Now for the video in tests, this test is a standard one that I have been using for awhile, with the video being output by a Matrox Parhelia.  The video is a short scene from the claymation movie Chicken Run, with both text and rich video colors.  So lets see the results with some cards that we have tested.

Reference Image
MSI GeForce 4MX Test Image	MSI GeForce FX Test Image
ATi AiW 9000 Pro Test Image	Compro VideoMate TV Ultra Test Image

   The images of the cards are quite a bit different.  The test image on the TV Ultra is fairly smooth, close to that of the GF4MX but staying closer to the actual test image which has no anti-aliasing occuring.  The best card for displaying text on this test is the ATi AiW 9000 Pro with its clear lettering.  As for the image itself, the TV Ultra seemed to have a problem displaying it properly as with every change the image still produced artifacts which none of the other cards did.  The image itself seems a little blurry and washed out as can be seen in the upper right portion of the image.  Overall for inputting through SVHS the VideoMate TV Ultra is not as good as you would expect, as the text is okay but slightly fuzzy and the image has artifacts and is also somewhat washed out.

FM Audio Testing

    Radio is not something that we would normally associate with computers, but as we have mentioned more and more TV tuners are including a FM radio receiver mostly for the convergence of the two machines into one home multimedia machine.  We tested the quality of the FM radio captured with the VideoMate Ultra to a standard FM receiver/amplifier, the RCA 2250 receiver.  Both used the integrated audio of our nForce 2 Ultra based A7N8X-E motherboard, the VideoMate using the internal cable to connect to Aux, while the RCA connected to the line in port by means of a stereo RCA cable to a 1/8"splitter.

    The sound quality was slightly different as the RCA receiver had a much clearer sound without any of the cracking that the VideoMate had.  Your results may vary depending on your house but the VideoMate antenna was in the place with the best sound quality it could.

Conclusion

    Having looked at the features of this card both theoretically and in real life, what can we say about this card?

    First the packaging of this card is basic, almost minimalist, but in this case that's a good thing as it understates the potential of this card.  This card is full of extras, from the IR remote to the Ulead package of software.  While these aren't the top of the line extras, as I would have preferred a radio based remote and/or higher end versions of the software, for what you pay for its very good.  The inclusion of a FM tuner is very nice as well as the little things such as batteries, and the extension cable for using the auto power on mode for recording.  The PVR software has one glaring fault to it, it only encodes to MPEG-1/2 not any AVI based CODEC's without the use of a third party program.

    As for actual quality the card impressed me in some ways.  It has very nice image quality through the TV tuner, easily that little bit better than the AiW 9000Pro which was already a very high quality tuner.  FM radio quality was good but was hard to get a lock on a clean sound and keep it from breaking up.  As for the video in portion this was somewhat of a let down after seeing the quality of the tuner as it was fuzzy, slightly washed out and had artifacts while recording.  And the standard note for most video capture cards, you may have to contend with Macrovision protection depending on the video you are using.

    Price is always an issue as with anything you are looking at, as you don't want to spend too much on a product that is merely good.  The price seems to be around the $120-130 US mark which is only about $40-50 less than the AiW 9000 Pro, and about $40-50 more than its sibling the TV Gold Plus.  If you feel that the 3D filtering and associated quality improvements, such as seen on higher end TV's, is worth the extra cost then its a very good card.

Good

• High quality video
• Very good software bundle
• Remote
• FM Tuner
• 3D filtering

Bad

• Slightly expensive
• Hard to get a good FM signal
• IR remote, not radio based
• Included TV viewing programs only encodes in MPEG-1/2
• Poor quality captured video through SVHS port

Bottom Line

    This card has a lot going for it, especially the high quality of the TV tuner, as well as the included extras.  However a few small things such as: price, SVHS capturing quality issues, and FM radio quality problems hold this back from our recommended award.

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