Users, especially employees involved in using computers, may sit in front of the computer for hours of every day. Such work can be tedious. For the purpose of entertainment a person may like to listen to news and/or music, play games, watch VCD (video compact disc) movies, or even watch TV while working or during breaks. In this regard, a person may install one or more additional peripherals (e.g., accelerator card, CD-ROM (compact disc-read only memory) driver, TV image conversion device, or the like) and their associated software in the computer. Such peripherals do not occupy precious space on a user's desk. Also, a user can run an audio-video (AV) playing software or image fetching software to play a VCD for watching movies as well as recording the same. Particularly, the TV image conversion devices such as internal TV cards or external set-top boxes available from some manufacturers have a feature of picture in picture in associated software which is sold for a fee or for free. Hence, a user can use the computer while watching a TV program. Thus, a wide variety of TV image conversion devices are produced by computer peripheral manufacturers. Further, TV image conversion devices are gaining popularity among many computer users.
Conventionally, a multimedia remote control is free when a user buys a TV card having many powerful features. Also, the user has to install multimedia software after mounting the TV card in a computer. Thereafter, the user can turn on the computer to run the software to play a VCD to watch a movie or watch TV. Also, the user can operate the multimedia remote control to select a desired channel for watching or adjusting volume. In case the user does not want to play the VCD or watch TV any more and wants to stop using the computer, the user has to stop running the multimedia software and perform the necessary shutdown step prior to turning off an on/off switch on the computer. This is in contrast to turn off of a domestic appliance, which is a simple operation involving aiming a remote control at the domestic appliance. As such, it is typical that a user has to rise to walk to a computer to either turn the computer on by pressing the on/off switch or perform the shutdown step prior to turning the computer off by pressing the on/off switch rather than operate a remote control to do the same in one operation. Hence, the above computer turning on/off procedure is not user friendly for many users who are familiar with the operation of domestic appliances.
Thus, it is desirable among TV image conversion device designers and manufactures to provide a novel TV image conversion device for fulfilling the needs of vast users.