Fusion III QAM HDTV Tuner Card Review

It has been nearly three years since I reviewed one of the first HDTV Tuner cards to hit the market. At that time, the Access DTV card retailed for $400.00 and the only HDTV station available in my area was the local CBS. While the adoption of High Definition has improved greatly, I have to admit that it has been slower than I expected. Equally as surprising is the limited availability of HDTV tuner cards. Until recently, there were few players in this market. I am happy to say that this is starting to change. Manufacturers such as Hauppauge, ATI, and Dvico have developed affordable HDTV cards. Today, we are looking at one of these cards, the Dvico Fusion III Gold QAM. What makes this card unique are some very exciting features that others do not offer. Most notably is the reception of QAM modulated streams. What is QAM you ask? Simply put, DIGITAL CABLE. This does NOT mean that you can buy the card and get free pay stations. We'll get further into this later. Let me first tell you how I came to know DVico.