The VisionTek XTasy Everything 5564 Personal Cinema
A Cheap Date With Multi-Media

By - Dave Altavilla
November 19, 2001

Convergence, that's what the multi-media scene is all about.  In addition to conjuring up printed documents, spreadsheets, charts and graphs, the  modern personal computer, for the average household, has become more of an entertainment medium than anything else.  3D Gaming, music and video are all data types that today's computers must process and handle in real-time.

As a result, virtually all of the available graphics chipset technologies on the market, have the ability to process and reproduce digital video in hardware,  as well as 3D graphical scenes.  With the ability of encoding and decoding in various DV formats, the average end user has the power and potential to produce and view near professional quality video and audio, with ease and simplicity.   Historically, these technologies came in the form of discrete video processing cards for the encode and decode of TV and DVD signals.  These days, folks like Visiontek wrap them all up in one neat little bundle, like the XTasy Everything 5564 Personal Cinema kit.

Specifications and Features of the VisionTek Xtasy Everything
All the toys, even the clicker...


 

Intelligent TV
The power to pause digitally, instant replay, commercial bypass, record and timeshift live TV

Easily schedule and organize the recording of your favorite TV shows

Preset Good, Better, Best
and Customized Quality
recording settings
Thumbnail channel surfing
Still frame capture
Closed captioning
Electronic Programming Guide

Personal Digital Video Recorder
Digital VCR with real-time MPEG2 compression for your PC

Record TV shows or home videos
on your PC

Superior Quality DVD Playback
Supports DVD, MPEG1&2, SVCD,
VCD, and CD

Bookmark your favorite scenes
Capture snapshots
Zoom-in clone, and pan
 Microsoft DXVA compatible

High-Quality Video Editing
& Publishing
Easy capture & output

Create your own home video from your TV, VCR, camcorder, or Web Cam

Scene Detection lets you find and display separate scenes for
quick editing

Create and post streaming video and share it on the Web

Spice up your movies with title effects, transitions, animations, audio tracks, and more

Fast rendering & post-production

High-resolution Video Conferencing
MPEG1 and MPEG2 quality with Microsoft Multi-function NetMeeting, and other supported software

Industrys First Multi-function
Wireless Remote
Single remote controls CD/DVD playback, TV, DVR, and Electronic Programming Guide

Video Output to Monitor,
TV, or VCR PERFORMANCE

Industrys Best 2D/3D
Graphics Technology
GeForce2 MX400 64MB AGP

TwinView technology

Dual VGA and S-Video/TV in +out connectors

Real-time AVI, QuickTime, MPEG1, MPEG2 capture (VCR to DVD resolution)

Real-time MPEG2 Timeshifting Playback

Xtasy Everything 5564 comes with a 3 year warranty
 


     
The heart of this bundle is the nVidia based GeForce2MX 400 graphics card.  The card has 64MB of standard Synch DRAM.  It also has two VGA connectors on its header, which gives it Twin View / Dual Head capability for multi-monitor support.

Along with the GF2MX 400 you get a break out box which allows for input of TV Cable or Antenna signals, as well as S-Video and composite sources.   It is based on nVidia's Personal Cinema technology and has a plethora of options. It has a TV-Tuner section internally that will decode either cable TV or broadcast signals.  However, that is not all it is capable of.  Effectively this unit could take input from just about any other video source including DVD Players, VCRs, and Camcorders.  Visiontek also bundles in all the cables you would need, to interface these sources to the breakout box.

Click On Images To Enlarge

Interestingly enough, the Personal Cinema break out box also comes with a built in infrared remote eye.  This allows for "line of site" remote control of the unit and all its functions.  The user can perform anything from basic channel switching, to one touch record of any video source, including TV broadcasts and DVDs.

This setup is the techno-couch-potato's dream come true.  Not only can you play, record and edit with this unit but you need not even get up to click a mouse. Frankly, the average users may only touch upon a few of the basic functions that this kit has to offer.  However, ease of use and a short learning curve, may have folks using their PC for things that they had not thought of previously.  For example, plugging in a Camcorder via an S-Video cable to the break out box, would allow you to convert analog taped videos to MPEG2 or AVI video format on your computer.  Imagine sending the Grand Parents clips of little Jimmy that would otherwise have to wait for a holiday pilgrimage in order to be seen.  We think you get the idea.  Now if we could only get some of the HH Tech's to put down the remote and get back to work.

Let's set things up and roll it.

Setup, Software and Drivers