ATI HDTV Wonder

[Xenon14]

I'm thinking of getting this card as a decent TV tuner. You can check my rig for details but pretty much i have 2500+, 9700pro, and I have dual output to a CRT and DVI to an LCD. Onto the questions:

1) Can i output the TV signal to a secondary monitor (my CRT)?

2) Is the antenna what receives the HDTV signal, and the rest of the channels are from cable? Is there a way to check if there is any HD signal in range of where i live?

3) Anything else I need to know before purchase?

thanks.

 

[Duvie]

I looked into this card as well and the more I researched the more and more I got confused of what it was an was not going to deliver.....I cannot therefore answer any of the questions with nay certainty....

I would really think of taking this to anothr forum in AT (like the video section) or go to more a video card forum or Home theater type of forum.....


I read things like ppl geting 2 TV tuner cards to get HDTV and basic TV or digital service channels...

I heard of a lot of bugs with ATI and MMC. NOt PVRing correctly, freezing while recording, etc....

I heard it works better in MCE 2005 then WinXP....

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Xenon14
I'm thinking of getting this card as a decent TV tuner. You can check my rig for details but pretty much i have 2500+, 9700pro, and I have dual output to a CRT and DVI to an LCD. Onto the questions:

1) Can i output the TV signal to a secondary monitor (my CRT)?

With TV cards generally, yes. The only restriction is that if the application you're using to watch TV uses video overlay, you can only output it to the 'primary' monitor of your system. If it uses DXVA or software rendering, you can display it on either monitor.

2) Is the antenna what receives the HDTV signal, and the rest of the channels are from cable?

It only gets OTA HDTV (via an antenna), and you can either use an antenna or analog cable to get SDTV. If you have digital cable, you will need a cable box to view any channels above 120.

Is there a way to check if there is any HD signal in range of where i live?

You could try www.antennaweb.org (which would at least give you some idea if there is *anything* HD broadcasting in the area), or ask/search at a HT site like www.avsforum.com or www.hometheaterspot.com.

3) Anything else I need to know before purchase?

Quite a bit, probably, if you didn't know this stuff. You might want to do some more research (there is a *lot* of info over at www.avsforum.com on all sorts of HD issues/caveats).

 

[gbrux]

When the HDTV Wonder works, it works great.

I've had this HD Over the air tuner for a month. It's in a Windows XP Media Center 2005 box connected to a Syntax Olevia 30" HDTV ready LCD TV. The Olevia was the Hot Deal sensation of Black Friday. I got it for a net of $799 plus sales tax.

Everything works great. I'm typing this message from about 7 feet from the screen, which is widescreen and about 590:1 contrast ratio. Belkin wireless RF keyboard and optical mouse combo.

The connection for the LCD TV is via DVI from ATI Radeon 9800 Pro at 1280 to 720 resolution.

Half-Life 2, Call of Duty, and Doom3 are brilliant.

The TV has seven different video in connectors: TV Tuner (dual tuner) for over the air standard definition, DVI for MCE PC with OTA HDTV, VGA, YPrPb for XBox HD, YCrCb, AV composite for VCR, and S-Video for DirecTV STB.

The preferred method that produces a successful installation most often of the HDTV Wonder is a new Windows XP installation with the latest drivers.