AIW's not long for this world
- Thread starter NorhH
- Start date
well they can stop making them, but they cant stop FIXING them.
because of false advertising.
there are about 4 points of thier advertising that they could have thier butt sued off for, if they dont get the stuff doing what they claimed it would do.
dont mind me i live in california, there are more lawyers than anybody actually working.
false advertising is a big no no. course if they can get it to work in the courtroom , i will tell you what they did :-)
i think when i bring in my machine, so they can show that it works, were going to see a lot of lawyers suddenly get that sweat on thier upper lip :-)
because of false advertising.
there are about 4 points of thier advertising that they could have thier butt sued off for, if they dont get the stuff doing what they claimed it would do.
dont mind me i live in california, there are more lawyers than anybody actually working.
false advertising is a big no no. course if they can get it to work in the courtroom , i will tell you what they did :-)
i think when i bring in my machine, so they can show that it works, were going to see a lot of lawyers suddenly get that sweat on thier upper lip :-)
LeonidasVouros
New member
'Rumor has it the line is dead, deceased, shuffled off the mortal coil'
Correct me if I am wrong but Most probably this desision has to do with the 'obligatory' video AND audio digital processing which has rendered the 'AIW ' idea problematic....
In AIW video is internally processed by the card and you only need a loop cable to feed sound ALL of THEM REALTIME...
But if you are obliged to handle both sound and video the sound needs further digital processing time through cpu and onboard sound chip which means that video should also be delayed to sync with sound...
My pinnacle 310i has the same problem: The video is delayed slightly behind live transmission BUT THE PQ IS BETTER THAN THE AIW SERIES.....
Correct me if I am wrong but Most probably this desision has to do with the 'obligatory' video AND audio digital processing which has rendered the 'AIW ' idea problematic....
In AIW video is internally processed by the card and you only need a loop cable to feed sound ALL of THEM REALTIME...
But if you are obliged to handle both sound and video the sound needs further digital processing time through cpu and onboard sound chip which means that video should also be delayed to sync with sound...
My pinnacle 310i has the same problem: The video is delayed slightly behind live transmission BUT THE PQ IS BETTER THAN THE AIW SERIES.....
Nah, they killed off the AIW line because of some new law over in Europe that says if you are to sell electronic parts they can not contain any lead. It was cheaper to just discontinue the line then to change it to parts that had no lead in them.
When I get home, I will find the link.
When I get home, I will find the link.
My wild guess, my AIW x1800 barely fits into my case, if I had a hd in the bottom bay it wouldn't fit. State of the art video cards are getting bigger and hotter, if you have to try to fit additional features and hardware onto the card it's too much. It's no point in having an AIW if it's a lousy GPU, you may as well just use onboard video for that. So if it's not at least close to top of the line, just go with a TVWonder or Theatre 650. The AIW is dieing unless the chips get much smaller and cooler, and there's no sign of that happening.
It would be easy enough for ATI to simply stop the sale of AIW cards in Europe,....or comply,…..
Money was probably an underlying component such as a slump in overall sales or a diminishing return with respect to profit on the parts.
However, in all likelihood it was a combination of things that lead to this outcome not just one.
The AIW line was in all probability a difficult product to make for ATI. The turn around time to make a new AIW card with the latest GPU was so long in many cases the GPU was half-obsolete before AIW version were available. The exceptions to this recently was the latest AIW X1900 but that was basically a drop in GPU upgrade of its predecessor the AIW X1800XL.
Compromises with respect to core and memory speed often had to be made since ATI was committed to a single slot design for the AIW. This made sense since an “all in one” solution should take only one slot or it loses it advantage over a separate video card and tuner solution but a compromise is still a compromise.
Look how long it took the AIW to make the move to PCIe. Basically any little change took forever to implement and the overall feature set hasn’t changed significantly. Add that lag of the AIW design change to the need to change and adapt to new technology such as HDMI / HDCP,…and fast mind you,….and you have a rather stale product rotting on the shelf,….that simply cannot do all of what the target demographic (user) would have it do.
Money was probably an underlying component such as a slump in overall sales or a diminishing return with respect to profit on the parts.
However, in all likelihood it was a combination of things that lead to this outcome not just one.
The AIW line was in all probability a difficult product to make for ATI. The turn around time to make a new AIW card with the latest GPU was so long in many cases the GPU was half-obsolete before AIW version were available. The exceptions to this recently was the latest AIW X1900 but that was basically a drop in GPU upgrade of its predecessor the AIW X1800XL.
Compromises with respect to core and memory speed often had to be made since ATI was committed to a single slot design for the AIW. This made sense since an “all in one” solution should take only one slot or it loses it advantage over a separate video card and tuner solution but a compromise is still a compromise.
Look how long it took the AIW to make the move to PCIe. Basically any little change took forever to implement and the overall feature set hasn’t changed significantly. Add that lag of the AIW design change to the need to change and adapt to new technology such as HDMI / HDCP,…and fast mind you,….and you have a rather stale product rotting on the shelf,….that simply cannot do all of what the target demographic (user) would have it do.
I am an occasional AIW buyer not a dedicated one.
I have owned both nVidia and ATI video cards (without tuners) for some time now. Most of the recent ATI video card purchases I have made was because I concluded that for me,…I was getting more video card for the money.
I considered the AIW X1900 card that I bought for about ~$215 relatively cheap. I didn’t necessarily buy it for the tuner because I was going to add it to my Vista test system and didn’t expect the tuner to work in such an environment.
Now I am starting to see more value in the nVidia cards such as this 7900GTO which is actually a quasi 7900GTX:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130065
all for a scant ~$250,….it lacks HDMI / HDCP though,…
Also I am very interested in the upcoming G80 AKA 8800 series which is presumably going to be the first DX10 card on the market.
I’ll probably buy Vista Home Premium as soon as it ships and wait for the ATI DX10 part to ship before deciding on a new card though,…
I hold no loyalty to either company though so my next card could be either or,..
BTW, my AIW X1900 started showing screen corruption at BOOT ( BIOS screen all the way to windows ) so I had to RMA it,….it was only in Light use for about 39 days or so,….
I have owned both nVidia and ATI video cards (without tuners) for some time now. Most of the recent ATI video card purchases I have made was because I concluded that for me,…I was getting more video card for the money.
I considered the AIW X1900 card that I bought for about ~$215 relatively cheap. I didn’t necessarily buy it for the tuner because I was going to add it to my Vista test system and didn’t expect the tuner to work in such an environment.
Now I am starting to see more value in the nVidia cards such as this 7900GTO which is actually a quasi 7900GTX:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130065
all for a scant ~$250,….it lacks HDMI / HDCP though,…
Also I am very interested in the upcoming G80 AKA 8800 series which is presumably going to be the first DX10 card on the market.
I’ll probably buy Vista Home Premium as soon as it ships and wait for the ATI DX10 part to ship before deciding on a new card though,…
I hold no loyalty to either company though so my next card could be either or,..
BTW, my AIW X1900 started showing screen corruption at BOOT ( BIOS screen all the way to windows ) so I had to RMA it,….it was only in Light use for about 39 days or so,….
LeonidasVouros
New member
Met-ALL
'Nah, they killed off the AIW line because of some new law over in Europe that says if you are to sell electronic parts they can not contain any lead. It was cheaper to just discontinue the line then to change it to parts that had no lead in them'
Yes this in partionally correct. Many MB makers are already in the process of replacing their products in order to meet the new european standards. This could be easily done for the AIW series as most probably ATI will also do for the rest of it's products....
I still believe that the AIW will be discontinued as there is no advantage of having the TV tuner attached to the graphic card IF YOU NEED TO BUFFER AND SYNC VIDEO AND SOUND....The are profits ONLY if you feed tv video DIRECTLY TO YOUR MONITOR (that's why the AIW idea was born one decade ago...) and just plug audio to line in...NO AUDIO VIDEO PROCESS NO BUFFER NO SYNC ISSUES!!!!!!!!!
I also think that the digital audio process was made obligarory from Microsoft in their new Multimedia Windows or something like that...Please correct me if wrong and comment on this
'Nah, they killed off the AIW line because of some new law over in Europe that says if you are to sell electronic parts they can not contain any lead. It was cheaper to just discontinue the line then to change it to parts that had no lead in them'
Yes this in partionally correct. Many MB makers are already in the process of replacing their products in order to meet the new european standards. This could be easily done for the AIW series as most probably ATI will also do for the rest of it's products....
I still believe that the AIW will be discontinued as there is no advantage of having the TV tuner attached to the graphic card IF YOU NEED TO BUFFER AND SYNC VIDEO AND SOUND....The are profits ONLY if you feed tv video DIRECTLY TO YOUR MONITOR (that's why the AIW idea was born one decade ago...) and just plug audio to line in...NO AUDIO VIDEO PROCESS NO BUFFER NO SYNC ISSUES!!!!!!!!!
I also think that the digital audio process was made obligarory from Microsoft in their new Multimedia Windows or something like that...Please correct me if wrong and comment on this
No answers but a bunch of guesses… Personally I think we’ll all have a better idea after November’s software releases – if they haven’t got something for the Vista beta by then, I’m not going to hold out loads of hope. They may or may not get something working later, but if they’re not ready with a Vista compatible AIW in January, I wouldn’t make any long-term plans for the line.
I’d also say any lead problem is more an excuse then practical limitation – I’m sure there will be plenty of TV cards and ATI graphics cards sold in Europe. As far as buffering goes, I’d assume ATI, and most companies making any sort of TV card, are tapping into the mainstream PVR market – simply displaying TV on a TV doesn’t add any value, so why buy a TV card to do something you already do? [this is from the average person’s – not enthusiast – view]
Think that PVR focus is also behind the new popularity of mpg2 encoding chips. There’s no way you need mpg2 hardware encoding normally, but add all the BS of encoding, writing, decoding, & finally displaying video, and it means cpu usage goes up, especially with current MMC where capture’s broken, or at the least very unfinished.
As far as audio goes, don’t think that page has been fully written yet… Vista’s handling of audio streams (according to Creative) does away with Windows support of raw audio to hardware – have to use OpenAL or ASIO rather than direct sound. I think we’ll see new methods of handling audio in Vista that will be used in XP & MCE too, and if ATI chooses to re-write their audio handling for Vista, there’s hope.
Decreased AIW demand & profits.
I’d imagine in the early days of the AIW there was much higher profit and demand – there weren’t IMHO a lot of mid-range alternatives (2, maybe 3?). Now there are loads of TV cards & boxes, and with MCE, a decreased demand for a product with higher quality software like MMC [that is MMC when it was working, & compared to what everyone else bundled]. Also had the capture market cut (halved?) as DV became popular, cut further with easy software for DVD ripping, and cut further yet by higher end cards.
Needed investment in new code.
Changes in Windows made/make some changes in software necessary, and for probably economic reasons ATI hasn’t put forth the needed resources to revamp their multimedia software. I’d guess they developed the theater chips, thought they’d get away cheap with Cyberlink software, and spent this year trying to get one MMC working with all their products. So far haven’t seen much evidence anyone is really happy with the new MMC, and as I’ve seen mentioned, the AIW T200 driver probably won’t work fully with Vista or it’s MCE program. [A forum announcement at Creative.com has a discussion of the changes in Vista that’s giving them problems, and my understanding of it is you have to get rid of the KX stuff.]
Pretending I have a crystal ball, I think ATI’s TV cards will continue, or at least the chipset, with MMC (assuming they can get something working) taking the place of Vista’s MCE, which I’ve read won’t do DVB. Also makes sense as more folks go with on-board graphics in average PCs, as the market for dual tuners increases, and if ATI pursues cable card systems. Of course you can charge more – the AIW line was marginally cheaper then card + TV card I think – and don’t have to worry about AGP vs. PCI-e. Considering the investment they’ve already made in TV cards, no real reason I can see to not have something in the growing market.
The AIW line’s immediate survival I think depends on what it costs to continue, as everything to produce them is already in place. If they can’t get software working for what they’re prepared to spend might close off the line, or might keep a token presence in the market until HDMI when/where a new AIW might make loads of sense. OTOH as part of AMD, their TV expertise might be used for multimedia boxes, where there would be no need for an AIW-type product , and their joining might make it easier for ATI to get away with phasing out support.
I’d also say any lead problem is more an excuse then practical limitation – I’m sure there will be plenty of TV cards and ATI graphics cards sold in Europe. As far as buffering goes, I’d assume ATI, and most companies making any sort of TV card, are tapping into the mainstream PVR market – simply displaying TV on a TV doesn’t add any value, so why buy a TV card to do something you already do? [this is from the average person’s – not enthusiast – view]
Think that PVR focus is also behind the new popularity of mpg2 encoding chips. There’s no way you need mpg2 hardware encoding normally, but add all the BS of encoding, writing, decoding, & finally displaying video, and it means cpu usage goes up, especially with current MMC where capture’s broken, or at the least very unfinished.
As far as audio goes, don’t think that page has been fully written yet… Vista’s handling of audio streams (according to Creative) does away with Windows support of raw audio to hardware – have to use OpenAL or ASIO rather than direct sound. I think we’ll see new methods of handling audio in Vista that will be used in XP & MCE too, and if ATI chooses to re-write their audio handling for Vista, there’s hope.
Decreased AIW demand & profits.
I’d imagine in the early days of the AIW there was much higher profit and demand – there weren’t IMHO a lot of mid-range alternatives (2, maybe 3?). Now there are loads of TV cards & boxes, and with MCE, a decreased demand for a product with higher quality software like MMC [that is MMC when it was working, & compared to what everyone else bundled]. Also had the capture market cut (halved?) as DV became popular, cut further with easy software for DVD ripping, and cut further yet by higher end cards.
Needed investment in new code.
Changes in Windows made/make some changes in software necessary, and for probably economic reasons ATI hasn’t put forth the needed resources to revamp their multimedia software. I’d guess they developed the theater chips, thought they’d get away cheap with Cyberlink software, and spent this year trying to get one MMC working with all their products. So far haven’t seen much evidence anyone is really happy with the new MMC, and as I’ve seen mentioned, the AIW T200 driver probably won’t work fully with Vista or it’s MCE program. [A forum announcement at Creative.com has a discussion of the changes in Vista that’s giving them problems, and my understanding of it is you have to get rid of the KX stuff.]
Pretending I have a crystal ball, I think ATI’s TV cards will continue, or at least the chipset, with MMC (assuming they can get something working) taking the place of Vista’s MCE, which I’ve read won’t do DVB. Also makes sense as more folks go with on-board graphics in average PCs, as the market for dual tuners increases, and if ATI pursues cable card systems. Of course you can charge more – the AIW line was marginally cheaper then card + TV card I think – and don’t have to worry about AGP vs. PCI-e. Considering the investment they’ve already made in TV cards, no real reason I can see to not have something in the growing market.
The AIW line’s immediate survival I think depends on what it costs to continue, as everything to produce them is already in place. If they can’t get software working for what they’re prepared to spend might close off the line, or might keep a token presence in the market until HDMI when/where a new AIW might make loads of sense. OTOH as part of AMD, their TV expertise might be used for multimedia boxes, where there would be no need for an AIW-type product , and their joining might make it easier for ATI to get away with phasing out support.