TV Takes On Text
A hot 3-D accelerator board and a TV tuner produce
the latest in graphics and video
Bruce Brown
Graphics Boards
At less than $330, the combination of STB's Velocity 3D graphics accelerator and the STB TV PCI tuner can turn
your PC into a media powerhouse by mixing Intercast data with the Web and television programming.
Based on S3's ViRGE VX graphics controller, the Velocity 3D board comes with 4MB of EDO VRAM. A
220-MHz RAMDAC supports vertical refresh rates of up to 160 Hz, and the board can handle resolutions of up to
1,600 by 1,200. The Velocity 3D supports 64-bit 2-D acceleration and 3-D rendering with Microsoft Windows 95
Direct3D drivers. Its 64-bit digital video engine can play full-screen MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video.
Tested in a Pentium/75 Gateway 2000 Family PC with 24MB of RAM, the Velocity 3D was an average performer.
The card's ZD Business Graphics WinMark 97 scores were 22 at 800-by-600 resolution with 256 colors and 22 at
800-by-600 resolution with 64,000 colors.
The $129 STB TV PCI tuner, based on the Brooktree 848 video and PCI controller, uses a Philips FR1236 TV
tuner and a Dolby stereo decoder. Its video-input sources include S-video, composite video, TV antenna, and cable.
The TV PCI worked well with the Velocity 3D board and other vendors' products that use Cirrus Logic 5446,
ViRGE, or ViRGE VX video chip sets, including those from ATI Technologies, Diamond Multimedia Systems,
and Matrox. We used the card's 122-channel tuner to watch TV and found that the pop-up on-screen remote control
gave access to a variety of video and audio recording features.
You can scale the TV image to any size from thumbnail to full-screen and change the window's position by
dragging it. Other features include closed captions and password-protected channel blocking. You can also view up
to nine channels as thumbnails; click on any thumbnail to expand it to a full-screen image.
The real step forward is the integration of the Intel Intercast Viewer. Intercast combines television programming
with Web-style pages that contain live URLs and such information as stock market prices; you can jump to any
URL just by clicking on it.
Intercast programming is available on some MTV, NBC, and QVC programs as well as CNN and CNN Headline
News. We were able to watch the news on CNN while scrolling through a news summary on the bottom of the
screen. When we found an interesting story, we clicked on the highlighted URL and pulled up the specified Web
site. STB's on-screen buttons for changing channels, adjusting volume, and capturing still screens made using
Intercast fun and easy.
The Velocity 3D, STB TV PCI, and Intercast are the terrific trio of the television world, bringing you video, TV,
and information on the small screen.
Velocity 3D. Street price: With 4MB EDO VRAM, $200. Requires: 4MB RAM, 5MB hard disk space, free PCI 2.0
slot, Microsoft Windows 3.1, Windows 95, or Windows NT. STB TV PCI. Street price: $130. Requires: 16MB
RAM, 25MB hard disk space, free PCI 2.0 slot, Microsoft Windows 95. STB Systems Inc., Richardson, TX;
888-234-8750; www.stb.com. ALL IN ONE: By using the Intercast system, you can combine the best aspects of
TV with the Web. A. The TV window is controlled by a series of buttons on the left. B. The information is
organized in a familiar file tree; main controls are on the top. C. Read updated news summaries while you watch
events take place. |
