DViCO TViX 6632N

This is a multimedia hard drive that has everything going for it.  The Dvico Tvix 6632N has a powerful decoding chip, a display, 802.11n WiFi built-in and a pair of HD TV tuners.  You can add a stylish exterior and hardware handling of DTS and Dolby Digital audio signals and the result is a serious contender for our top score.  So, does it make it?

The outside of the machine is a combination of grey brushed aluminium on top, quality plastic on the sides and a glossy front panel.  While this might look attractive at first, it quickly attracts dust and greasy fingerprints.  There's a fan to push out hot air and it's quiet, with five different levels.

Another strength is the screen at the front.  Although it allows to easily control the device without turning your TV on (a boon for music fans), it's a shame that the manufacturer chose a two-line VFD display: we would have preferred an LCD screen, which is more accurate, despite not having as wide viewing angles as the VFD.

The remote control is the same as on earlier models.  It's attractive and sits easily in the hand, and has several glow-in-the-dark buttons.  That's useful for finding the remote itself in a dark room, but they're not bright enough to actually read the labels in the dark.  Some of the buttons aren't ideally placed, especially the one used for returning to the main menu.  We often found ourselves looking for it for a few seconds before we found it, which is a bit of a pain for a feature that you use so often.

A rich, attractive interface

The onscreen interface has seen a lot of work, and it's a lot more from a few new colours to dress up the default interface offered by the decoding chip, as is all too often the case for Dvico's competitors.


Instead, the manufacturer has gone for a complete graphical overall, with good-looking new icons and, most impressively, a fluid experience that's second to none.  Even better, it's incredibly easy to switch from a list view to thumbnails.  And that's when the magic happens: you can see all of the photos in a folder has mini previews.  For music, the device can read ID3 tags but that doesn't include album artwork.  The only way around that is to put the graphics in the same folder as the album, and they will then be used for every track.


For video, you can create your own jukebox, with illustrations of the DVD cover, a summary of the plot and so on.  This solution is implemented using third-party TViXIE and has halfway between what's provided by the Xtreamer (or the MED500X) and NMT devices like the PopcornHour C-200.  A graphic is created for each film (you have to do it manually for every title), and then put it in the same folder as the file itself.  As you scroll through the folder, the image is displayed just above.


Although it's better than on the Xtreamer, this system is still much less practical and less versatile than the YAMJ software on the NMT class of hard drives.  The absence of support for HTML rules out full screen content, as well as the option to create more dynamic options, like the ability to flick through all of the episodes in a TV series for instance.

Decoding: HD, H.264, MKV and DTS

Until now, Dvico had got us used to using Sigma Designs hardware for its high-end media centres, but it's changed tracks here by moving over to the competition with a Realtek RTD1283DD chip.  And you'd be right to say it was a wide choice, as this piece of hardware can access just about anything. 

A very wide number of codecs is supported: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 ASP (DivX, XviD), MPEG-4 AVC (H.264, x264) and VC-1, in both SD and 1080p HD, as well as with an automatic 24 Hz mode.  As for container formats--files that bundle a video track with several alternative audio tracks and subtitles--there's plenty on offer with AVI, DIVX, MP4, MKV, MOV, FLV, MTS, M2TS and WMV.  DVDs that have been saved to disk are handled perfectly as RIP or ISO files, and the same is true for Blu-ray content.  With the latter, you do lose the structure of the original menus (an alternative is provided), you can still manage subtitles and different audio tracks.

The next stop is support for audio formats, and the first thing we have to say is that we didn't have any particular problems with files that had more than one audio track.  The interface for choosing which track to play is easy to access and use.  Once again, plenty of formats are on offer with support for MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV, Flac and Ogg.  Dolby Digital and DTS are also available in two different modes: either the sound is decoded directly by the hardware and transformed into a stereo signal (a stereo downmix), or the signal is sent directly to an external amp (a bitstream).  The former is perfect if you need to send audio to a TV that can't handle the decoding itself.  There are still one or two limitations that it's worth pointing out though: DTS HD HR and MA are carried as 5.1 (not 7.1) signals, and DTS 96/24 ends up as 48/24.  Dolby Digital Plus and True HD still aren't supported, but a firmware update should resolve this particular problem.

Next up are subtitles, where we have another success story: SRT, SMI, SUB, SSA and IDX files are all usable.  Subtitle files contained within container formats is also excellent, and we really liked the menu used to switch from one set of subtitles to another.  Finally, there is a faultless selection of photo formats on offer, with JPG, BMP, PNG, GIF and TIF files all displaying perfectly.  Even 24 Megapixel JPGs were fine, and skipping from one photo to the next is quick enough: it takes to two to three seconds to load a 10 Megapixel photo.

Connectivity: HDMI 1.3, SDHC, WiFi N, HD TV and USB

You didn't really think that this model was going to miss out on connectivity did you?  Of course it doesn't!  The audio/video outputs are rather traditional, with HDMI 1.3, RCA, coaxial and optical ports.  Along one side is a SDHC card reader that's very useful for checking out (or copying) photos and videos that you've just taken on your digital camera.

Two USB host ports are available for connecting USB keys or external hard drives, but as they're both unfortunately at the back, they're difficult to get to.  Network connectivity is managed by a 10/100 Mbps (no Gigabit, unfortunately) Ethernet connection, or by built-in 802.11n WiFi.  If you use the latter, be careful not to move too far away from the wireless source you're using (a router or the ADSL box provided by your ISP for instance) as the antenna is a simple copper panel, rather than the three-part wired antenna that N-compatible devices normally offer.  Finally, a double HD TV tuner (see inset) is available, and our only gripe would be the lack of video inputs.