Some of us find ourselves without a signed and stamped Windows Media Center Edition PC. At least, that’s the situation I find myself in. Without built-in features like TV-tuning and remote control, I am left to search for third-party solutions. Intervideo wants to help and offers one solution, the broadly named Home Theater package that claims to “Turn your PC into an entertainment center” by helping you watch TV, DVDs and other videos while listening to music and viewing pictures. And no, not all at the same time.
Does it do that? Well, not quite. First of all, the TV tuning (TV tuner card not included) is buggy. You first must make sure your card is supported. For instance, an Encore brand card had sound issues, while ATI cards worked well. The quality of the TV is solely up to your card, because Home Theater just hijacks the stream and does not perform the decoding itself. One of the biggest draws of additional TV software is scheduled recordings. Essentially, Home Theater claims to turn your TV into TiVo. This feature would not function. While it found all my channels, on the schedule screen, it would not let me input a channel to record. When I clicked “Finish,” it went back to the list of scheduled recordings with no changes. This was disappointing because otherwise the software works fairly well.
The biggest benefit Home Theater offers is a media library. While other programs do this, its interface is specifically designed for browsing media with a remote. Initial setup lets you add folders to automatically scan for music, movies, and photos making it easy to watch videos or play a slideshow. There are some silly quirks though, like not being able to remove My Videos, etc., from the watch lists.
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TV
- Channel Scan
Channel scanning will automatically search for television channels and add to your channel list favorites.
- Channel Surfing
The program displays video thumbnails of 16 channels at once to help you quickly scan what’s on.
- Recording Functions
> Fastest Recording Solution (MPEG-2 files)
> Recording from TV, Svideo or Composite
> Easy to schedule a program.
- Guide
This EPG lets you search for your favorite shows and quickly and easily schedule programs for viewing or recording. (EPG web site varies by region. In US, it is TitanTV)
- Closed Caption/ TeleText
InterVideo Home Theater supports both Closed Caption and TeleText. Closed Caption is only available in US, while TeleText is in European area.
DVD
- Auto-Resume Playback
Home Theater gives you options on how your DVDs should start playing.
- DVD/VCD/SVCD Playback
You can use InterVideo Home Theater to playback your VCDs and SVCDs in addition to DVDs.
- Still Image Capture
Grab snapshots of your favorite video scenes from DVD or VCD titles you’re watching. These screen shots can then be viewed or printed using Home Theater’s Picture application.
VIDEO CLIPS
- Playback
From the default location determined during Setup, your video files will be easily accessed from the video clips application.
- Take Snapshot
You can take snapshot of video clips. When the image you like appears, click Take Snapshot bar to capture a still image of it.
MUSIC
- Library
Gather all of you music files into one easy to locate Library. From here you can sort your songs by Title, Artist, Album or Genre.
- Play CDs
When playing an Audio CD you can view the tracks with the artist, album and genre information on screen.
- Playlists
Using a Playlist lets a user control how they organize and arrange the way their music plays.
- Multi-Speed Playback
If you are in a hurry, you can listen to a 15-minute recording in only 10 minutes using the multi-speed playback. Using this feature will help save you precious time.
RADIO
- My Favorite
Save your favorite stations from the My Station list.
- Recorded Radio
Record your favorite songs, talk shows, news programs, or anything else you like.
PHOTO
- Print Picture
Found a shot that you want to send to a friend? Or put into a frame? No problem – from the remote you can send the picture directly to the printer.
- Slide Show
View your pictures as a full screen slide show complete with music!
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VIDEO CLIPS
- Burn Videos
Now you can not only watch video clips in InterVideo Home Theater but also burn the video clips on a disc.
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MUSIC
- Burn Music & Playlists
Burn your favorite music and playlists onto an audio CD or MP3 disc!
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PHOTO
- Burn Pictures
Burn your favorite pictures onto a CD or DVD disc for long term storage, or you can create a picture slideshow disc to watch on your living room DVD player or share with family and friends.
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Features Comparison
| Features |
IHT 2 Gold |
IHT 2 Platinum |
| DVD |
| • DVD playback |
X |
X |
| • VCD/SVCD playback |
X |
X |
| • Frame capture |
X |
X |
| • Dolby 2/6 channel support (option) |
X |
X |
| • Time Stretching (2x) |
X |
X |
| TV |
| • Channels scan |
X |
X |
| • Channels surfing |
X |
X |
| • Schedule TV recording |
X |
X |
| • Time Shift |
X |
X |
| • Frame Capture |
X |
X |
| • Close Caption |
X |
X |
| • TV Audio |
X |
X |
| • Teletext subtitle |
X |
X |
| • iEPG (US) |
X |
X |
| • Record to MPEG2 |
X |
X |
| Picture |
| • Print picture |
X |
X |
| • Transitions effects |
X |
X |
| • Slideshow Music |
X |
X |
| • Burning&Authoring (default theme) |
|
X |
| Video Clips |
| • Support MPEG1/AVI/WMA/ASF |
X |
X |
| • Frame Capture |
X |
X |
| • Burning&Authoring (default theme) |
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X |
| Music |
| • Playlist support (WMP, Winamp, MusicMatch) |
X |
X |
| • Music file (wav, wma, mp3) playback |
X |
X |
| • Support Fast Forward at Music playback |
X |
X |
| • Adjust vitalization button |
X |
X |
| • Burning (Audio CD/MP3 CD) |
|
X |
| Radio |
| • Channel auto-scan |
X |
X |
| • Favorite Channel |
X |
X |
| • Add Channel by manually frequency tuning |
X |
X |
| • Record to MP2 |
X |
X |
| • Sort by name & frequency |
X |
X |
| Burning |
| • Output as DVD-V format |
|
X |
| • Support Media: CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVDRAM |
|
X |
| • Output Disc format: (Video) VCD, SVCD, DVD |
|
X |
| • Output Disc format: (Audio) CDDA, MP3 Disc |
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X |
| • Output Disc: (Picture) Slideshow DVD/VCD , backup picture files |
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X |
| • DVD-RAM: UDF 2.x support |
|
X |
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System Requirements
| Computer Part |
Minimum |
Recommended |
| Processor |
Intel Pentium III 500 MHz |
Intel Pentium III 800MHz or compatibleIntel Pentium IV 1.6G (for Time Shifting& Recording feature) |
| RAM |
64Mb |
512 MB |
| Operating System |
Windows 2000 |
Windows XP |
| Display |
800×600, 16 bits color |
1024×768, 16/24/32 bits color |
| Sound |
Windows compatible sound card that supports 48KHz playback (PCI recommended) |
| Free Space |
100MB for installation, 400MB for application |
| DirectX |
DirectX 9 |
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Even better than the media library is the remote control, although if that’s all you want it may not be worth it to invest in this package. The remote, from more than 15 feet away and through a USB receiver, sends keyboard commands. Thus, while it works with Intervideo software, it also works with Windows Media Player. For “Play” it sends ctrl+p, for “next track/chapter” it sends ctrl+f. This method makes it great for controlling programs like Winamp that let you set universal hotkeys. It was easy to map all the playback buttons on the remote to Winamp’s controls. One other great feature is the ability to control your mouse pointer with the remote. Thus, while sitting far away from the mouse and keyboard, I can theoretically find and launch any media file that’s on my computer.
Perhaps my biggest complaint aside from non-functioning features is the voraciousness Home Theater shows when capturing your file types. There is no setting for which file types it will handle, so you must change them back in your other programs and even then sometimes Home Theater will shanghai one again later.
Home Theater is an easily navigable media library and DVD player that throws in a remote. With many other options for media management and DVD playback, it may not be worth the non-cooperative features and unfriendliness it shows toward existing software. Still, I sure do love that remote. Really. Yum.
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| REPORT CARD : Intervideo Home Theater Platinum |
| category |
rating |
comments |
| Quality |
3 |
The features are good, and it uses InterVideo’s excellent WinDVD decoder for MPEG-2 streams. |
| Innovation |
3 |
All the basic features you need in a dedicated Home Theater, but nothing that will blow your socks off. |
| Performance |
3 |
The software performs decently, but hijacks your media files, so this should be used on a dedicated home theater. DVR features greatly depend on a compatible MPEG-2 card. |
| Installation |
4 |
It was much easier to install than a Media Center PC, and sits right on top of Windows. |
| Value |
4 |
Everything you need for a HTPC is in one box, including remote. Other solutions make you buy individual pieces to a HT suite. For $60 this is a good deal, and you can find it cheaper if you don’t need a remote. |
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| FINAL VERDICT: 3 out of 5 stars |
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