ATI HDTV Wonder - Page 11

Ok I must say that I really think the ATI HDTV wonder is an excellent product. I am not saying that it is anywhere near perfect but it does work as advertised.

First off don't bother buying the HDTV card unless you have an ATI 9500 or above AGP video card. If your card does not FULLY support Directx9 then the HD DTV application will not work properly. I confirmed this by installing the HDTV wonder on my rig with an ATI 8500DV card and the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX external usb device. Everything worked perfectly except the DTV application. When I started the DTV app I would see one frame of the HD video and then it would go to green scrambled lines. Then I went out and dropped some mad cash on an ATI 9800Pro and tried the HDTV wonder again. I used the ATI uninstall utility in add and remove programs and then I reinstalled by only using the software on the HDTV wonder's cd. Everything worked perfectly. If you don't want to drop a huge amount of cash then try the ATI 9600Se card. That is a pretty cheap card and it will work.

As far as the Audio dropouts go. THIS IS NOT A PROBLEM WITH THE AUDIGY SOUND CARDS! I think that this is a problem with the actual HD feeds that we are receiving! Several channels had numerous audio dropouts(FOX, ABC, and PBS). However, I switched over to my Time Warner HD cable box and the exact same channels had dropouts in the exact same place. Fox is doing some testing on their new 720p channel(I can confirm that we are receiving FOX at 720p in our area now) so they have screwed up the audio. This occurs on the over the air signal and since Time Warner gets it from the same place it occurs with cable also. Don't blame the ATI HDTV card for not being compatible with the Audigy cards. You need to complain to your local station that their broadcast is crap.

Overall I am absolutely thrilled with my HDTV wonder and my new 9800Pro. I was able to record CSI in 1080i with out any problems. Oh yea, I actually have my HTPC hooked up to my 50 Sony GWIII LCD at 720p so I was able to compare the picture quality of HD cable to the over the air HD picture quality. Believe it or not the HDTV wonder picture was much better than the cable even though the HDTV wonder was being down converted to 720p by my computer. Granted I have my computer tweaked pretty well so I think it looks great but there is definitely a noticeable picture quality improvement with the HDTV wonder.

The only thing I haven't got working is the Dolby Digital pass through. It looks like that option was left out of this software but I am not sure of that. There weren't any dolby digital broadcasts last night so I couldn't test it. However, the Olympics are tonight so that should be a good test.

Well I've spent 3 nights now installing, reinstalling. I still get video stuttering, application hangs and crashes etc. It certainly has the potential to be an excellent product, but it's obviously still in beta software territory, if not alpha. If I can get it stable enough to use, I'll hold on to it, but otherwise I'm giving up after this weekend.
I have tried it in two systems also with varying results, paired with 9600se and 9700 pro, one intel one AMD. I was really looking forward to this working, so disappointing.

Okay, I removed the Nforce IDE dirvers and replaced them with the standard driver. This got rid of my "DMA not enabled" error on the DTV startup, but I still have severe stuttering on audio/video. There's no way that the signal is coming this way from the networks, as someone else has suggested, because it is just unwatchable. My Samsung STB OTA tuner worked great with the exact antenna setup, no audio stuttering (too bad it died).
Has anyone got the HDTV Wonder to work on an Nforce2 based mother board? Anyway, I will try it in my P4 computer today and post my results.

I currently have a analog TV card. The PVR software works very well with TitanTV.com's TV listing. I just go to TitanTV.com website, and click a button on a particular TV program, and it will automatically setup the PVR to record at that time frame, with the show as the file name. Very easy and intuitive.

Does ATI HDTV Wonder bundle with similar setup with one touch programmed recording?

thanks

The HDTV wonder does NOT have any program guide for the Digital TV. This is a bummer but you can't have everything now can you. You have to manually schedule a recording or just leave the DTV on while the program is on(This card has permanent time shift).

Lots of helpful comments guys, but can somebody answer the QAM question once and for all?

I really think it has been answered once and for all. This card will not decrypt the QAM signal! You can not plug it into your digital cable line and expect to see a signal. It will however decrypt the ATSC signal very well. Try it you might like it.

Did the HDTV Wonder work with your 9200? I have a 9000 and I can't seem to find a solid answer as to what the real video card requirement is for the HDTVW.

One poster on a rage3d board installed the HDTVW on a 9100 integrated video board and isn't experiencing any issues. Others claim their DTV app refuses to run on anything less than a 9600.

i'm really interested in purchasing this card but i only have paypal so if you have this card and don't want it anymore, plz send me a pm. thanks.

Well, I just got the word my HDTV AIW shipped from buy.com. Based on what I've read here, I guess I'll order a 9600XT tonight to replace my 7500 AIW. I'll remove winDVD from my system first, then install the new video card, then the HDTV AIW. Hopefully my AMD 2700 ASUS MB will accept it without reinstalling the OS. Has anybody installed it without reinstalling the OS? Any other suggestions before I start?

I have a suggestion, cross fingers and anything else that's crossable and don't hold your breath.....

I was thinking of ordering this card when I first heard about it but after reading this thread I am thinking of going with the Fusion3 HDTV Gold QAM card. That sounds like a safer bet

Well I have spent at least 10 hours trying to get my HDTV wonder working good. I have an nForce2 (Abit NF7-S), XP 2700+, ATI9500/128 512 MB, 200 GB and Windows XP Pro. Nothing seems to make this card work as it needs to. I can deal with computer problems since I am a network engineer but when I want to watch TV (HDTV) especially having guests over these types of things (TV) need to work 100%. I have tried about everything from replacing the nForce IDE driver with the MS driver, disabling my nForce sound card and installing a SB Live, all of this of course after a fresh install of XP which I would recommend you not install DirectX9"c" as that seemed to give me a bunch of green pixels on HD feeds. Although at this point I did get it work work "ok" and watch a couple shows without any "SERIOUS" problems it still not acceptible! Between audio sync, studdering audio and video, and lock-ups (when changing channels) this is not how I want to watch TV. Gee, sorry guys we missed the winning touch-down cause I had to reboot! This is not the sistuation I want to be in!

This product is simply not ready for public release. I highly recommend you save yourself the headaches and purchase a STB even if you can't record. I was too stupid and sold my T165 just a couple days before getting my ATI HDTV card. Now I just wish I could watch HDTV let along record HDTV. Another thing is I can clearly state that the picture quality does not match the T165 STB I sold on a 100" screen, another reason I have given up on the ATI HDTV.

Good luck to all! Sure hope ATI can get their act together!

Well I have a AIW 9700 PRO here and I did not re-install the OS.
I also did not remove my WinDVD Gold Suite.
Im running later versions of the Cat drivers as well now.

No problems with DTV setup other than the 1st release blues, small querks I expect to see in a 1st release.

My system specs:
* Nokia 445PRO 21' Monitor
* Motherboard: ASUS K8V Delux Athlon64 Motherboard - BIOS 1004 FINAL
* CPU: AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+
* Memory: 1GB (512 MB x 2 PC 3200 400MHz DDR - 2.5-4-4-4 )
* Video: AGP - ATI ALL-IN-WONDER® 9700 PRO / 128MB - AGP aperture size 128MB
* ATI HDTV WONDER
* Sound: Sound Blaster Audigy
* Ethernet: Onboard 3COM 3C940 10/100/1000Base-T Gigabit
* Hard Disk-1&2: 120 GB Maxtor SATA 8 mb 7200 RPM x 2 (total 240GB) RAID-0
* Hard Disk-3: 160 GB Maxtor ATA-133 8 mb 7200 RPM
* Floppy drive, 3.5" 1.44MB
* DVD-R/RW: Pioneer DVR-106 DVD+/-RW/R+/-Writer
* CD: 54x Black CD-ROM
* CASE: Thermaltake V1000A Black Fulltower w/ANTEC TRUE CONTROL 550W PSU
* APC XS-1000VA UPS
* OS: WinXP PRO / SP1, VIA Hyperion 4in1 v4.51, AMD Cool 'n' Quiet enabled [240GB]
* OS: Microsoft Windows XP 64-Bit Edition [100GB]
* OS: Mandrake Linux-AMD64 10.0 RC-1 [60GB]

Greg

Ok--here is the deal. This card works terrific--with the exception of a few little bugs.

First--it does play nice with the 9800 AIW pro. Use the 9800 for analog TV.

Second--when installing HDTV wonder--delete all ATI software first. Then use the install disk. You may have to load twice. Don't worry.

NEVER try to use the Multiview PIP--or connect all three inputs. You will freeze the program and perhaps crash everything. This is, of course, what I did.

I did a clean install--and it is beautiful! The little silver antenna is also better than any other indoor unit I have tried.

ALSO--a new, updated software release is coming towards the end of next week.

Good luck!

Well, I pulled the card out of my XP 2700 based HTPC and installed it into my 2.8ghz P4 based desktop(which wasn't easy, as the software installation kept stalling on the Windows Media Encoder install). On my desktop pc, I do not get the severe audio/video stuttering that I was experiencing on my HTPC. I'm recording the Olympic openings right now and it looks good except for a very slight stutter every few seconds, kind of like dropped frames. I also test recorded some HD content, then played it back on my HTPC (using VLC media player) without any problem. I have to think that the card has a problem with the Nforce2 chipset, unless somebody can prove otherwise. I hope ATI can get this fixed, because I bought the card to use on my HTPC, not my desktop. I guess for now I will have to record on the desktop pc, then transfer the file over to the HTPC

scottb4u & grogs:

Do your motherboards use an Nforce2 chipset?

Nope. Good, old INTEL 875P....

NewEgg to carry HDTV Wonder ETA 8/14 (TODAY)

Anyone know when the card only will be released without the ANT and remote? After all the early press release BS said it was to add HDTV to the AIW line of cards. I guess they just wanted me to buy the latest and greatest AIW 9800 before they changed their minds. Good marketing strategy on their part, bad decision making on mine.

Thats where I got mine last week, I ordered it Sunday, had it on Wed., got to love Newegg!

It's my understanding that if you buy the HDTV Wonder, you don't need to pair it with another AIW. In other words, I can match it with a 9600XT and still get DVR/viewing functions for analog & digital, no need to match it with a 9600 AIW.

Do I have this wrong?

Thats cool. The pics on the New Egg site show that it comes with a silver sensor clone. Is there a minimum Cat requirement for this card to work? navychop, I think you are correct in that you don't need another AIW card, just a video card that fully supports directx 9.

Is that from a reliable source?

Yup...Earliest Thursday....

to all of the hdtv wonder owners, whats a reliable source to get the hdtv wonder from? buy.com and compuplus seems to have shady reselleratings and newegg is out of stock. i want a place that definitely has it in stock and will ship it in time for me to watch the olympics in hdtv.

Amazon has it, for less than newegg too.

navychop,
As far as I can tell, the only advantage to pairing it with an AIW card is that you will get PIP functionality through the ATI software. Outside of that, all the other functions (PVR, etc) should be available no matter what DX9 card you have.

The PIP functionality does not work with the HDTV card at this time. It will be activated in another upgrade of the MMC.

Prior to your post, no one who had purchased one of these had definitively tried to use it to view and/or record unencrypted QAM. (Or if they had tried it, they did not report their findings in this thread.)

Even now, I'm not entirely certain that the question has been answered... No one expects it to decrypt an encrypted QAM signal, but - as was discussed at length in the early portions of this thread - the chip used in this card is, in fact, capable of QAM.

And yet, no one has yet bothered to post and say, "I tried using this card to view/record unencrypted QAM and it did/not work."

It is worth a try! I may have time later or tomorrow--and I will report...