Bij AnandTech is een kleine roundup verschenen tussen videokaarten die zijn uitgerust met TV tuner hardware. De drietal deelnemers bestaan uit de ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder, de Matrox Marvel G450 eTV en de minder bekende Personal Cinema van nVidia. De eerste twee videokaarten zijn gebaseerd op de ATi Radeon en de Matrox G450, maar hebben wat extra hardware aan boord. De oplossing van nVidia is een break-out box die gebruikt kan worden bij elke nVidia videokaart met een video-in aansluiting.
Tussen de TV tuner hardware zitten weinig verschillen, de features zijn bijna identiek. Qua software zijn er wel redelijke verschillen die voornamelijk in het voordeel van ATi uitpakken. Matrox haar zaakjes ook prima in orde met de eTV. nVidia’s oplossing bleek echter minder goed te werken en zo lang een paar problemen nog niet opgelost zijn kan AnandTech de Personal Cinema niet van harte aanbevelen:
The best choice for a TV tuner video card seems to be the ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon. The software package of the card is simply wonderful, thanks in no small part to the addition of the GuidePlus software. We found that this program made watching TV on your PC extremely easy and enjoyable, as a new level of interactivity was certainly experienced.
[...] That is not to say that the other TV tuner video cards we tested were not impressive as well. The Matrox card seemed to have few problems, if any, with the tasks we threw at it and certainly performed as advertised (with exception to the crash we experienced). The Marvel G450 eTV lost points only when compared to ATI's software package.
NVIDIA's solution seems to have quite a bit of potential. The breakout box idea is a good one for allowing easy implementation of TV capabilities on almost every NVIDIA graphics chip. The included remote was great and provides a perfect solution for those really looking to make their computer the entertainment center of their house. If it were not for the problems we encountered while both time shifting and using the Electronic Program Guide, we would feel more confident recommending this solution, but as it stands it seems that there is some maturing that needs to be done.