Digital Trends

Diamond Multimedia XtremeTV PVR600

July 14th, 2005 | by Brandon King

Diamond PVR600

Many video cards come with video in and video out capabilities, and that gets their owners thinking about the possibility of merging their PC and TV experiences.  With the more recent convergence technologies found in nearly all modern consumer electronics, the field has fragmented somewhat.  Many TVs have PC or DVI inputs, and many PCs have s-video in and out.  Add to that the PCs based on Windows Media Center Edition, and the playing field can appear confusing.

The XtremeTV PVR600 is a simple, all-in-one solution for adding live TV and PVR capabilities to your PC, whether a desktop or notebook.  What the consumer should know is that this is a package of capture hardware by Diamond with drivers, and remote plus recording software by Snapstream.  What that means:  You can get the same user experience with any of the supported tuner cards.  Also, you can use other software with the Diamond tuner card.  What is nice is the fact that each of these components is sold together.  That means everything you need is included in one package, it has all been tested, and you have one source to go to with any problems.

This review is actually a review of three separate items:  The Diamond PVR600 USB 2.0 tuner, the Snapstream Firefly remote, and Snapstream's Beyond TV and Beyond Media software.  These are all included in the Diamond PVR600 Power Pack, along with all required wires.

Image Courtesy Diamond Multimedia

The first component is the namesake for the package:  The Diamond PVR600.  The PVR600 is a USB 2.0 TV tuner with three inputs.  The unit itself is very small, measuring only 4.5”x3”x1”, so it can be tucked away behind the computer or set behind the TV.  The front has composite video/audio, s-video, and a power button.  Why is there a power button?  No idea.  The back sports the USB, power, and coaxial cable connections.  There is no power adapter, only a power to USB cable.  That's right.  On your PC, you will be using two precious USB ports.  This has an advantage for notebook users, since the dual USB connections make the unit more portable than a large power brick.  Whether the unit could have been powered over a single USB connection is something only the Diamond engineers will understand, especially since most users will just plug them into the same hub that shares the same power limitation.

Image Courtesy Diamond Multimedia

The image quality from the PVR600 was decent, but doesn't win any awards.  The image clarity is good, but pixilated.  Some anti-aliasing or just a slight blurring overlay or filter would have helped a lot.  The colors are a little too bright, and even with the Beyond TV brightness/contrast/color controls, we never got a picture rivaling a regular cable box to TV setup.  It should be noted, and with no real surprise, that the PVR600 does not support HD inputs or output, most likely due to bandwidth limitations.  We installed this on a PC with an ATI All-In-Wonder 9800 to test compatibility issues.  We had only one problem with the ATI, Snapstream, or Diamond software or drivers.  We had to uninstall the ATI Remote Wonder software and drivers to install the Firefly software.  Otherwise, we had no problems with the ATI or Snapstream TV viewing applications.  The picture quality on the ATI card was clearly superior, but of course the ATI solution is entirely different in many respects and not a fair comparison.