Taking a look at the TV Jockey which is about the size of a cable modem, the front has a top mounted IR window for commands from the remote, 6 quick command buttons and 4 input jacks. The buttons allow you to quickly move from one function to another (the remote cycles through them), while the input jacks make switching from one device to another easily accomplished.
The back of the TV Jockey is where you make the necessary connections to your computer/monitor, T.V. antenna (or cable), speakers & the power cable.
The remote control looks similar to most other remotes, channel up/down, Volume up/down, number pad to directly access various T.V. channels, mute, source (to manually switch between T.V. broadcast, DVD player, VCR player), PC/TV (to switch between……YEP, you guessed it, the PC or TV) works kind of like a KVM switch. Other buttons allow you to adjust color, tint, channel fine tuning, stereo/mono/SAP. You can also clear the settings to factory default. One button missing is the on/off button, this unit is always on.
Setting up the unit is pretty self explanatory. The instruction booklet has only 2 pages you may really want to look at, page 3 (below left) is the Installation diagram and page 5 (below right) is the Remote Control usage page. I plugged the Toshiba DVD player in using an S-Video cable and the Emerson VCR using the yellow/red/white RCA jacks.
Setup:
When ready to use, you have a choice of laying it flat on your table or standing it upright in the supplied stand. The TV Jockey just slips into the stand aligning two slots to hold it in place. If you have room to move all the various connecting cables directly behind the TV Jockey…..secure them in place with tape if you can. The stand for the TV Jockey is not weighted and a wad of cables pulling this way or that will cause the TV Jockey to twist around and turn the IR window away from the direction of the remote.
Setting up the TV Jockey took me 15 minutes... 5 minutes more that it should have because I had to untangle a wad of cables behind my desk (My cable management does not extend beyond the interior of the computer case).
The test system consisted of:
• AMD 2500+ @ 10x210MHz
• ASUS A7N8X-E Dlx
• 2x512MHz Corsair XMS PC 3200 CL2
• ATI 9600XT
• WD 80gig x2 (RAID 0)
• WD 80gig BOOT
• Memorex True 8x DVD burner
• CTX PL9 19” CRT
• Comcast cable TV
• Toshiba DVD player
• Emerson 4 Head VCR
• CyberLink’s Power DVD
• (Sorry, no GameCube/PlayStation)
