TeVCA Announces World's First All-Format DTV Cards
Affordable high-definition television is being offered by the computer industry. Austin, Texas-based TeVCA Technologies in late July announced an Advanced Television Standards Committee digital television tuner card for personal computers. The card, which fits into any unoccupied PCI slot, can receive and display all 18 modes of ATSC DTV signal, including 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080p. The various formats are output simultaneously as NTSC 525i (""legacy"" video), S-video, Digital FireWire, and 480p in 1.78:1 (16:9) aspect ratio. With the TeVAC card fitted to a compute, properly formatted signals can be fed to a projection television or monitor, and FireWire-enabled digital video equipment ñ all at once. The card also serves as a upconverter for such legacy-video devices such as LaserDisc and VHS. The card's default display format is 480p, which can be sized as a window on ""any size desktop setting and typical monitor resolution: VGA, SVGA, or 1280x1024 or maybe 1600x1200."" The 1.78:1 (16:9) window can be configured to fill the top, center, or bottom of the screen, with an Internet browser filling out the rest A TeVCA-equipped computer with a progressive scan DVD-ROM drive and a high-speed processor such as a 500 MHz Pentium is a sure winner as an interactive Internet capable DTV engine. TeVCA says its ATSC card will be available soon for $995, list price. A Macintosh version might be available later. The card will ship in quantity by September 1. TeVCA also is working on a card with NTSC tuning capability, which it expects to debut in December. For more information, visit TeVCAís Web site at www.tevca.com.