The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group DVICO TVix David Hague editor@melbpc.org.au |
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No, not a new Star Wars character, DVICO TVix could just fix your digital TV storage and recording woes |
0ne thing that Microsoft introduced with Windows XP and supposedly finetuned
with Vista, was the Media Center. (yes I hate their spelling too!)
You'd have to say, for various reasons, that in Australia at least, it hasn't
been a spectacular success; I don't know anyone that actually uses Windows in
this way - at least not to its fullest potential.
One reason is the lack of a free EPG - Electronic Program Guide - in Australia.
ICE-TV is available - for
a fee - and they're still in business so I guess they're making a quid, but in
truth, until the free-to-air stations get their act together and have some sort
of co-sharing, to create a free Internet based EPG, systems like Media Center
will fail to generate much enthusiasm.
(An EPG allows you to record programs based on their transmission, not the
supposed starting time amongst other things).
An alternative that's worth checking out, and I have been playing with
for a few months, is the DVICO TVix
distributed in Australia by Melbourne based Lako Vision
http://www.lakopacific.com/. The TVix is
more correctly a PVR or Personal Video Recorder than a Media Center as such, but
in comparison to a standard say, DVD recorder or VCR, the TVix is on steroids!
For example, how many DVDR or VCRs do you know that can be connected via a LAN. Or have 2 USB ports. Or can be programmed from your PC (oh OK, or Mac). Additionally, the TVix can accept a digital TV signal — in high def if available, and can record these signals to inbuilt hard drive(s).
But let's step back a bit and have a deeper look and then let you know how it
works, and importantly, what I think.
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Design The design of the DVICO is a tad eyebrow raising; its cylindrical and about 9" high and 6" in circumference in the old money. In fact, my first thought was that because of the shape, the engineers had started out making a sexy and funky DVD recorder / player and changed their minds at the last minute. A digital panel at the "front" (assuming cylinders have a front) displays the current channel, date/time and other information dependent upon the mode you're in. On the "rear" is a panel containing all of the connectivity options for the TVix including S-Video, composite, YPbPr (component), USB (x2) a LAN port and a standard Belling Lee (coax) aerial connection. On the top of the unit - more on this in a second - is a set of push button controls that allow most functions to be activated, although in real terms, the remote unit is mandatory to get to the really clever options. As I said, the design is somewhat bizarre in its concept and layout. I really thought designers would have learnt something from the 70's with the cassette player and early VCRs; putting anything on the top reduces the capacity to "stack" items and thus reduce the footprint, and also means you can have shorter cables. The design of the TVix is certainly not conducive to the stacking option!ith a hard disk installed if you prefer. |
The standard Nix comes without an inbuilt hard disk. You supply your own in
whatever flavour and size you wish. I installed a 250GB Seagate and feel this
would be adequate for my usage. However, if you plan to use the TVix to its
fullest
capacity and install your entire music collection, all your photos, rip DVDs to
it and download / record video, then you may opt for something slightly larger.
A bonus of course
is that via one of the USB sockets, you can add external hard drives (which are
stackable) to increase capacity as you need it. You can even order a unit from
Lako w
Setting Up
One you're ready to initialise the system, it's connected to your PC via a USB
connector and manually you add some folders that have to be named appropriately
in order for the firmware to see them correctly; viz Audio, Photos and Music.
The TVix will automatically make another folder called DTV-REC and subfolders
relevant to the digital TV stations being recorded as needed.
One curious thing is that when the TVix is plugged into a PC via USB, it stops
"being" a super PVR and meekly surrenders to simply being an externally
connected hard drive. This means that in order to get the TVix to "super" mode,
you must unplug the USB cable again. I
would have thought the clever boffins that make these electronic whizzes would
have thought of a way around this so that you're not required to
be plugging and unplugging all the time if you for example, don't have a network
to connect the TVix to.
The LAN setup side is not exactly for the faint-hearted. Accepting that I have a
mixed LAN of XP, Mac and Vista machines, even so, it took a
couple of days before I was happy that the TVix was permanently connected. Now I
don't claim to be a network expert, but even
so, it shouldn't be this hard, and I don't believe the average person in the
street should need to have
to worry about IP addresses, FTP logins and passwords and the like for what in
effect, is designed to be a consumer item.
I accept this is first generation however, and hopefully subsequent hardware,
firmware and software will be more intelligent.
Pros and Cons
Once it works, the TVix is brilliant. Well almost. It does allow a lot more
flexibility than a DVD recorder - even a hard disk based one - with the
exception that there's no way I found of recording Foxtel for example. And you
may find as I
did, that you may need an amplifier on your aerial to pick up all the digital
channels, and even then
for me, Channel 10 is dodgy.
The response to the remote is not as quick as I'd like it, with up to 3 or 4
seconds pause in some cases before the TVix responds.
On the plus side, where the TVix shines - watching and recording digital hi-def
TV, playing back digital slides shows of stored photographs and of downloaded
and stored video - it does it very, very well. On mine, I now have all of the
major TV shows I would want to see over and over (clues: Jeremy Clarkson, The
TARDIS and Captain Jack Harkness) and still have bucketloads of space for my own
videos and photos.
I have it rigged through a three-way switch so at will I can flick between
free-to-air/Foxtel, digital TV and my Playstation 3 and then switched again
between my LCD TV and projector for big screen viewing.
Until our government gets its act into gear along with the TV stations with
hi-def, the true potential of the DVICO TVix can't be shown, but
as it is even now, accepting that it does have some drawbacks, I would still
recommend it, just with the caveat of having someone there who understands
networks when you set it up. At $699 plus a hard disk, it's not inexpensive (
250GB hard drive can be had for around $150+GST or less), but when compared to a
hard disk DVD recorder, it fares very well.
Three and a half stars (out
of 5) for me as David and
Margaret would say.
Reprinted from the January / February 2008 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
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