AVerTV Duo Hybrid PCI-E Altoona PA

If you take a trip to AVerMedia's website, you'd be forgiven for thinking that you'd gone to the wrong place. The company's primary focus appears to be surveillance products, but dig a little deeper and you'll find its range of media PC-orientated products.

The AVerTV Duo Hybrid offers dual-hybrid analogue and digital TV tuners, plus FM radio - all in a half-height package. However, no bracket is included in the box for fitting it inside a low-profile chassis. There's an FM aerial for the radio, though, and an IR remote which is supposedly Windows MCE-compatible. However, it wouldn't work with Vista MCE.

The bundled AVer MediaCenter has large icons and can be controlled from a distance using the supplied IR remote. You can watch video recordings, listen to music and peruse digital photos, as well as browse for clips on any folder on your PC, though not across a network.

You can also schedule recordings using AVer MediaCenter. However, with no EPG available, start and finish times, programme names and channel settings must all be entered manually. In this respect, AVer MediaCenter is a poor alternative to MCE. Fortunately, the AVerTV Duo Hybrid works with Vista MCE, so you can use this instead. We had no problems setting it up as a dual-tuner device, and recording scheduled programmes using the MCE EPG while watching another channel.

Within AVer MediaCenter, TV programmes can be recorded in MPEG-2, MPEG-2 audio only, H.264 and iPod-compatible MPEG-4. A breakout cable is supplied, allowing you to record from external analogue video sources over S-Video, composite video and stereo RCA audio. It could therefore double up as the input device for analogue video, although no video editing software is included for this. Unlike the Hauppauge, the AVerMedia's FM radio function, which has the ability to schedule recordings, is included in the main app.

Although AVerMedia's own software will occasionally leave you tied to a keyboard and mouse, the hardware is very capable. As a basis for a media PC running MCE, it's a commendable choice, particularly as it costs just £65, although you'll need to supply your own MCE remote.

Author: James Morris

AVerMedia AVerTV Duo Hybrid PCI-E