ATI HDTV AIW

[baumerz]

Anyone know when these will be available?

 

[MrMaster]

Straight from the article just recently posted:

ATI already knows that you must be asking about a DTV All-in-Wonder possibility (as we were), and they have prepared a response in their HDTV Wonder's FAQ:
...One of the most obvious reasons involves size: the HDTV tuner solution is significantly larger than the current tuner on an All-in-Wonder board. Attempting to make such a large tuner fit on an All-in-Wonder board would result in sacrificing some of the All-in-Wonder's great feature set and performance. Another reason for separating the HDTV tuner from the graphics processor is to maintain signal integrity of the digital signal. Connecting the tuner to the demodulator is a sensitive matter that is easily impacted by electrical noise...

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=2089&p=3

 

[0roo0roo]

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/hdtv_wonder_review/default.asp
Price: At $200 MSRP, the HDTV WONDER is a steal. Just think about it for a second. For $200 you?re getting the card with HDTV capability and TV-ON-DEMAND, REMOTE WONDER, the HDTV antenna and video input box. Now compare that with the TV WONDER PRO Remote Control Edition. It sells for an MSRP of $100 and while it offers the remote control unit, it doesn?t provide all the functionality of the HDTV WONDER (it lacks TV-ON-DEMAND support). We feel the $100 price premium is definitely worth it considering the extra features you?re getting.


goddamned, thats a steal!!

 

[Rob9674]

can the hdtv wonder be hooked up a cable box to get channels like HBO?

 

[alexquick]

no it can not descramble cable. (unfortunately.. anyone know if there is a tuner that can do that?)


edit.. ok wait. you could hook it up to the cable box yes, because the cable box will descramble the signal and just output normal video to whatever component you want. but what I want is a tuner card that will descramble the cable itself.

 

[DGath]

Legally, you can't descramble a cable company's encryption that is normally required through a cable box (descrambler). So no, there shouldn't be anything out there.

 

[Chadder007]

Originally posted by: DGath
Legally, you can't descramble a cable company's encryption that is normally required through a cable box (descrambler). So no, there shouldn't be anything out there.

Keyword...."shouldn't"

 

[alexquick]

out of curiousity though, would local HDTV broadcasts be scrambled on regular cable then? like say you just subscribed to basic cable, could you tune to the local stuff in HD with this card?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: alexquick
out of curiousity though, would local HDTV broadcasts be scrambled on regular cable then? like say you just subscribed to basic cable, could you tune to the local stuff in HD with this card?

"regular" cable doesn't come in high-def; you'd have to get it OTA (over the air) with an antenna, and it wouldn't be scrambled then. If you get HD digital cable, you'll need a descrambler box. There are new encryption standards for digital cable boxes (it's a smart-card-based system), but so far only new HDTVs have them (the ones that are "digital cable ready"). I'm holding out for a computer HDTV tuner that can take one of those -- then you'd be able to descramble digital cable through your capture card without needing a cable box!

Edit: I am sort of surprised that nobody's produced a TV tuner with a descrambler built in. I guess they're afraid of getting sued for violating the DMCA...

 

[alexquick]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: alexquick
out of curiousity though, would local HDTV broadcasts be scrambled on regular cable then? like say you just subscribed to basic cable, could you tune to the local stuff in HD with this card?

"regular" cable doesn't come in high-def; you'd have to get it OTA (over the air) with an antenna, and it wouldn't be scrambled then. If you get HD digital cable, you'll need a descrambler box. There are new encryption standards for digital cable boxes (it's a smart-card-based system), but so far only new HDTVs have them (the ones that are "digital cable ready"). I'm holding out for a computer HDTV tuner that can take one of those -- then you'd be able to descramble digital cable through your capture card without needing a cable box!

Edit: I am sort of surprised that nobody's produced a TV tuner with a descrambler built in. I guess they're afraid of getting sued for violating the DMCA...

yes, that is what im looking for. but even if you subscribe to digital cable, do they still require an OTA antenna to pick up the local HD stuff? im pretty sure all the satellite providers do (dish, direct, voom).

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: alexquick

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: alexquick
out of curiousity though, would local HDTV broadcasts be scrambled on regular cable then? like say you just subscribed to basic cable, could you tune to the local stuff in HD with this card?

"regular" cable doesn't come in high-def; you'd have to get it OTA (over the air) with an antenna, and it wouldn't be scrambled then. If you get HD digital cable, you'll need a descrambler box. There are new encryption standards for digital cable boxes (it's a smart-card-based system), but so far only new HDTVs have them (the ones that are "digital cable ready"). I'm holding out for a computer HDTV tuner that can take one of those -- then you'd be able to descramble digital cable through your capture card without needing a cable box!

Edit: I am sort of surprised that nobody's produced a TV tuner with a descrambler built in. I guess they're afraid of getting sued for violating the DMCA...

yes, that is what im looking for. but even if you subscribe to digital cable, do they still require an OTA antenna to pick up the local HD stuff? im pretty sure all the satellite providers do (dish, direct, voom).

I don't know about your cable provider; I have Comcast up here, and you can (for an extra fee on top of regular digital cable) get an HD decoder cable box and about a dozen HDTV channels (which includes the local ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox, and some cable channels like Discovery, ESPN, HBO if you subscribe to it, etc.) I don't know what the satellite providers do (I can't get them at my apartment), but yes, I would guess that they don't provide local HDTV feeds (eats up too much satellite bandwidth).

There would be nothing stopping you from also getting an OTA tuner and using that to get the local channels if you didn't want to (or couldn't) order them through your cable provider.

Note that the HDTV Wonder does not have component-in (only an analog HDTV input), so you can *only* watch OTA HDTV broadcasts on it right now (since every device other than OTA tuners that I've seen gives a component or DVI output). I don't know if you can get something that converts from component to 'broadcast' HDTV (somehow I doubt it).