RealMagic XCard Review
Posted on October 9, 2002
Hardware Installation
Hardware installation was a doddle. It's only
a PCI card, and there's only one slot. We plugged the remote
control receiver into the serial port, and then inserted the
supplied batteries into the remote. Here's a picture of the
card inside our test MiniCube case.
And here's the card inside our Cubid case.
Aaah - how long we've been waiting for this moment...
Software Installation
Software installation wasn't so smooth. On
a clean Windows XP system, we first installed the drivers,
then the player software. Or at least we tried to - the installer
wouldn't run. We uninstalled and tried the latest versions
from the website several times, and after 15 minutes of messing
about finally got it to install. Perhaps we're just incompetent,
but things should install smoother than this.
Connecting the XCard
to a TV
The XCard produces a full screen video image
from an MPEG1, MPEG2 or MPEG4 source, and outputs it to its
TV-Out and VGA Out sockets. If the VGA pass-through cable
is connected (i.e. Graphics card VGA Out --> XCard VGA
In), it will add the full screen video on top of that during
playback.
What this means in practice using the EPIA
is that if you want to use this card with a TV, and still
see Windows, you're going to have to either:
a) Use a TV with a VGA input
b) Use 2 inputs on the TV (both can be either S-Video or Composite,
or indeed SCART), and switch between them
c) Use 1 input on the TV, and switch between them manually,
or with a switching box (SCART for instance)
We chose b). We found a composite video to
SCART lead and used that for the EPIA output, and used the
S-Video output direct into the TV for the XCard output. Connection
methods will of course vary depending on what your TV can
handle. We could have hooked up the XCard S/PDIF audio output
to an external amp for Dolby Digital surround sound - but
we don't have one. Shame. If we were using a VGA monitor,
we wouldn't need to switch inputs, as the video image is added
to the original VGA output.
The Remote and Software
The supplied remote control can control most
aspects of the bundled XMedia application, complete with an
On-Screen Display for basic things such as volume, video title,
brightness etc. What it can't do is add anything to the playlist
- so anyone thinking of replacing their mouse and keyboard
and use XMedia as a HTPC front end app might want to think
about how they load their playlists. Perhaps Sigma will add
a full on-screen menu with playlist control in future software
releases.
Here's a picture of XMedia, the bundled playback
software. If those buttons look a little confusing and badly
drawn - they are. But the application is skinnable, and once
Sigma release the SDK we should hopefully see a few WinAmp
style skins on the interweb.
But the look of it doesn't really matter -
the XCard only supports full screen video output - so by using
the remote control and OSD you won't need to look at it, except
to add items from your hard disk onto the playlist. This is
XMedia in expanded mode, with an empty playlist on the left.
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