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PCIe ATSC/NTSC PC TV PCV500 Combo
General description
With NXP’s highly integrated PCV500 Combo reference design, manufacturers can tailor tuning performance to suit cost and selectivity requirements in watch/record PC TV cards.
Key features
- Simultaneous analog and digital TV reception for desktop PCs
- Receives analog TV (NTSC), digital cable TV (ATSC/Clear QAM), and FM radio in North America and other NTSC/ATSC markets
- Can or silicon tuner for analog channel
- Many watch/record feature combinations
- Captures baseband A/V from CE devices
Background information
The PCV500 Combo reference design features simultaneous reception of two independent TV signals: one analog and one digital. Complete functionality includes analog tuning, digital tuning and channel decoding, FM radio reception, baseband A/V capture, analog TV A/V decoding and high-quality MPEG-2 encoding (to support recording features with host PC.)
The solution's flexible design enables consumers to enjoy many watch, record and surfing feature combinations including:
- Picture-in-Picture, split screen and watch/search
- record a digital TV program while listening to the radio or watching an analog TV program
- record an analog TV program while watching a digital TV program
Analog tuning performance can be tailored via two configurations: a silicon tuner for lower cost in a small board footprint, or a can tuner for exceptional performance in problematic reception areas. A separate silicon tuner handles digital reception.
The on-board SAA7163 PC TV IC performs most core functionality. In addition to demodulating and decoding analog TV video and stereo and encoding digital AV, the IC applies advanced filtering techniques and dynamic echo cancellation to ensure high quality reception under the most demanding conditions. It handles picture enhancements, high-quality scaling, vertical blanking interval extraction, remote control for TV and recording, multi-layer content protection (Macrovision) and CGMS-A extraction.
The PCV500 Combo is supported on popular Windows operating systems and third-party TV/DVR applications. Board set-up and control are handled through the Windows WDM driver AVStream Class with BDA extensions.
Both reference design configurations include a PCIe full-profile reference card, all necessary drivers, a user manual, schematics, a BOM, Gerber files, a layout proposal and documentation. Board designs are easily converted to dual silicon tuner PCIe low-profile form factors.