More About The AVerMedia M780, Continued
More About The AVerMedia M780, Continued
The other package for the M780 is called a Media Center Upgrade Kit. In addition to the aforementioned materials, it also includes a Microsoft MCE remote and IR receiver (with two IR blaster cables for set-top hook-ups), plus a driver CD. Note that AVerMedia never packages CDs in its white box products, but instead prints the URL for the Web site on the product boxes, where they can invariably be located and downloaded easily. Careful shopping around reveals that the kit comes as cheaply as £50.
The Media Center Edition Upgrade Kit version of the M780 includes a Microsoft-labeled Philips remote control and the Microsoft IR receiver (with 2 IR blaster cables).
Summary And Conclusions
If you’re in the market for a TV capture card, you’d be well-advised to put the AVerTV Combo PCI-E (M780) card on your list of candidates. It offers good NTSC handling, both OTA and from cable or satellite feeds, and good OTA ATSC handling for HDTV channels. Its noise reduction and clean-up capabilities are especially noteworthy, as are its tiny tuner capsules, reduced energy consumption and heat production, and offloading of codec processing from the CPU to the card. We also think it’s peachy that it creates a productive use for the PCIe x1 slots that go begging on too many motherboards.
Those who need a new MCE remote will find good prices available on the Media Center Upgrade Kit available for the M780. Those who don’t need a new remote can save ten bucks and buy the white box version instead. Either way, they’ll get a good deal on a capable, compact and reasonably powered dual tuner TV card.
While reviews of this card have been gleaming, I'm hesitant to purchase one because a key feature in TV tuner cards is not mentioned: Closed Captioning. Does this card support that feature or not? Unfortunately Avermedia does not provide a manual for this product on their web page... such a document might hold the answer. Since there is 1 hearing-impaired member of my household, this is some important information which determines which card/manufacturer that we'll go with.