Simplifi Digital AV Expander Review
Simplifi Digital
recently released their line of AV
Expander Cards that will allow Media Center users to do basic input
switching without worrying about the 2-second delay that is common with TV
Tuners and Media Center. Media Center
requires TV Tuners that do hardware MPEG-2 encoding, which introduces a
2-second delay. This is a deal breaker
if you want to connect something like a video game console or other analog
devices.
Product Background
AV
Expander Cards fix all problems associated with Media Center and display of
legacy devices such as game consoles, VCRs, and camcorders. Simplifi Digital was nice enough to
send me a unit to review, and I’ve been playing around with connecting several
devices over the past few days. Among my
test devices are a Playstation 2, Xbox v1, VCR, and analog camcorder. Simplifi Digital has two versions of the AV
Expander, the AVEX-4W and AVEX-2B. The AVEX-4W
allows for up to four devices to be hooked up all at the same time, and the AVEX-2B
allows for two devices. Two free PCI
slots will be needed to use the four inputs, as a daughter board (AV header) is used.
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Setup and
Installation
Setup and installation is quite simple, and I was very
impressed with the included instruction manual.
Unlike other expansion cards that you buy now-a-days, Simplifi Digital
has included a great instruction manual that explains everything in very simple
English. While I’m making a big deal
about the manual, don’t think for a second that this card is difficult to
install and setup. I had the card
installed and devices hooked up in under five minutes, then I was ready to
launch Media Center and try it out.
Program and Settings
Open Media Center and under More Programs there was a new
entry “SimplifiDigital AV Expander”. The
AV Expander program was nicely laid out and simple to use and understand. It includes pre-named inputs such as S-Video,
VCR 1-4, Game Console 1-4, Composite Video 1-4, and Camera 1-4 which I selected
to match the devices connected. Quality
or Speed can be selected to optimize the interlaced to progressive conversion,
Speed is used for fast moving video (Ex. game consoles) and Speed can be used
for something like a security camera.
Dialog Alert was an unexpected feature to me, if checked it will alert
you when Media Center wants to display a dialog (Guide download, CD finished
burning, etc). Setup was simple and
quick overall.
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Video Quality
I tested video quality on several displays including a 27”
Toshiba SDTV, 37” Westinghouse LCD HDTV, and a 19” PC Monitor. I found the best video quality experience on
the SDTV, which fit my expectations. Both
on the PC Monitor and HDTV the output was jaggy when playing console games. In my option it was still very watchable/playable,
and didn’t cause too much of a distraction.
Using on a SDTV was preferred though, with the video nearly identical to
the output from the console hooked directly up to the SDTV. Running a VCR through the AV Expander was no
problem, and the VHS video looked as good as it can be for being a VHS
tape. The same holds true for an analog
camcorder. The only problem in terms of
video quality was the jaggies when playing a console game.
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Wants
Something I would like to see is the ability to manual
change the input naming. Instead of
“Game Console, I would rather type in “Xbox” or “Playstation”. Other than that, I didn’t run into too much
that I would change.
Future Outlook
I would like to see an AV Expander Card that supports
Component Input. The 32-bit PCI bus
can’t handle uncompressed HD video through component, and I know if Simplifi
Digital would be able to develop at card that could do accept component input
while keeping costs down. I think this
is defiantly something Simplifi Digital should look into, but there are technical
impactions in developing such a card.
Conclusion
The AV
Expander Card from Simplifi
Digital works great and does exactly what they advertise. In my opinion, every Media Center PC should include one of Simplifi Digital’s AV
Expander cards. Input switching has been
one of the most requested features for Windows XP Media Center Editions for
years, and this product delivers! If I
was an OEM/System Build, I would include the AV Expander Card as a standard
feature on every PC shipped. Please see AV
Expander Card Homepage for ordering details. The AVEX-4W
4-input AV Expander retails for $99.99. View my full AV Expander Image
Gallery.
Pros
It just works!
2-4 Inputs (1 S-Video, 1-3 Composite)
Allows for input switching, a commonly requested feature
Cons
So-so quality for console gaming
Only supports analog devices (S-Video/Composite)