HDTV Wonder??

[intokkabire]

Hey Everyone,
Was interested to know if anyone has heard any news about the HDTV Wonder of addon cards for AIW series? This was announced some time ago by ATI, but as far as i have seen, disappeared off the face of the earth since them. Any info?

Thanks

 

[rbV5]

Its still in beta testing...........................................................................................................................................

 

[luco]

I'm curious about the HDTV Wonder myself.
Will this card act as a tuner? In other words, if I subscribe to HDTV cable would I be able to use just this card without the cable company's receiver to view all the channels?

Thanks.

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: luco
I'm curious about the HDTV Wonder myself.
Will this card act as a tuner? In other words, if I subscribe to HDTV cable would I be able to use just this card without the cable company's receiver to view all the channels?

Thanks.

Not "likely". Specs are pretty sketchy about HDTV Wonder, but a good guess is that it will have both an ATSC tuner for OTA DTV/HDTV broadcasts, and an analog tuner for NTSC broadcasts or analog cable. It "probably" won't be able to tune Digital Cable/HD or Satellite channels. Basically, you will have to live in an area that can receive broadcast signals to take advantage of HDTV Wonder.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: rbV5

Originally posted by: luco
I'm curious about the HDTV Wonder myself.
Will this card act as a tuner? In other words, if I subscribe to HDTV cable would I be able to use just this card without the cable company's receiver to view all the channels?

Thanks.

Not "likely". Specs are pretty sketchy about HDTV Wonder, but a good guess is that it will have both an ATSC tuner for OTA DTV/HDTV broadcasts, and an analog tuner for NTSC broadcasts or analog cable. It "probably" won't be able to tune Digital Cable/HD or Satellite channels. Basically, you will have to live in an area that can receive broadcast signals to take advantage of HDTV Wonder.

Or use your cable\satellite box as a tuner and the card as an input.

 

[rbV5]

Or use your cable\satellite box as a tuner and the card as an input

That will work for the analog side, like any TV tuner card, but for HD streams, it will not work. Broadcast HD streams are compressed, but the signal output from a HD receiver box is uncompressed which requires a high bandwidth connection, and a high bandwidth media storage, niether of which will be provided by HDTV Wonder. It would have to be down-converted to 480i in order to be captured to your PC from a STB (in other words, no longer HD).

 

[MDE]

I'll slowly back out of this discussion then...

 

[luco]

So there will be no HDTV recording available for a PC??

I was asking my cable provider today if I can get one STB for the TV and one for my PC and they said no problem. But from your info the STB connected to my PC will not let me view HDTV on my PC, right?

Now that just sucks.

 

[Edge3D]

Who cares? Standalone ATI tuners software is horrid.
This has been available for years and even when ATI "gets around" to releasing their HDTV wonder, this solution will probably be superior even at that point.

I ditched my ATI TV Wonder PCI years ago, bought a Hauppauge WinTV Go for $40 and would never purchase another TV Wonder in any variety.

It has MUCH better software and driver support.
It had better image quality upon my first use of it, but it got even better after Hauppauge implemented the popular DScaler deinterlacing algorithms into their intuitive software.
Nothing looks better than Dscaler.

You can use Dscaler on ATI cards but the Dscaler software isnt very intuitive and its just a shame that ATIs IQ isnt near Hauppauges cheapest card at all.

Sorry, this is a sensitive spot for me.. I HATED my TV Wonder and worked with it for about a 1 1/2 after purchase trying to get it to work properly.
I hope you reconsider and spend your money somewhere where you will get your moneys worth.

The AIW cards seem to work ok in my experience. But I wouldnt go as far as to give my online "go" to that solution either. Hauppauge all the way for tuners.. or even one of the multitude of off-brands like Leadtek/Asus.. they have nice solutions as well.

edit- I should add, Old or New.. Hauppauge supports their products. While ATI has (quite some time ago), completely dropped support on my old ATI TV Wonder PCI.. they never did fix the softwares problems. Was a shame because it (and their other tuners) are nice pieces of hardware.

 

[SickBeast]

I agree with Edge3D, I have a TV Wonder right now and all I use is Dscaler; the ATi software is absolutely horrendous.

That said, the HDTV wonder does look nice and may be quite good if ATi can produce good software for it.

I would be very surprised if it won't be able to record HD streams BTW.

 

[luco]

I'm building a new system in two weeks. I was gonna go with AIW 9600XT, but since I'm also getting a widescreen HDTV set for the living room, I'd like to use the HDTV cable feed on my PC too.

So, now I'm thinking of getting 9600XT card plus a separate HDTV tuner unless ATI builds an AIW HDTV. I doubt that will be anytime soon.

Well, the WinTV-HD sounds great, but the US$299 msrp PLUS an AGP card is way out of my range. My budget pretty much stops at the AIW 9600XT.

Any other configuration ideas for me?

 

[Edge3D]

Thats about it if you want HDTV on your PC.. no matter what, your going to pay out the nose for it.
Even though you are really getting a great deal compared to a TV that includes the HD decoder..

What your asking for is cheap, unbridled HDTV but on your high definition monitor, considering your request, $300 is cheap IMO. Its just not going to come cheap or free. ATIs wont either. But you'll get some nice bugs to work out with it. And some "nice", or AKA nonexistent in ATI's Canadian book of business, legacy support as it ages..

I have also looked into the same thing you are right now, yet years ago and have came to the same dead end.. that I wasnt willing to pay for it yet until it cheapens up.
But ATI isnt your savior in the tuner department, that much is clear.

 

[luco]

Thanks.

I think I'll just go with the AIW 9600XT although I can pick up AIW 9700 Pro without a remote for about US$50 cheaper. hmm...

I built my current PC 3 years ago and I still have the ATI Radeon 64MB VIVO (aka 7200) in it. So it seems that the AIW 9600XT should serve me just fine until my next upgrade.

 

[Edge3D]

NP.
I've never had many problems with the AIW products I've encountered I think your making a good decision. I'd urge a checking into the Hauppauge WinTV products though.. I've had my WinTV Go for a couple years now and its worked flawlessly for many generations.. and I have yet to see a better looking tuner.. mostly this is due to the DScaler algorithms (the chip itself isnt the hottest on the market, the Asus tuner has the best hardware available). For $40 I'm enthralled by it. They have tuners for more with FM radio/Dolby Prologic/Dolby Digital so you can use your 5.1 setup if you have one.

But it seems ATI makes their AIW cards work properly.
I dont think they wanted to spend the money to support the TV Wonder since it probably wasnt selling very well (I wonder why).

 

[Wag]

The WinTV-HD is total crap. The software hasn't been updated in 3yrs.

If you're looking for a low-cost HDTV card, you should go for a Fusion. Fusion III
The F3 can receive OTA HD as well as cable HD (unencrypted QAM).

 

[SickBeast]

Why would you pay $50 MORE for a 9600XT? The 9700PRO will be 75% faster!! Forget the remote, you can buy that seperately for $50 if you want.

 

[jamesbond007]

I hope a manufacturer comes out with a FireWire HDTV capture device. I love my Canopus ADVC100 dearly. There is no software to have glitches, you don't need an ultra-fast HDD setup to record to. Plus, the quality beats all of the ATi AIW cards I've used in the past.

Anyways, has anyone heard/seen white papers for such a device that'll process HDTV?

 

[luco]

Just to clarify for everyone.. I'm in in Canada (East Coast to be precise). As such, any "free" OTA HDTV is not available to me. My cable company can give me another HD STB for my PC for CAD$9.95/month. Not a bad deal, but it seems too much hassle. Plus I'd much rather watch HDTV in the living room on a widescreen 34" (planning to get one soon). So, HDTV on my PC will have to wait until the next time I upgrade my whole system.

As far as the video card goes, I'm gonna order the AIW 9700 Pro.

Here's the breakdown in prices in CAD dollars:
AIW 9700 Pro - $299 no remote
AIW 9600XT - $370 (Remote Wonder II included)
Remote Wonder - $79

So, they're pretty much the same price with a remote and it seems the 9700 Pro easily takes 9600XT in performance. I can also get 9800 Pro for around CAD$320, but the AIW 9700 Pro seems like a great deal considering the TV tuner and video capture features.

 

[SickBeast]

$299CDN is a great deal for an AIW9700PRO. It's the Future Shop deal isn't it??

 

[luco]

Yup. I've just ordered one. They have plenty left.

 

[Edge3D]

Originally posted by: Wag
The WinTV-HD is total crap. The software hasn't been updated in 3yrs.

If you're looking for a low-cost HDTV card, you should go for a Fusion. Fusion III
The F3 can receive OTA HD as well as cable HD (unencrypted QAM).

Ever used one?

PS. Contary to popular belief, driver updates are not ALWAYS a good thing. Frequent driver updates might be necessary for a fast moving market thats still in middle-age like the GPU market, with new games being released constantly pushing the limits. But of course, forum-goers do little actual thinking and prefer to rampage around spewing FUD.
So take off the blinders because the frequent driver update theory does not always apply. In fact, its a good thing in this case.
The card works right. Its reliable, has great software supporting it and works under all OS's with all video card combinations correctly and flawlessly.
I dont think you've ever used one.

No way would I ever recommend or use that ghetto "DVICO" product. I'll stick to a brandname such as Hauppauge. The Dvico is only $100 less anyway, surely not worth it considering Hauppauges been around for years and years and has a following that knows they deliver on hardware and software.

 

[Wag]

PS. Contary to popular belief, driver updates are not ALWAYS a good thing. Frequent driver updates might be necessary for a fast moving market thats still in middle-age like the GPU market, with new games being released constantly pushing the limits. But of course, forum-goers do little actual thinking and prefer to rampage around spewing FUD.

I'm sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about.

I owned a WinTV-HD when it originally came out and I've owned a few DVICO products at this point. WinTV-HD isn'tn even on the list for anyone wanting to purchase a HDTV card and hasn't been for years.

HDTV Card Buyer's Guide

I suggest you participate in the HTPC Forum at AVS and do a search for DVICO and WinTV-HD and see what comes up.

 

[rbV5]

Ever used one?

PS. Contary to popular belief, driver updates are not ALWAYS a good thing. Frequent driver updates might be necessary for a fast moving market thats still in middle-age like the GPU market, with new games being released constantly pushing the limits. But of course, forum-goers do little actual thinking and prefer to rampage around spewing FUD?

The WinTV-HD "is" total crap. The fusion card is pretty good actually for a software solution. You're a bit behind in the times concerning PC HD, you should visit AVSforums before you start spouting advice. Some of have and use this stuff you know.

 

[edtsui]

Originally posted by: Edge3D
No way would I ever recommend or use that ghetto "DVICO" product. I'll stick to a brandname such as Hauppauge. The Dvico is only $100 less anyway, surely not worth it considering Hauppauges been around for years and years and has a following that knows they deliver on hardware and software.

I guess the "brandname" theory must apply to everything then?

To the OP, check out that HDTV Card Buyer's Guide posted above and make an INFORMED decision. I went with the Fusion card because of price and I have no regrets, it does everything its asked and looks great doing it.