The Basics:
The images below provide an overview of the AVerMedia AVerTVHD MCE A180 card. You have what might be considered a typical layout for a PCI TV tuner card, with a few connections on the end, the raised tuner box area, and a fairly compact PCI card. All components are found on one side of the card, and the back is pretty much an open expanse of green PCB with a view visible traces.
 
An end view of the card reveals a handful of connections, many of which might not be common on all tuner cards. You have a coaxial connection (for an ATSC antenna, not cable), s-video input (black), composite video input (yellow), and stereo audio inputs (red and white). The inclusion of these extra audio/video connections is a nice feature, and will increase the flexibility of the AVerTVHD MCE A180's functionality.
Installation:
For testing, the AVerTVHD MCE A180 was installed in a system with the following specifications:
» AMD Athlon-64 3200+ Venice core processor
» Thermalright SI-120 CPU cooler
» ASUS A8N-E nForce4 Ultra motherboard
» 1x 200GB Seagate 7200.8 SATA hard drive
» 2x 1024MB Corsair PC3500LL PRO Dual Channel DDR
» 128MB PowerColor Radeon X800 GTO PCIe graphics card
» Windows XP Professional, SP2 with all current patches
Looking back at the system requirements, this machine should be able to handle it. The specifications do call for a 2.4 GHz Pentium IV, but hopefully the AMD Athlon-64 3200+'s PR rating counts for more than its true clock speed of 2.0 GHz.
Another key to the installation is that Windows XP Media Center Edition will not be used, and the card will be tested using AVerMedia's software intended for Windows XP Pro or Home. Regardless of what version of Windows you own, you have to download the application/drivers anyway, so there is no extra effort required for taking either route.
The physical installation is quite easy, and can be accomplished by anyone who has installed a PCI card before. The software installation is just as easy, and can be walked through in a matter of minutes (if not less). One thing that did concern me is that immediately after 'successfully' installing the card and software, the system 'blue screened' and was forced to reboot. The message indicated the crash could have been related to new devices/drivers, so the AVerTVHD MCE A180 seemed like an obvious culprit. Following the required reboot from the crash, there was never a repeat of this problem throughout testing, so hopefully is was a minor, system specific conflict.
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