AccessDTV Digital Media Receiver review: AccessDTV Digital Media Receiver

AccessDTV chose the perfect moment to release its Digital Media Receiver, a PCI expansion card that turns a Windows PC into a high-definition-TV decoder. With it, you can watch ordinary or digital HDTV either on your computer monitor or a separate HD-ready TV. Better still, you can record digital broadcasts onto your PC's hard drive. While there's no shortage of HDTV set-top decoders, there are currently no consumer HD VCRs on the market. So if you're anxious to record HDTV, AccessDTV may offer just what you've been waiting for. AccessDTV chose the perfect moment to release its Digital Media Receiver, a PCI expansion card that turns a Windows PC into a high-definition-TV decoder. With it, you can watch ordinary or digital HDTV either on your computer monitor or a separate HD-ready TV. Better still, you can record digital broadcasts onto your PC's hard drive. While there's no shortage of HDTV set-top decoders, there are currently no consumer HD VCRs on the market. So if you're anxious to record HDTV, AccessDTV may offer just what you've been waiting for.

Two ways to watch
Our review unit contained the AccessDTV card, an installation CD-ROM with drivers and software (plus the entire manual as HTML files), and cable to connect your current graphics card into the Digital Media Receiver card. If you want to watch digital TV (or regular analog or cable broadcasts) on your PC monitor, you connect your graphics card to the AccessDTV card using the cable, then connect the Digital Media Receiver card to your monitor. We chose not to use the cable and instead hooked up a Princeton Graphics AF3.0HD HDTV monitor for dual-mode viewing.

The AccessDTV card offers a true plug-and-play installation and requires only a 350MHz Pentium II PC running Windows 98 SE, 2000, or Me. Anyone who knows what an empty PCI slot looks like should be able to install the card using the brief quick-start manual. We opened the case of our Pentium III 866MHz Windows 98 SE PC and inserted the card in an available PCI slot. When we restarted the computer, we were prompted to insert the CD-ROM, and the necessary drivers were installed. We also had to make a change to the settings on our PC's hard drive to keep it from crashing while recording DTV programs. It was tricky finding the necessary information on the CD-ROM manual (there is no printed manual and the CD-ROM's menus aren't perfectly organized). A call to AccessDTV revealed that the installation guide is being edited to provide more accurate information.

After installing everything, we rebooted the computer and launched the AccessDTV icon. This brought up a 16x9 video window and an interface that looks like a remote control, which you operate with a mouse or keyboard shortcuts. The Setup button on the virtual remote gives you access to a wide range of settings. You can choose either RGB or Y, Pr, Pb video output from the card's standard VGA connector, as well as select between 480p, 720p, and 1,080i output resolutions.

Selecting a particular channel number on the remote brought up either an analog or a digital TV broadcast in the video window and on our second monitor. Unfortunately, unlike the Hauppauge WinTV-HD card, you cannot click sequentially through all the channels; you must switch between analog and digital channel sets. You'll also have to stay close to the computer to change channels, because there's no remote control other than the PC-based virtual one. AccessDTV told us that some of their customers have set up remote control systems for the card and its software, but the company doesn't provide any help or information about how to rig such a system.

Digital and analog audio can be played through your PC's sound card or out the digital coaxial cable connection on the AccessDTV card to a home-theater receiver. We highly recommend using the coaxial connection for watching DTV programs, which are encoded with Dolby Digital audio. Some movies and prime-time shows on ABC and PBS carry Dolby 5.1 surround audio tracks, and these are a real treat for the ear.

High-definition video recorder
The real reason to consider this card rather than a standalone HDTV decoder set-top box is its ability to record digital TV programs on the PC's hard drive, much like a digital video recorder with the TiVo service. You cannot, however, record analog or cable shows. AccessDTV offers subscriptions to a detailed, easy-to-read program guide, which provides a complete listing of all the TV programs you can receive--analog, cable, and digital--and is customized by zip code. The guide is free for the first month, after which AccessDTV charges $10 per month for it. Selecting a program for recording was as easy as selecting the show from the guide and clicking Record. Recording DTV requires about 9GB of disk space for each hour of recording. The resulting file is encrypted and can be played back with only the same Digital Media Receiver card; this is an attempt to limit the card's piracy potential and, therefore, avoid the legal wrath of the Motion Picture Association of America.

The AccessDTV Digital Media Card is quite a bit better than the comparable WinTV-HD card from Hauppauge--if for no other reason than its digital video recorder features. With a list price of $380 (plus the monthly subscription fee for the program guide), this card isn't a bad value. For another $20, AccessDTV throws in an Antiference Silver Sensor indoor UHF antenna, which worked moderately well in our test location. With no HD VCRs on the market right now, this card is a good choice for those people who need to record HDTV now and aren't afraid of a few technical hurdles and ease-of-use flaws. But it's too awkward for those folks who aren't dying to record HDTV.