Avermedia AVerTV Hybrid+FM Cardbus review

In What's New, December 2005 we looked at two USB TV receivers that were ideal for notebook use. For those short on USB2 ports, though, there is an alternative: Avermedia's PC Card TV tuner, which supports analogue and digital broadcasts.

Installation was simply a question of slotting the card into the spare PC Card slot on the side of our notebook. Owners of older notebooks may already be using this slot for a wireless networking card, in which case a USB device would be a better choice. We then ran the setup disc, which installed the drivers and software without a hitch. Upon launching the application for the first time, we were shown the channel scan tool, which promptly found all the expected channels.

The digital channels were not arranged in the order you'd receive from a digital set-top box - BBC1, BBC2, ITV, C4 and so on - but fortunately you can reorder them as well as remove channels you don't watch. Analogue channels work similarly but you have to name them yourself.

Picture quality was good. Digital broadcasts were clear and suffered from no decompression artefacts, although there was a bit of general noise in the picture that was probably created during the upscaling process. Analogue pictures were excellent by our aerial's standards, with only a little ghosting.

Avermedia's software isn't the best available but it functions well enough. The basic interface works well in either a windowed or full-screen mode. The timeshift function is well implemented, with a convenient bar to show the current time delay. The EPG is poor, however. It gathers schedules only from channels you've watched, and you can view just one channel at a time. This obviously impacts on your ability to set up recordings.

We've seen Avermedia's excellent remote before. It is well laid out and the buttons are clearly marked. Here it works brilliantly with the PC Card, which was able to detect the IR remote from what seemed like any angle and is a big improvement on many USB products we've seen. Unusually it was able to power on and off the notebook itself.

As this is a hybrid device there are plenty of inputs available. As well as the RF input for digital and analogue broadcasts, composite, S-video and phono inputs are available through a dongle. You can switch easily between the various inputs in the software. This is great when you're on the move and want to check whether analogue or digital reception is better.

With its reasonable price, flexibility and great remote control, this card gets our recommendation. If you want to add TV to your notebook using the PC Card slot, this is the product for you.

Author: Seth Barton