Test of almost half a dozen tuner cards - in the spirit of DVB-T

Items Corporation, no matter how unknown the brand has been until now, is now in its second decade, with the establishment of a PC multimedia company in Taipei in 1998. Three products were received from them, of which only two are tested - because the model with model number ITV541 is only suitable for receiving analogue transmissions.

Items ITV540 Express Hybrid

The name of this test subject tells us almost everything important: it is a hybrid solution (again) - that is, it handles both analog and digital broadcasts and fits into an Express Card slot, which is why Items is specifically designed for portable machines.

According to the official website, the manufacturer offers us features such as an electronic program guide (EPG), customizable channel assignment, pre-programmable recording and support for a wide range of formats for recording (even still images).

In terms of connections, you can find the usual ones: antenna input and AV output. As for the accessories, we can't find any extras here either, maybe in addition to the DVB-T antenna, AV cable, coax converter and the small flat remote control, we can take the FM antenna, which we greeted as an old acquaintance, out of the line.

specifications:

• Connection: Express Card
• DVB-T MPEG-4: yes
• Analogue broadcasts: yes
• Radio: FM
• Connections: AV (composite with converter, S-video and stereo RCA audio) and antenna (coax)
• Accessories: antenna, remote control, AV cable, quick installation guide, CD
• Dimensions: 110,8 × 34,12 × 11,1 (mm)
• Weight: 28,4 g
• Supported operating systems: Windows XP (SP2) and Vista (including 64 bit)

Items ITV723 PenDrive Hybrid

The model number jumped more than 200 compared to the competitor in the previous show, so we can rightly think of something bigger. Well, this time our calculation doesn’t come in, as it’s a completely similar device to knowledge - but this time in the form of a flash drive-like structure. As a result, of course, we can talk about a USB 2.0 port, which means that we can connect it to many more computer-based devices.

Interestingly, the website only mentions MPEG-2 encoding on DVB-T, which would not be very winning for us, but to reassure us, our device box is already of a different opinion. It is particularly interesting that the manufacturer emphasizes that we can safely connect DVD video your player or console if you want to see their image on your PC monitor again (however, we warn everyone against this option).

The services (also) are practically the same as those listed above, so let's take a look at the "data sheet" of ITV723:

• Connection: USB 2.0
• DVB-T MPEG-4: yes
• Analogue broadcasts: yes
• Radio: FM
• Connections: AV (composite with converter, S-video and stereo RCA audio) and antenna (coax)
• Accessories: antenna, remote control, AV cable, quick installation guide, CD
• Dimensions: 89,96 × 25,96 × 16,57 (mm)
• Weight: 31,8 g
• Supported operating systems: Windows XP (SP2) and Vista

In terms of ingredients, we get practically the same as the ITV540 - with one exception: the small coaxial converter is not needed this time - unlike our previous two competitors - because while you can find a standard USB connector on one end of your flash drive, a full-size one coax antenna entrance greets us back.