Prolink Pixelview PlayTV@P7000 Media Centre
The P7000 is a half-height PCI card, allowing just enough PCB space for the tuner, Conexant CX23882 processor, a single 8MB Samsung SDR DRAM for buffering and an unknown chip under the shiny green heatsink.
The card accepts remote control reciever, FM, TV, S-Video and stereo audio inputs. The card can encode MPEG2 in realtime without much CPU assist from the TV or S-Video inputs, with Windows Media Audio record of the audio inputs (FM radio, stereo input, TV audio stream).
The software does the rest. It's a pretty simple device, taking tuned TV or FM streams or fed in S-Video and audio, then either playing them in the software, or recording them to disk via the software.
Remote
The remote is a large (~12" long), fat plastic affair, operating using infra-red. The range is longer than I can test (30ft), but the documentation makes no explicit statement about it. Two 1.5V AA batteries power it, however none were supplied.
The buttons are clearly labelled and they're made from tactile rubber, so actually using the remote is fine. It's a little unweildy and heavy and could do with some more aesthetic consideration, but I've seen many worse remotes in my time. More on the remote later.
