Hardware Review: AITech MaxView Cinema Kit

Chief Justice Mike Jackson

February 18th, 2002

The MaxView Cinema Kit is a small device that allows you to hook a PC to a standard television. The device has many benefits on the surface. AITech touts it as a device that allows people with DVD-ROM equipped computers to use the drive they already have instead of a standalone DVD player. With more computers shipping with built-in DVD-ROMs, and the price of add-on drives now under $100, it could be very attractive. There's many other potential uses, such as presentations or computer instruction. When I have priced similar products in the past, they typically sold for several hundred dollars. The list price for the MaxView Cinema Kit is $119.95, and it can be found at online retailers for under $100. That should fit into most budgets.

The most attractive feature of this particular device is its ease of use -- AITech uses the term "plug and play" on the box, but that term isn't entirely correct. "Plug and play" specifically refers to an operating system's ability to recognize PNP hardware automatically. The MaxView, on the other hand, has no interaction with the operating system at all. It is an external device that plugs directly into the SVGA monitor output of your video card (adapters are included for use with older style Macintosh video outputs as well, though even Apple has adopted the SVGA output for Macs manufactured in the last few years). It then has a passthrough so you can connect a standard monitor, as well as S-video and RCA video outputs that then can be connected to a standard television. (Both outputs are active, so technically you can connect it to two televisions.) Thus, you don't have to worry about driver incompatibilities or about which operating system it can be used with -- finally, equality for Windows, Macintosh, or Linux users! The bundled software, however, is only for Windows users; included is "AITV Font," labeled as a "screen font adjustment utility" (I did not test this), and PowerDVD 3.0, a popular DVD playback utility (I also did not test the bundled version, as I already had this software installed -- it came with my DVD-ROM drive). Hardware installation, such as it is, should take less than five minute for even the most technophobic.

My test setup consisted of my PC and the 27" Panasonic television I use for all my reviewing chores. The PC is equipped as follows:

• 1.4 GHz Pentium 4 processor
• 512MB RAM
• Asus V7100 video card (SVGA out, with GeForce2 MX 100 chipset)
• Lite-On LTR-16102B DVD-ROM drive
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
• Cyberlink PowerDVD 3.0

My normal monitor is an Envision 17" flat CRT. I didn't want to lug that out to the living room, so instead I used my older Panasonic 15" monitor.

I connected the MaxView to the TV with the included 20' S-video cable. I was disappointed that the MaxView did not have component YUV video outputs, but then again my three year old Sony DVD player does not either. When I first plugged the MaxView, I connected it directly to the television without also attaching a monitor. The boot-up went fine until Windows started. Whoops, I normally run with a resolution 1024x768, 32-bit color, at a 75Hz refresh rate. However, the MaxView doesn't support 1024x768 resolution at a refresh rate over 70Hz (though it does support 640x480 and 800x600 up to 85Hz, and supports any color depth). Once adjusted so I could see it on the television, I proceeded to put in Disney's The Emperor's New Groove as a test, because its vibrant colors, distinct lines, and rock-solid video quality would give it a good workout (and besides, I really like the movie). So, how does it fare?

Let's put it this way: Don't get rid of your VCR, because it will rival the video quality you get from the video output of the MaxView. I expected text and such to be fuzzy and indistinct (de rigueur for VGA-to-TV adapters), but I was hoping that the video output, with its wider gradients that don't require such precision, would fare a little better. Not so. Fine details became a muddled mess, and I was rather surprised that colors were noticeably darker and lost any difference in the gradients. There was no difference in the converted output when the computer resolution or refresh rate were set higher -- the TV output looks the same whether the computer is set at 640x480 60Hz or 1024x768 70Hz. I don't know if this was the device itself, the cabling, or the speaker sitting nearby, but there was a noticeable scan line traveling from bottom to top throughout that again did not change with the output resolution. To offer a comparison, the best I could provide were snapshots taken with my digital camera. On the left is the output from the MaxView on my television; on the right is the output from the computer to the monitor. The TV scan lines are very noticeable, but there's little I can do about that. You can click on each picture for a larger representation.

Based on my evaluation, I would not recommend the MaxView for replacement of a standalone DVD player. You're going to get much better video output from even a Wal-Mart DVD player for the same price as the MaxView. On the other hand, it might be a nice tool for someone who needs quick, dirty, and cheap output from a PC to a larger display device for a group of people, such as in a classroom or for a presentation. If you really want to output from your PC to a television, there are plenty of video cards you can install that have TV outs built in. For around the same price, you can get the ATI All-In-Wonder Pro 128, which can do darn near anything -- video output and input (suitable for digitizing from a camcorder, for example), MPEG decoding (for smoother DVD playback), a TV tuner (watch TV on your PC!), plus all the functions of your normal 2D/3D video card. That's just an entry-level one; shell out a few more bucks, and you can get video cards that perform TiVo-like digital video recorder functions. ATI's cards will work with all versions of Windows, and while they do not officially support Linux, there is an active open source community supporting the cards and it looks like most models have drivers available. Macs are a different story, though newer models with PCI slots should support add-on cards from ATI and other companies.

I wish I could recommend the MaxView Cinema Kit, because I really like the idea behind it, but unfortunately, the video quality isn't adequate for home theater use. The MaxView is targeted specifically for home theater use, but AITech does make other VGA-to-TV adapters for other uses; if you have a need for such a device, I'm sure the other models would suit your needs.

Link:
• AITech: MaxView Cinema Kit