Here is the offering from RTV, which is
by far, the biggest unit of the three. Like the others, it’s
also designed to be used with a laptop or desktop although
it would be quite bulky to carry along in your laptop bag,
the unit does feel more comfortable sitting on your desk.
The unit is about the size of a router,
and can be mounted either horizontal or vertically thanks to
the included stand. The remote, unlike the others, is of
normal size and feels pretty solid.
Here is what’s included:
Multimedia unit
12V DC adapter
VGA cable
Audio cable
Remote control with batteries
User manual
Minimum requirements:
USB 2.0 port
1.2 GHz or higher CPU
Overlay supported VGA
128 MB RAM
Sound card
Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP
Impressions
Installation of this tuner was straight
forward, with no problems occurring. There are a few more
wires and cables to connect, but it shouldn’t make the
average user to squeamish. Some connections include an
external power supply, video in/out (from your monitor),
audio cable, and USB 2. Unlike previous units, the VEG
functions with your computer on or off hence a major plus is
that the device does not require software to run in the
background if you choose not utilize the PVR capabilities. I
am paranoid when it comes to this, so for me, it’s a major
plus.
The RTV-N (which is what we tested) is
one of three models offered from RTV, and runs a hefty
$149. One thing that separates the RTV unit from the other
units in our comparison is its enhanced resolution, enabling
the tuner to display television programs or console games at
1024X768 resolution.
Depending on your needs, there is also a
Lite version of the VEG which sells for about $59 and does
not have a television tuner but still employees enhanced
resolution technology. Also available is the original RTV
tuner, which runs for about $100 but does not have enhanced
resolution.
The RTV-N comes with Cyberlink PowerVCR
II 3.0 which unfortunately gave me nothing but problems to
install, so for me it’s definitely the worst of the bunch:
During
installation, the Cyberlink suite requires the use of Indeo
codec. Unfortunately, Microsoft no longer supports Indeo,
and problems arise when trying to use them. I run Windows XP
SP2 and the machine froze up during install of the Indeo
codec. I downloaded an updated version and it still did not
install. I finally fixed this by disabling browser plug-ins.
At this point, I was lead to believe that my efforts would
have been rewarded. Upon initial startup, I received a
Windows Error. I tried for about 5 hours to resolve this
issue, yet it still did not work. I managed to install the
software suite on my laptop, but unfortunately my laptop
does not support USB 2.0. I reformatted my test machine with
a clean installation of Windows XP, and the suite still gave
me an error, and would not work. My only possible
explanation is a hardware compatibility issue, but your
guess is as good as mine. It’s certainly not something I
would expect from a $150 product.
