Watch TV as you work on your PC, but don't get carried away

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): As there has never been a dull moment in this country, wouldn't it be nice if we could follow the latest news on TV without having to leave our PC?

Well, that's not difficult to do. Quite a few stores at Computer City in Glodok Plaza can show you TV tuner cards for installation on your PC.

They will instantly add TV functionality to it. Prices are not so bad, either. They vary based on sophistication: Do you want a remote control? Video capture capability?

In general, Rp 400.000 will give you a decent TV tuner, although for a little bit more money you can buy a 14" TV set.

Anyway, courtesy of Siemens Nixdorf Information System (SNI), I was able to play around with a TV tuner device and see for myself how good a TV on PC could be.

This TV tuner was actually one of the features in SCENIC multimedia expansion system designed by SNI's Multimedia Group.

This German-made multimedia expansion system had been stowed for several months in the corner of my study, waiting for me to get the right PC to explore it with.

It works with the SCENIC PCs from SNI, of course, but it will also work with other PCs provided a certain requirement is met.

The center of SNI's multimedia extension system is a full length, full size PCI card named Multimedia eXtension Board (MXB).

The MXB didn't fit any of my own PCs because of its full size. The card has the same depth from the rear to the front, therefore it requires a motherboard that has virtually nothing on its surface, at least next to one of its PCI slots.

Needless to say, such a motherboard is not easy to find. Normally, motherboards are populated by chips, connectors, ICs and other modules that you simply cannot fix a full size expansion card on them.

Luckily, at last I found the right match for this card, a new Brio from HP. The reason Brio is perfect for the MXB is that this PC uses a riser card to accommodate all its expansion cards.

Installing

A riser card is usually found in PCs with slim casing; the individual cards are not attached to the motherboard but to the riser card. This will then be inserted in a slot on the motherboard.

The requirement for MXB is that either your motherboard has enough space for it or uses a riser card.

Needless to say, with the riser card, installing MXB was a snap.

However, installing the software turned out to be a slightly different affair. I installed the software driver that came in the package and started SNI's MXB Video, but the program refused to load.

After hours of changing IRQs and memory addresses, it still didn't work. I read the manual once again and I found out that MXB required a graphics card with at least 2 MB of RAM. So much for not reading the manual thoroughly before I started.

The Brio came with only one MB installed. The next day I ran over to Glodok to buy more RAM for Brio's graphics subsystem.

Still, the system didn't want to load after I installed the additional video memory. I installed the software once again, hoping that this time everything would work.

Still there was no luck. I kept tweaking the IRQ and memory addresses of the driver, and I still couldn't get it to work.

Then I downloaded the latest version of the drivers from SNI's Web site (how I thanked the Internet for this). I erased the old files from the hard disk and installed the new ones, but it still refused to work. As it was already very late, I just went to sleep.

The next morning, after a little more tweaking with not much hope, I suddenly had the MXB Video window on the screen and the system didn't crash.

There was some video noise inside the window, a sign that the system was functioning. Elated, I ran the automatic station search and, voila!, I had RCTI. Perfect!

Features

The MXB can be combined with a special digital sound processor (DSP) called Sound Arena. This module would enhance the sound reproduction by adding echoes and sound delays.

You could use one of the presets to simulate the sound effect of a room or a hall. There is also an 8-band parametric equalizer if you prefer manual settings.

Frankly, the picture quality is finer than I had expected.

It can be displayed at a high resolution of 1024 x 768. To ensure optimum off-the-air signal pickup, I used an active antenna from DX Antenna, Japan, which I had bought earlier.

It is a very powerful portable antenna that people usually buy for their car TVs. With this antenna, I was able to get perfect reception.

As you can see in the accompanying picture, I change the station by choosing from the drop down list found in the toolbar.

Changing stations automatically mutes the sound card, however, so each time I have to go to the sound card's mixer to cancel the mute. I could also adjust the brightness and colors of the TV display.

The MXB can also be used in conjunction with an MPEG card, also made by SNI. Unfortunately, as the audio and video cable connecting this card with the MXB was missing, I wasn't able to test this module.

MXB has a slew of other options, too. You could order a front panel connector set so that you won't have to go to the back of the CPU to find the right cables for your video camera.

You can even buy an optional remote control that will allow you to change TV programs, control the playback of audio CD, and set the volume level.

Connecting the MXB to the sound card is easy. SNI supplies a cable that connects it to the audio CD port of the sound card.

There is also another cable that connects the card to the audio-out port of the CD-ROM drive. It's simple, but it does require some patience to set it up correctly.

Final word

The MXB will give you endless hours of TV news and entertainment. The display is superb, and the sound is good.

Installing it may not be for the faint of heart, though. I literally spent hours trying to make it work. Once it worked, however, it continued to work fine and it has never failed to do so.

This system has more capabilities than just showing TV broadcasts. It also allows us to capture video.

A camera can be directly connected to the MXB via an S-VHS connector and the captured video can be stored on the hard disk.

Theoretically, it can also be used for video conferencing, although I still have to test it.

The MXB can also output audio and video signals to a TV, VCR or video camera. In short, it is a full-featured multimedia extension device, and it is an excellent one. Just remember, don't get stuck with those James Bond movies on RCTI if you still have a deadline to meet, though.