Page 7 - The Software Suite
The Software Suite
Included in the package is a large collection of software that will allow you to record, playback, manipulate anything TV/Radio/Media related. Here's the overview of the software suite that Compro includes with the VideoMate.
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Compro PVR |
This is the TV software that allows you to control, watch, record, or timeshift live TV program on your PC. It sports a multi-channel preview mode for channel surfing, that function is not fast though. This software will also act as Video Recorder, ComproPVR can convert analog video sources, such as home video tapes, to MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 digital formats for editing and recording to a CD or DVD-ROM.
This basically is the most important piece of software for the product. It's very easy to use yet has a few small flaws that I'd like to see addressed. Channel surfing is difficult. Also sorting channels in your preferred order is a problem. Other then that it's sufficient for your needs. I'd also like to see options for skins. |
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Compro DVD |
This software is (as self-proclaimed) developed by Compro themselves. It's your basic DVD software and allows DVD playback and still image capturing. The Software supports not only DVD though, it'll playback VCD/SVCD/CD and MP3 format also. Small secret though, this is PowerDVD software in a different jacket. |
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Compro FM |
Newest Compro software. Support FM broadcasting/channel surfing and listing, and MP3/WAV format recording. The bitrate for MP3 is just plain low and HQ recording is not possible. A real downside for this piece of software.
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| Ulead DVD MovieFactory 2 SE | With your own videos, make DVDs and Video CDs that look and act just like Hollywood DVDs to share with friends, family and business associates. Ulead DVD MovieFactory 2 uses the latest in DVD technology to give you professional results, while making the process fun and easy.
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| Ulead DVD VideoStudio 7 SE | Ulead VideoStudio 7 SE is video-editing software that makes editing your movies as fun as shooting them. Use fast, cutting-edge technology that allows first-time users to easily create professional-looking video. And do it all in real-time! Share your movies with others on tape, DVD, Video CD and the Web.
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It's a very nice package as you can see for yourself. What you likely will use the most is the slowly becoming famous Compro PVR software. It's also the software we'll discuss right now. We are leaving the other software for what it is as this is the most important application.
Does it really work then ?
Pretty darn good actually. We recorded small fragments for you to take a look at. I must address something though, the antenna cable from towards the PC was about 15 meteres long and thus I definitely am loosing signal here. That shows .. yet I must state that image quality overall is really good. I've owned PCTV cards from Pinnacle ,Hauppauge cards and of course ATI's AIW. The only one that can come close to the image quality Compro produces with it's Videomate is Pinnacle's PCTV. The Philips SAA7133/7134 video encoder with ADC chip, dual voltage regulator, and hardware digital video scaling and software functions like Noise Removal, De-interlacing and Video Smoothing definitely work out and provide a clear picture quality. TV programs can be watched with a scalable display window. an optional always on top can be set with the push of a small button. All primary functions like TV watching, channel selection, video TV selection, snapshots, capturing and replaying of captured scenes can be selected trough the PVR control panel or by very handy remote control.
Schedule a recording
Easy as ABC-123 to be honest. The scheduler is easy to operate for the average PC user. The interface is clear to understand and porogram. Have a look at the images to understand what I'm saying. When you program a recording here you'll also select if your PC needs to boot up or power down. Of course you enter the channel number, time, date and of course compression level. What's also very important, if your windows is secured with a login and password, well the VideoMate can take over with it's Automatic logon function where you enter the logon info into the VideoMate software. This function worked well with our system
Recording
Let's have a look at the small fragments we recorded. Recording dear friends is completely stable and convenient to do, we tried it for many weeks and recorded hundreds of megabytes of programs ranging from minute long clips up-to 3 hour shows. Video capturing, recoding and replay is working flawless with the bundled PVR software.
We recorded 3 small clips and saved them in VCD, SVCD and DVD quality. To make the download size a bit acceptable we recompressed them as WMF file (DVD 1 MBit quality) though. So if you want to be able to watch these files then make sure you have Windows Media Player 9 with the latest codecs installed. You can download everything you need right here.
Remember that we re-encoded the files and thus they suffer from quality loss.
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VCD Quality recording (1.6 MB)
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SVCD Quality recording (2.3 MB)
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DVD Quality recording (2 MB)
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