Date: November 17th, 2003
Article by: Tristan Kay (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner, Head Editor & Hardware Reviewer)
Product was donated by: Via Technologies
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CONNECTIVITY

The card installed without a hitch, and driver installation was a breeze. Once installed it was time to play with the multimedia station and Power DVD. With the drivers comes the Aureon Control Panel which allows the user to customize his/her multimedia experience.

The control panel provides volume controls for in three sections, Playback, Sources and Record. In playback there are volume sliders for each set of speakers along with a master volume control. Under the Sources tab, there are sliders for the various inputs on the soundcard. With regards to the record tab, it is self-explanatory as to what the sliders there are in control of; they control input volume on recording instruments such as microphones and video cameras.

The speakers tab allows the user to select his/her speaker setup and to test each speaker. When a speaker is being tested, it is highlighted in green. The user also has the ability to not only select how many speakers that person has but to enable and disable the Sensaura 3D Sound Support.

This tab enables users to select the SPDIF source, change the Internal and External clock settings of the card, enable ASIO, and select the SPDIF input that is being used.

PowerDVD is an industry leading product that has more or less become the default software DVD player on the market. Most multimedia devices like soundcards and even DVD-ROMs ship with copies of PowerDVD. It is the programs simplicity and effectiveness that truly make it the top notch program that it is.