Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)=== Pros ===
Works well with Windows XP MCE, providing dual outboard TV tuners, FM tuners,and MCE remote that all work well under XP MCE. TV tuners also work well under Vista (but not FM).
=== Cons ===
No Adaptec support, support page, or drivers to download. Almost no 3rd party "geek forum" support, either. Drivers can be difficult to load in XP and Vista. FM sound completely unusable under Vista (possible driver problem). Product is like the once-famous Intel Pocket Concert music player: Excellent, ahead of its time, then mysteriously not supported shortly after its release.
=== Under XP ===
I bought the Adaptec AVC 3610 (Dual TV Tuner w/FM) 18 month ago from Dell in Jan-2006 to go with my then new XPS600 with XP MCE. The FM tuner was an added bonus. Though skeptical of the video quality capable from an external USB device, I was pleasantly surprised.
The TV picture quality was excellent and there was no discernable distortion, hesitation, or jerkiness on my Dell 24" wide screen LCD main monitor nor on my 17" CRT 2nd monitor. Loading the drivers was a little problematic at first but a few un-installs and automatic reloads seemed to fix it.
=== Under Vista ===
Problems occurred when I loaded the XPS 600 with Vista Ultimate a few months ago as a 2nd partition using dual boot. As with XP the 3610's drivers didn't load right at first and I had to uninstall them, let Vista find them again, and so on.
HOWEVER, although the TV tuners seem to work just as well as they did under XP, the FM radio terribly distorted - like a weak or very badly tuned station with lots of noise and distortion. I thought I lost my FM antenna connection. I rebooted XP and all was fine. I boot back to Vista and still terrible!
Contrary to reports I've seen from others, the remote control that came with it works fine for me under both XP MCE and Vista MCE. Obviously, you have have the 3610 situated in line-of-sight and point the remote at it for it to work. I initially was guilty of that DUH! when I mounted the unit on a shelf so my remote could not receive its IR signal.
=== Other things ===
I was a little disappointed in that the package does not come with much but, then again, not much else is needed. You get the main unit, the remote, some cables, and a CD. But the CD doesn't seem to have much other than documentation. The drivers are provided by Windows. I expected at least some kind of utility to test the unit and/or tune the TV/radio stations for fun or testing outside of Windows MCE.
Thus, it is important to note that you MUST have already Windows Media Center or some other compatible tuner software to use the unit at all. Some graphics and video editor programs that an import from Windows drivers might also be able to capture images from it but that's not a method usable for normal TV viewing or Radio listening.
Lastly, although the product is listed here as "PVR 3610", it's chassis label states the model number as "AVC 3610". Stranger still, Adaptec doesn't use model numbers to refer to it in the rare places it shows up on its web site. It states the model simply as "Dual TV Tuner". Did Adaptec move to China?
All fog aside, it is simply a dual TV tuner with FM radio tuner that does NOT intrinsically provide any PVR (personal video recorder) functionality. PVR functions are provided solely by Windows Media Center or other software that you must already have.
I give it 4 stars for XP because Adaptec does not seem to support the product even though it is one of their models and otherwise works great!
I give it 2 stars for Vista since the FM radio doesn't work, there are no drivers available, and there is no support.
I give it 3 stars as an total rating, to average the above findings.
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