Digital Trends

NVIDIA DualTV MCE

June 19th, 2006 | by Alan Dang

Installation and Setup

The NVIDIA DualTV MCE comes with virtually all the cables and accessories you might need. The box includes:

·         NVIDIA DualTV PCI analog tuner card

·         NVIDIA PureVideo Decoder software

·         Sonic MyDVD LE (convert home videos and photos to DVD)

·         S-Video cable

·         Composite to S-Video adapter

·         Composite video and stereo-audio RCA cable

·         Coaxial cable

·         Coaxial cable splitter

·         FM antenna

·         Quick Start Guide

The DualTV MCE was designed with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 in mind. This operating system is pre-installed on most new modern PCs. Installation is very straightforward. After shutting down the PC, you physically install the DualTV MCE board into a free PCI slot. When you restart your computer, Windows will let you know that it has detected new hardware and ask you what it should do next.

The trickiest part of the entire installation is knowing to press cancel at this point (something very clearly explained in the product Quick Start Guide). Instead, you insert the install CD and follow the on-screen instructions. This part of the procedure is foolproof with the only exception being that you need to remember that the letters in the serial number have to be capitalized.

Setup Screenshot

Setup Screenshot

Once you've finished installing this software, you can launch Windows Media Center and continue on with Microsoft's instructions. Here, the wizard will guide you setting up your computer to control a satellite box, choosing between cable TV and regular broadcast TV, as well as setting up the automatic download of the broadcast schedule in your area.  That's it. From start to finish, it shouldn't take you more than 30 minutes.

If you have a computer with the regular Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional, things do get a bit more complicated. While NVIDIA includes the MyDVD software needed to transfer your home videos to a DVD, NVIDIA does not include anything that will let you watch and record TV. You'll have to use "Yahoo! Go for TV" or "Orb Media" (both free) or "SnapStream Beyond TV" ($80). Of the three, I'd recommend Yahoo! Go for TV.  Some of the more advanced tuning options such as tuning the amount of noise reduction or picture mode will not be available with the regular Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional.