The TV tuner Asus are using on this product is made by Phillips, when I tell you that Phillips TV tuners are also used in the Radeon All-In-Wonder range you should appreciate that they make high quality components and you won’t be disappointed by the features on offer or the quality of the TV picture.

Connection to the tuner is provided via the standard signal in socket which is featured on most stand alone TV cards, PAL and NTSC are supported on our model and Asus provide a converter for standard aerial plugs should the default connector not match your input source. You can see the input on this picture, the right most connector…

TV outputs, in fact outputs in general are added via a PCI bracket. This is pictured below and features a range of inputs/outputs (including S-Video and Composite) which should meet all of your needs.

Finally on the hardware front, as this is an Asus product, the bundle that comes with your board is plentiful. Additional fire wire ports and IDE/SATA cables are all included with no noticeable omissions.

Finally, here is a shot of the board beside the ATI reference design Radeon Xpress Intel board for comparison.

Software
Obviously the main software provided for use with the system is your multimedia suite. Continuing their trend of previous products Asus are again using Intervideo products and the P5RD1-V comes bundled with Intervideo Home Theatre. As far as multimedia suites go Home Theatre is quite similar in design to other similar applications and is very easy to set up. Just answer a few simple questions like recording quality, signal input etc and the software sets up your system. The whole process takes about 3-4minutes and is idiot proof.

From then on you control the features from the following main menu…all very simple.

Also included in your bundle is the standard Asus software suite including Asus Probe for monitoring the various aspects of your system such as voltages and temperatures. Asus Update for ensuring your system has the latest BIOS etc and AI Booster to assist you in fine tuning performance from within Windows.

Also included with your bundle will be Acrobat reader and Norton Internet Security 2005, a couple of useful apps to have.

Next: Continued