AVerMedia Hybrid Volar HX

...title – I’ve got an AverMedia Volar HX, which is ‘digital only’, but will supposedly support HD broadcasts if anyone decides to offer them on terrestrial DVB in the United Kingdom.

Parking analogue capability to one side, bith units are essentially the same.

Given that the lights are already going out on analogue terrestrial broadcasting (in the Scottish Borders the service was turned off in 2008) that isn’t going to ...
...‘numbers’ are completely wrong – AverMedia gets this bit right!

After the initial setup, in use it’s simplicity itself to use.
Plug in the stick, pres the red button on the remote and up pops a window showing the last tuned station.

Press another button, and you get a full screen TV.
You get all the DVB channels, including telly and radio – sound quality is about as good as you’d get on a streaming service ... more

Imagine – turning your PC into a television – fantastic! – even better – it comes with a video recorder built in – even better!

OK – so TV cards have been around for a while now, and essentially there’s very little difference nowadays at a hardware level between the televisions and computers, but I for one am still impressed!

In the olden days (we’re talking five or six years ago) you needed to open your desktop system and fit an adapter card – not especially difficult, but still a bit of a pain.

Of course laptops didn’t have ISA or PCI slots, so you were kind of limited in using them on a static PC, unless you had a PCMCIA card, but as there were very few desktop machines which supported that interface, you had to decide at an early stage whether you opted for the ‘mobile’ or ‘static’ option.

Thankfully we now have the ubiquitous USB2 connection, it can support a sufficiently high data transfer rate to support full motion video, and is found on both laptops and desktop units.

Better still, the relentless progress of miniaturisation means you can get a full specification TV tuner built into a package no larger than a standard ‘memory stick’ so it’s feasible to carry it about in your pocket! (unfortunately it hasn't a 'hole' to mount on a key chain)

I have a slight confession to make, the actual item I’m reviewing isn’t exactly the same as the one described in the title – I’ve got an AverMedia Volar HX, which is ‘digital only’, but will supposedly support HD broadcasts if anyone decides to offer them on terrestrial DVB in the United Kingdom.

Parking analogue capability to one side, bith units are essentially the same.

Given that the lights are already going out on analogue terrestrial broadcasting (in the Scottish Borders the service was turned off in 2008) that isn’t going to be a tremendous issue in a few years time!

In terms of what's in the box – you get a USB stick, containing the gubbins, a remote control unit, an adapter cable to let you use a conventional terrestrial ariel, and a CD-rom.

Given the relatively low cost of ‘stick’ memory and the modest requirements, it’s a little disappointing that the drivers couldn’t have been ‘burned into’ the tuner firmware, but doubtless we’ll see a lot more of that in the future.

As with most multimedia devices, the recommendation is that you install the software on your system first, and the plug the kit in.

As long as you follow that simple instruction, everything should work OK.
I tried an installation on an elderly windows machine – running W/98se – and whilst it made a gallant attempt to unpack the application, it advised me it needed a ’32 bit operating system’ – strictly speaking I did, but it’s reasonable to assume a machine of this vintage didn’t have USB2.0 ports anyway so I was probably going to be out of luck anyway.

Plan B was to try it on XP and VISTA systems – and that resulted in absolutely flawless installations.

The software is relatively straightforward – install, plug in your tuner, connet an antenna, and you should be away.

One of the two tuners I own came with a little dipole ariel – you’re supposed to clip it onto the screen of your laptop, but save yourself the bother – unless you’re within direct ‘line of sight’ of the transmitter mast – forget it!

Realistically – you’re far better off using a patch lead onto a ‘proper’ rooftop job.
On first use, you should do a channel scan, it’ll pick up the various carriers, and decode the numerous multiplexes on each.

Better still, it’ll assign the conventional channel numbers to the stations 1=BBC1, 2=BBC2, 3=ITV and so on – don’t take this for granted, I bought a cheap DVB stick from china a couple of years ago, and whilst it gets all the stations, the ‘numbers’ are completely wrong – AverMedia gets this bit right!

After the initial setup, in use it’s simplicity itself to use.
Plug in the stick, pres the red button on the remote and up pops a window showing the last tuned station.

Press another button, and you get a full screen TV.
You get all the DVB channels, including telly and radio – sound quality is about as good as you’d get on a streaming service such as iPlayer however this leads us onto the next point of the discussion;

As many terrestrial stations offer free replay facilities, and broadband is relatively cheap - why bother with a DVB tuner at all?

Most obviously – you can get ‘live’ events of a TV tuner, and record it for posterity (as opposed to having to watch it within a week)

You also have a chance to pick record stuff from channels which wouldn’t normally be offered on replay (although why you might want to is anyone’s guess!)

The supplied software supports ‘Electronic Programme Guide’ – programming the video is no more than clicking on a box in a programme schedule.

The software supplied with my stick was only for Windows, although had provision for 32 and 64 bit versions, and worked flawlessly with my Vista Home installation.

I’m not sure if it would integrate with MediaCentre.

Neither the HD or hybrid versions have the ability to use ‘CAM’ modules so you’re restricted to ‘free to air’ services, given that this has never really taken off anyway, it’s hardly worth mentioning.

Just about the only criticism I could level at the device was that in a conventional desktop system, the ports tend to be round at the back of the machine, this would obscure the infrared sensor for the remote – I use a USB extension cable, but I had to supply it myself.

Cost is around £50-ish new – you can pick up second hand ones on Ebay for around half the price.

You *still* need a TV licence in the UK, but considering that you could save yourself the cost of a TV, hard disk recorder and/or digital radio, I still think it’s excellent value for money.

In theory you could use the unit ‘on the move’ but as I mentioned earlier – the ariel supplied was next to useless so it’s unrealistic to expect to be able to use it in the back seat of a car on long journeys.

In spite of these drawbacks, I’d still put the AverMedia device in the category of ‘most desirable example’ of the class.

The analogue Hybrid version offers additional functionality, but probably isn’t worth paying the premium for, unless you absolutely HAVE to have backwards compatibility with VCRs and so on.

Neither device has a ‘composite video’ or sound input, so you couldn’t use it to digitise tapes from an old camcorder, but that, as they say, is an entirely different story.

For the money – what you get is entirely remarkable, and I would have no hesitation in recommending this brand to anyone.

Plus points – works just like a Hard Disk recorder with full Freeview compatibility.
 

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