card in your system. All you need to do is open up the sidepanel of your case, locate a free PCI slot on your motherboard and plug the TV card in. That's all you have to do on the inside of the case. On the outside, you still have to make the external audio connection between the TV card and the soundcard. Now connect the TV signal cable and you're set to begin the software installation. Boot up the system and point the OS to the location of the driverCD. Then you can finalize the installation process by installing Cyberlink's PowerVCR II and the Teletext software.

TESTING

The best way to test a piece of hardware such as this TV card, is to use it in real life circumstances. And that's what we did!

As you can see on the pictures, the SmartTV card produces a crystal clear image quality. The quality of the image is superior compared to an average TV set. And because many of today's monitors easily support refresh rates of 85Hz or more, a monitor is much more relaxing to look at! The PowerVCR and Teletext software operates well within expectations. Capturing and replay of captured data as well as using the Teletext application requires no extra skills with PowerVCR II.

I believe the snapshots are self-explaining ;)

If you don't like the software which is supplied in the package, you can always grab some sweet shareware or freeware on the web. This is possible because the card uses the BT878 WDM drivers. These are accessible by most 3rd party software. I myself am using VirtualDub and the Divx5 or XViD codec to compress the data.

Page 4 : Conclusion

Conclusion

Good

- BT878 A/D chip
- excellent image quality
- 3rd party software compatible
- good price/performance ratio

Bad

- no stereo sound
- no remote control
- no internal sound connector (not really a bad thing)

Hercules has put the necessary time and effort into the design of this TV capture card. Apart from the lack of stereo sound and a remote control, the SmartTV we reviewed today has just about everything a TV card should and could have. The price tag is decent and the features and easy-to-use software justify that price. The card performs exactly as we expected. Therefore I could recommend this add-on TV capture card to anyone looking for a basic, but fine device to watch TV on a PC monitor.