Installation
Installation
Installing the Winfast TV 2000XP was fairly simple and definitely much easier than the needlessly complicated install for the ATi card. After attaching the card to an unused PCI slot and attaching the cables, I booted into Windows XP. Windows found the new hardware, and I pointed it to the drivers directory on the CD. After doing this four times for the Audio Capture, Crossbar, TV Tuner, and Video Capture drivers, Windows found everything and installed it correctly. The final step is to install the application software from the CD’s auto-run menu. I really didn’t need any help from the manual to do all this, but if you aren’t familiar with adding new hardware to your computer, the manual gives you all the help you need.
Open the software and you’re greeted with a quick Winfast TV splash screen, followed by a small window with whatever channel you were last tuned to. A small “FM” button on the left side of the control panel switches the software to radio mode. You can’t listen to a radio broadcast and watch TV at the same time, one or the other. This is the control panel in TV mode:
You can see the FM button, across the top there are buttons for help, minimize, and a “power” button (exit). On the bottom left there’s a button for taking a “snapshot” of a live broadcast, followed by an open file button and configuration button. On the bottom right are the channel up\down buttons and finally a button to switch from live TV to composite and S-video sources. Notice on the screen it says Live TV, but an .avi file is listed along with a time counter and a progress bar. This is because it can play back a video file and display live TV at the same time, using picture in picture. Very cool. Here’s a shot:
Audio is played for the main screen, and you can switch back and forth between screens. Right clicking on the TV screen allows you to set it to always on top, and you can force the aspect ratio to either 4:3 (standard) or 16:9 (widescreen). This definitely comes in handy because when you’re watching television and doing other things, you can quickly resize the TV window without worrying about screwing up the proper length and width. There are several ways to adjust the software. You can click to change channels and adjust volume and screen size, or you can use the number pad and arrow keys, or you can use the remote. I find that the easiest way is to use the number pad to go directly to the channel I want, and I use the remote for when I’m not sitting at the computer.
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