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The Cadillac of Voodoo3! The 3dfx Voodoo3-3500TV
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The AVPod As we mentioned earlier, the POD handles the "goes-intas and goes-outas" for the multimedia capabilities of the V3-3500TV. It is a very simple interface. Here's how it works...
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Ahh yes, simplicity, that's what we like. Just hook this little gem up to your V3-3500TV and then plug your monitor cable into the other end. You then have all the hook ups on the end of a 6' cable that can easily be placed on your desktop. The cable is absolutely massive because it carrys alot of I/O wires to and from the card. I found the image quality on my desktop, with this setup, to be crisp and clean. Maybe I was seeing things but the desktop image quality seemed even better than the quality of my V3-3000 with a direct linked standard cable. So with the AVPod you can plug in Composite or S- Video and stereo sound for left and right channels. You can obviously get the same sources as outputs from the Tuner/Playback section of the card. In addtion, the Voodoo3-3500 card itself also has Audio In and Outputs that you can connect directly to your sound card internally.
The TV/FM Tuner & 3dfx Visual Reality The V3-3500TV comes equipped with a Philips Tuner that does a nice job of bringing in the channels and displaying them in a crisp clean window on your desktop. This baby is cable ready and also has an FM Tuner built in for radio as well. The quality is as good as you saw in our review of the STB DesktopTV card. There are also some nice utilities for using your new Audio/Video rig. It all works just as you would expect. Like the proverbial "clicker" you are so comfortable using during those weekend long sporting binges, these tools are very easy to use. Click image
This is but one "skin" that 3dfx uses to trim up this great user interface. You can download various other skins at http://visualreality.3dfx.com These will customize the look and feel of your remotes. Again, this interface is extremely easy to use and so is the "VCR" control. The VCR control panel (shown in the upper right of the above screen shot) works just like the one you have in your entertainment center at home, with one exception. This feature is for playback and record of AVI or MPEG files. This is my chance to get my kid into the act! Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Twinkle-Toes himself, my Son, Michael Altavilla! :-)
Click image for a 5MB MPEG File Recorded on the V3-3500TV. If you have a problem viewing this file, try right clicking w/ your mouse and save the file to your desktop. Please note, you must have DirectX 6.1 and Windows Media Player to view this file or you may get errors.
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Little Man rocks doesn't he?!!!!!! Forget about him for about 30
years, girls, sorry his Mommy is VERY protective ! :-) I only had to
plug my Cam-Corder into the Composite Video Input on the AVPod and
hit record. Instant little man dance footage ! Besides the obviously enormous "cute quotient" here, Michael comes off almost as smooth as he is in real life due to the great MPEG video capture technology that 3dfx bundles in with their tools suite. All this on one card and a Super Charged Voodoo3 3D Graphics setup as well! |
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OK, let's get down to the nitty-gritty here... How does this V3 clocked @ 183MHz. (default core speed) and beyond do under benchmark pressure? |
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