3dfx Voodoo 3500 TV FM

The Voodoo TV FM is 3dfx's first foray into the multimedia arena. The name says it all; the TV FM is a digital tuner that provides both TV and FM radio reception with some nifty software that allows you to channel surf and record both video and audio to disk. It will also block access to stuff you don't want your kids to see.

The TV FM is a PCI card, and unlike the ATi All-in-Wonder, doesn't replace your existing graphics adaptor, but just adds the TV and radio functions.

It's fairly easy to install and you only need to connect the stereo audio output to an input on your sound card with the supplied cable, and connect the IR receiver for the remote control unit.

With the drivers and Visual Reality software installed, the first job is to tune in the channels. There's an autoscan function that does this for you, in our case without much success. You can scan for broadcast channels with an aerial connected to the RF socket or for cable TV with a set-top box. Initially, we had little success with either.

Scanning for broadcast channels with a portable aerial we just about picked up Channel 4, but despite much tweaking were unable to improve on a very noisy image. We also managed to pick up BBC2 for a few seconds. Reception on a conventional TV using the same aerial in the same position was, while not perfect, very watchable. With the cable set-top box we had no luck at all.

What could be causing such lousy reception? Surely the Microtune MT2032 tuner chip couldn't be that poor. It wasn't. The cause of the problem was that the default video standard configuration was NTSC. You set this from the tabbed properties panel that appears when you press the menu button on the remote. A pull-down menu provides country options and the appropriate video standard is then configured when you restart.

The next problem was that the UK did not appear on the list, although everything from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe did. After changing the setting to Belgium, on the basis that this country might use PAL, the reception was a little better. By now, though, the UK had miraculously appeared on the list.

With the correct video standard selected, reception improved considerably, and with the cable set-top box we also managed to get a decent picture.

You can select the input source, assign channels to preset buttons, switch channels, zoom in on selected areas of the image, surf and capture stills and video from the confusingly named 'remote' control which, being an on-screen interface, is nothing of the sort.

Aside from switching channels none of this works very well. For example, the source buttons glow when you move the mouse pointer over them, but don't stay lit once selected, so you have no way of knowing whether you're watching the TV tuner, a VCR or a console connected to the composite socket. There's also a separate physical remote control, which you can use to switch channels or change the source.

The channel you are watching is momentarily displayed when you press the display button, but this would be much better permanently displayed on the remote. When you press the surf button, active channels are displayed in the main viewing window, so whatever you were watching disappears.

It would be better if you could surf in a separate window and still keep an eye on the main event. There's possibly a full-screen mode accessed by double clicking the title bar, but on our test machine this only produced a blank screen from which it was only possible to recover using the hardware reset switch.

Channel management, channel blocking, and timed recording are all set from a tabbed properties panel which isn't a particularly user friendly setup. For timed recording, something more accessible than a dialog box with fields for start and stop times would be preferable.

Video can be captured and saved in either uncompressed avi or MPEG-1 formats. There are four size options from the miniscule 192 x 144 to a respectable 768 x 576 at 25fps. Like the TV image, though, viewing MPEG-1 video at the larger sizes isn't what you'd call a visually rich experience.

As well as the FM tuner, there's Cebra Teletext, a choice of substitute skins for the on-screen controller, Ulead Video Studio 4 and Microsoft NetMeeting 3.

If you're looking for big-screen entertainment the Voodoo TV FM is not the place to tune in. For quarter, or half-sized TV in a window while you work it does the job. But if 3dfx is serious about producing this kind of product it needs to work on the quality, features and interface.

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