Introduction

The InternetVue 2020 is a product that connects to standard tv inputs, connects to your home network, or creates it's own wireless access point for you to connect to with the PC2TV software and then allows you to use the PC2TV audio and video drivers to access the television as a second computer screen. You can set the television, projector or other screen with composite or component video input to mirror what you see on your screen or to act as a second screen that you can then drag windows onto. The device comes bundled with all the software you need to use it, and it is strictly Windows-only coming in at 179.99 (NewEgg).

Let me say that our experience, here at UMLan with AddLogix has been very pleasent and they have been very helpful and considerate.

About the Product

This device is marketed as allowing you to "Watch and PC-based content on your big-screen TV", "Enjoy TV shows from major networks' websites in the living room", and "View web-based streaming videos and show digital photos." It aims to be a simple and effective way to bring living-room media center entertainment within reach for most families with an emphasis on the points that it is easy and wireless. They also throw in the office use possibility which I think is actually a very good use for this device. It would allow you to attach it to a projector in the conference room. If twenty employees need to use that projector from time to time, then each of them can install the pc2tv software, and it will allow them to avoid the hassle of plugging in that VGA cable and figuring out how to make their computer recognize the new screen again every time. They would simply walk in, launch the pc2tv software, click on 'pc2tv-conference_room' or whatever name the device is configured for, and it would mirror their screen onto the projector.

Closer look

This product has a tremendous 'cool' factor. People walking through the living room are fascinated to see a computer screen on the 52-inch television television screen watching highlights on ESPN.com and later, playing a video. The video quality is not HD but it is not bad. I wouldn't want to read text on it, but for watching a DVD it is perfect and for YouTube, obviously, it is overkill. It seems that the display resolution can not be configured manually for the television, but it didn't do anything bad, so it's really not a problem. Depending on the exact model of your television, you may notice a thin black border around the edge of the screen. The people at addlogix insured us that this is a design trade-off as they decided that a thin border on some tv sets was better than cropping screen area from the edges on other sets and it does not significantly affect the device's usage.

Since the device installs drivers that will make your computer think of you television as 'just another monitor' you can really do anything on this device that you would do on your computer. Powerpoint presentations, photo slideshows, internet browsing (including flickr, youTube, ESPN.com and other sites you may be interested in sharing with a room full of people) will all display on your television without a hitch. This is one of the greatest features of this device. The fact that it is universal for displaying and computer-based content makes it very useful for a great variety of situations from business to home entertainment.

Front		Left Side

Back		Right Side

Front		Sleeve Off

Open		Accessories (why no composite video cable?)

Device (looks like a wireless access point)		Power (barrel), Audio (3.5mm), Video (composite), Video (component), Ethernet, Reset, Antenna

Device		Power (interchangeable plug type)

Testing

Using a Windows XP Media Center pc that met only the minimum system requirements, we found that video playback was not usable. The audio was in-and-out and the video kept slowing down and speeding up. The manufacturer makes it clear that this is a very cpu-intensive program. Presumably this is because the entire screen display and all audio output must be compressed before it is sent across the network, so if you intend to use this for media playback, you must meet or exceed the manufacturer's 'recommended' system specifications. When we were using a 2.2GHz Windows XP laptop with 2GB of RAM, we did not experience any problems. There was still about a 1-2 second lag when watching full-screen videos, but this seems to be a normal buffering operation rather than a defect and it did not cause significant problems. When browsing the internet, the lag was minimal, probably 1-2 tenths of a second - noticeable, but not cumbersome.

Conclusion

The setup was easy as promised and continued usage was even simpler than we expected. The pc2tv software does a good job of dealing with the complex world of windows wireless networking and display setup for you, giving you an good easy interface to configure the basic display setup. This device definitely has some good applications, and the quality is high. We also had a great experience communicating with this company, and their downloadable pdf manual was very helpful so we are confident that their support would be good in case you did need it for some reason. This is great with hulu.com to catch up on tv shows, or any other content that is normally bound to your laptop that you might want to watch on your television, as long as you have a good modern computer.

This software is nice and simple. I gave my dad (who thought that his wireless mouse dongle was for his wifi internet connection) his computer and just told him the program's name. He figured it out in about a minute.

Some pros we found:

• Wireless connection
• Acts as second display at the operating system level, so you can do anything you would normally do on your compurer - on your tv
• Easy setup and configuration *If you have a windows laptop with wireless networking*
• We can think of lots of great uses for this product
• Even my dad can do it!

Some Cons we found:

• Eats cpu
• A 'Minimum' requirements (single core 1.8GHz) cpu was not sufficient to render watchable videos due to dropped frames/audio in our tests
• Only compatible with Windows
• Did not include a composite video cable, only component... why??