NVIDIA DualTV MCE June 19th, 2006 | by Alan Dang
Full Review - Weaknesses and Conclusion
One Weakness NVIDIA's DualTV MCE is one of the most sophisticated analog TV tuners for the Windows PC. Does it give you the best analog TV picture quality possible? Yes. Does it give you the best TV quality? Unfortunately, no. The one thing that's missing from the NVIDIA DualTV MCE is HDTV support. Even in the best case scenario where the DualTV MCE was able to resolve 100% of the data being broadcast, the limit of broadcast TV ends up being somewhere in the range of about 0.3 megapixels (give or take). On the other hand, the resolution of HDTV is either 0.9 megapixels (FOX, ABC) or 2.1 megapixels (CBS, NBC, WB, UPN, PBS). Even though most TV shows are standard definition, the majority of prime-time broadcast TV shows are available in HDTV. So, if you were interested in watching shows like CSI, Monday Night Football, Without a Trace, Grey's Anatomy, Lost, NCIS, American Idol, Law and Order, How I Met Your Mother, or basically anything on CBS, NBC, ABC, or FOX that's shown during prime time, and isn't a reality show, game show, or news magazine, you'll want a HDTV tuner to get the best possible image quality. Conclusion At $169 for the basic product and $219 for the version with the remote control, the NVIDIA DualTV MCE is a sizeable investment. On the one hand, the NVIDIA DualTV MCE is the best analog TV tuner for transforming your PC into a PVR. You won't find better image quality anywhere else, and for the amount of technology that's present in the DualTV MCE, it's a good value. On the other hand, if you usually watch broadcast prime-time TV shows and are in a neighborhood where HDTV broadcasts are available, it makes more sense to go with a HDTV Tuner. These start at about only $120 or so, and while you'll need two of these HDTV tuners to do the same thing that the NVIDIA DualTV MCE does, you'll be much happier in the long run. 7/10 Pros: · Dual Tuners · Great Image Quality · Easy to Use. Cons:
by Dean on November 8, 2009:
“Been running this card for 10 months now and the picture quality certainly is superb! The install was easy and now I understand that with a new driver you can install 2 of these cards in the same pc whereas before you could only use one. Check with snapstream...” More...