Introduction

In Australia, Digital TV broadcasting has been flying around the air waves, available at no cost, for a little under five years. It was launched on the 1st of January 2001 in Australia's five major capital cities - Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Digital TV offers a better viewing experience over analog reception with crystal clear and 16:9 widescreen images and high quality MPEG sound (similar level to CD quality) or Dolby Digital compared to FM radio quality sound of analog reception. These features depend on the program you are watching and if it was recorded in standard definition (widescreen and standard sound or high definition (higher resolution widescreen and Dolby surround sound).

According to laws in Australia, commercial TV stations must provide around 3 hours of HDTV content per day (officially 1040 hours a year) which includes advertisements. So you'll be experiencing proper high fidelity broadcasting for at least part of the day.

Now the coverage of Digital TV in Australia has been expanded outside of the major city areas and into regional areas all around the country through the installation of many new towers. For most people, when it was launched, Digital TV was just a pipedream since the set-top-boxes were very costly and new TV's including built-in support weren't affordable for the average person or were next to non-existent.

As with most things, when popularity of a product or service grows, more people buy and naturally prices decrease. Prices of set-top-boxes have reduced substantially and more and more people are getting into Digital TV with salesmen around the country pushing Digital TV as a good reason to spend a bunch of money on a new and uber expensive TV. It's no longer a pipedream but a real possibility for the average consumer.

MSI recently launched their Digi VOX USB 2.0 adapter which allows you to watch and listen to digital TV (or HDTV) and radio broadcasting on your PC or notebook. Read on as we take a close look at the Digi VOX and just what it can add to your HTPC (Home Theater PC) with its many fancy features which won't make a big dent on your bank account, as other devices of this kind can.