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http://ati.amd.com/products/theaterhd750/features.htmlCurrently I have hauppauge hvr 1600
Would it be it worth upgrading to Theater HD 750?
I used to have AIW cards. I really liked them.
Thanks in advance.
ATI Theater HD 750
- Thread starter iBlue
- Start date
Currently I have hauppauge hvr 1600
Would it be it worth upgrading to Theater HD 750?
I used to have AIW cards. I really liked them.
Thanks in advance.
I read the card will be out in the 2nd half of this year.
The pictures don’t seem to go beyond the chip itself and a mini PCI card with no bracket. There would probably be a USB version naturally but I don’t see pix of it yet. The mini PCI card seems to have a port connection but what would that connect to (signal source)?
I don’t know if I would want to buy into this myself but I am interested enough to want to learn more about it.
I don’t know if I would want to buy into this myself but I am interested enough to want to learn more about it.
kn00tcn
New member
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http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543~131385,00.htmlFrom ATI press release:
- With the proper connectors, notebook users can enjoy TV on their PC virtually anywhere in the world as the ATI Theater HD 750 is compatible with HDTV/DTV/analog broadcast signals including NTSC, PAL/SECAM, ATSC, ClearQAM and DVB-T.2
- Take recorded content on the go by capturing and converting recorded TV shows into popular video formats such as H.264, AVI, MPEG, DivX, WMV and MPEG4 for use on portable media devices.3 For fast and seamless transcoding, consumers can use ATI Stream enabled video conversion software when they pair an ATI Theater HD 750 with an ATI Radeon™ graphics card.4
- Using Windows Vista® Media Center, Windows® XP Media Center Edition or the forthcoming Windows® 7, consumers can schedule recordings and watch, pause and rewind live TV programs. Consumers can also store recorded programs on the PC hard drive, eliminating the problem of limited storage capacity found with most digital video recorders (DVR), and enabling the ultimate video library.3,5
- ATI Theater HD 750 is scheduled to be available from supporting manufacturers later this year in a variety of solutions including PCI Express add-in cards, USB “stick”, and others.
To be useful with Windows Media Center, ATI's stream encoding will have to handle the new DRM'd media format, *If* they want QAM. The 650's behave with win7 MC, so I'm cautiously optimistic the 750's will do well, but ATI's Achilles heel has been meeting advertising expectations when they're dependant on software.
The stream end of things works well, when/if it works with 3rd party stuff (except C/Link?), but the TV card is irrelevant for that -- that feature started with & is so far limited to the 4000 series cards AFAIK. If they're planning on the format support they indicate, someone's got a lot of coding to do. And I'm wary of the same sort of situation the AIW owners went thru when Vista came out -- after a year of bungled MMC re-writes.
IOW sounds very much like a wait and see to me.
The stream end of things works well, when/if it works with 3rd party stuff (except C/Link?), but the TV card is irrelevant for that -- that feature started with & is so far limited to the 4000 series cards AFAIK. If they're planning on the format support they indicate, someone's got a lot of coding to do. And I'm wary of the same sort of situation the AIW owners went thru when Vista came out -- after a year of bungled MMC re-writes.
IOW sounds very much like a wait and see to me.
It took me a bit to process what it is exactly...especially without any pictures or tuners info etc. I admit I read it fast, but what's going to be the compelling reason to buy one of these ? over a 650? The drivers for the 650 are Very Mature now...I'm not sure I want to fight any more ATI battles.
I saw a bare bones Avermedia dual tuner ATSC card that only required you to plug in ONE cable (does dual ATSC/QAM recording). It was really cheap too. If I didn't already have several 650's and a need for an analog (cable) tuner yet, it would definately be something to snap up. I think it was newegg but not sure (I deal site shop a lot) it was about $56 or $59....pretty hott IMO if you don't need/want analog.
I think we should call/post in their forums\email (requesting that they bundle it with something like Snapstream's Beyond TV ~ as a way to appease AIW users). I mean imagine that we could get something that we could then use with older AIW's at the same time. Yeah right, I know better than to expect them to do right by us. It will probably be Cyberlink (PowerCinema 4.5 Ouch!)
I saw a bare bones Avermedia dual tuner ATSC card that only required you to plug in ONE cable (does dual ATSC/QAM recording). It was really cheap too. If I didn't already have several 650's and a need for an analog (cable) tuner yet, it would definately be something to snap up. I think it was newegg but not sure (I deal site shop a lot) it was about $56 or $59....pretty hott IMO if you don't need/want analog.
I think we should call/post in their forums\email (requesting that they bundle it with something like Snapstream's Beyond TV ~ as a way to appease AIW users). I mean imagine that we could get something that we could then use with older AIW's at the same time. Yeah right, I know better than to expect them to do right by us. It will probably be Cyberlink (PowerCinema 4.5 Ouch!)
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I think you may be referring to the AverMedia AVerTVHD Duet PCIe X1 PCTV Tuner (A188 - White Box) - OEM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100041
It has a single input which is internally split for dual ATSC or Clear QAM. I bought one recently and I have to admit that it is a great product for very little money. My cable company, RCN cable in NYC, recently killed off analog so I no longer have much of a need for an analog tuner. I also have 2x AverMedia AverTV Combo PCIe X1 M780 tuners:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100014
Which was available way before the TV Wonder 650 and at a lower price. It was also one of the first cards to do QAM within Microsoft Media Center after the Silicondust HDHomeRun.
I think companies that take this type of initiative and exhibit this type of ingenuity are far more deserving of our money (IMO). While Silicondust and Avermedia were doing this ATI was shoving Catalyst Media Center down our gullets as the only official means of accessing QAM on their cards.
To be fair, there are a lot of people out there that don’t want Cyberlink PowerCinema I personally think a change to something like Snapstream’s BeyondTV as bundled software would be much appreciated.
(note Silicondust and AverMedia don’t have great bundled software either)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100041
It has a single input which is internally split for dual ATSC or Clear QAM. I bought one recently and I have to admit that it is a great product for very little money. My cable company, RCN cable in NYC, recently killed off analog so I no longer have much of a need for an analog tuner. I also have 2x AverMedia AverTV Combo PCIe X1 M780 tuners:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100014
Which was available way before the TV Wonder 650 and at a lower price. It was also one of the first cards to do QAM within Microsoft Media Center after the Silicondust HDHomeRun.
I think companies that take this type of initiative and exhibit this type of ingenuity are far more deserving of our money (IMO). While Silicondust and Avermedia were doing this ATI was shoving Catalyst Media Center down our gullets as the only official means of accessing QAM on their cards.
To be fair, there are a lot of people out there that don’t want Cyberlink PowerCinema I personally think a change to something like Snapstream’s BeyondTV as bundled software would be much appreciated.
(note Silicondust and AverMedia don’t have great bundled software either)
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Yes, the duet...that's the one I was thinking of. A lot of people complained a bit back b/c a lot of the cards were coming with one NTSC & 1 ATSC and while it would have been better had they been Dual Hybrids instead of 1 of each type tuner, I still find it very usefull. Yeah, I know there is at least one card out that is dual-hybrid tuners.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116036 with or without the remote.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116037
But I got two TV Wonder 650's for less than one of these and get a bonus two recording tuners...
And since the NTSC will accept a DTV converter for OTA, and input from VCRs etc it's not completely useless in the future.
WOW, your cable company doesn't, or isn't going to offer any analog cable from the wall without a STBox or is it going all Clear QAM for the basic tiers or how will that work>? Something seems highly wrong about that, we have to progress and I wish we could do it much faster, but that seems highly premature for where the country is. Too many un-informed and l.o. ladies out there to make that move. (unless they push a lot of STBoxes I guess). Maybe I'm making too big of a deal over it but I doubt my local cable provider will stop pushing analog for several years. ---Don't get me wrong I welcome it, but the DTV govt folks have been pushing that cable folks would be just fine, seems unfair given how high costs are to charge them an extra $5-10 for a set top box a year ($60 - $120).
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I'm not sure you picked up on my sarcasm but I HATE CMC, and so much of how ATI/AMD has treated us. But I have little doubt that ATI/AMD will likely still bundle with Cyberlink again & it likely will not be the current version of Cyberlink...it will likely be as outdated as what came with 650's.
I could not agree with you MORE about Silicon Dust, Avermedia, and later Hauppauge developing remapping/work around software for Clear QAM. It was sad/lazy that ATI sat on there butt and ultimately lucked out with the Media Pack making QAM a reality in Vista.
I wrote over on Hexus that I was threw with ATI altogether a number of times, but then I got a HD4870 512MB for $187 (8 months ago) and TV Wonder 650's for $49 even an external TV Wonder 650 for that price at BB on Blk Friday weekend. If not for the price and TV Pack I was on the fence with several cards.
(((My memory is slipping again, I'm looking for QAM in XP and MCE 2005 OS's. I know ATI won't (unless you buy something like Beyond TV))).
Silicon Dust will do Clear QAM in MCE 2005/XP.
Does Avermedia and/or Hauppauge make QAM capable in XP (with the software that they provide)? I'm pretty sure they would be able to with Beyond TV and a few others ...but just wondering about the software they come with, if it does it?
Last thing. I thought AverMedia's were shipping with ArcSoft's Total Media software suite and I thought that was pretty decent? or was that a limited time/only certain cards things?
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One obvious thing is HD 750 will have NTSC, PAL/SECAM, ATSC, Clear QAM and DVB-T.2 tuners onboard. If you are travelling worldwide, you would have no problem watching TV.
For people like me, who don't go abroad, it is not evident what advantages the card will have.
Well we used to get approximately ~140+ Clear QAM channels but now they have cut that to quasi broadcast networks only. We used to get “National Geographic Channel HD and many more HD channels. What the cable companies are doing is taking advantage of the governments digital transition which confuses many people who don’t know better. To make matters even worse they are trying to increase the basic fee to roughly twice that of what it was since my buildings contract is up. We are fighting it now but we will see what happens, Part of the problem is that most other cable companies were already dong this for years so we had it very good for a very long time and there are no real alternatives out there. Also we cant just switch to another company since buildings here in NYC are often locked in (part of the contract when the building was setup initially or something like that).
So basically we are screwed and satellite is also not an option currently but things are slowly changing.
AverMedia has several tuner models that have the drivers and channel mapping utility necessary to get Clear QAM channels functional in Media Center 2005 / Vista Media Center (pre-TV pack). Hauppauge also has more then one model that will work with the prerequisite drivers and QAM mapping utility. Naturally Silicondust does as well.
I don’t consider TV pack to be an official crutch for companies to use since so few people can “legally” / “legitimately” acquire it.
So basically we are screwed and satellite is also not an option currently but things are slowly changing.
AverMedia has several tuner models that have the drivers and channel mapping utility necessary to get Clear QAM channels functional in Media Center 2005 / Vista Media Center (pre-TV pack). Hauppauge also has more then one model that will work with the prerequisite drivers and QAM mapping utility. Naturally Silicondust does as well.
I don’t consider TV pack to be an official crutch for companies to use since so few people can “legally” / “legitimately” acquire it.
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@DA1745
"I'm looking for QAM in XP" -- if it helps, GBPVR will do it with the 650's in XP.
Win7 MC seems quite a bit improved from Vista, & includes a wtv -> DVR-MS converter, that could possibly be made to work with Vista + TV Pack. There's just a handful of reg entries & 2 - 3 files, but I'm not running Vista anymore to test it out. With the hybrid 650 the biggest setup disappointment in win7 MC is you get 2 tuner sources, so have to choose between analog cable & S-Vid [cable box].
@Agustus
"but now they have cut that to quasi broadcast networks only"
Sad to hear... Allegedly some early model HD cable boxes have broken firmware that removes QAM DRM, but unsure how that works in practice. They really are going full-tilt on DRMing anything in sight now days.
Here in MI it looks like they're switching from 1080 to 720 HD ATSC & QAM -- who knows what they're pushing thru the pipes for restricted programming, but wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't 480p or similar up-converted [up-sampled] in the box. That would go a ways explaining why the DVRs record HD at D1... Yeah I know there are alleged bandwidth issues writing to disk, but watch your hdd light when saving an HD QAM stream.
Brighthouse has been saying that you'll still get an analog signal after the [delayed] switch, but has been very careful not to say whether that's out of the cable or the box. If/when/where cable companies lose the analog from the cable, imagine [hope] there will be hardware & software hacks to access at least the SD/D1 streams. There really was/is no difference between tuning ATSC & QAM -- just slightly different tuning space [looking at different frequencies for signals] & adding in DRM. I'm surprised they havn't beat the DRM already, but maybe there just wasn't critical mass looking for a solution? If millions of people can't watch all of their TVs without a cable box, & all those millions of PC TV cards/tuners are useless [what good's clear QAM, or ATSC when you get 5 channels you don't care to watch?], the demand could be greater than that for booze during prohibition.
But who knows?... When HDMI was new I read several places that technically it was really trivial to disable the built-in DRM using a couple of connectors. Cables are cheap & plentiful enough now days to make cutting a couple up not a big deal by any means. Ajay makes a $200 card that caps un-DRMed HDMI, so it's definitely doable. HD cameras are more common every day, so there should be more HDMI cards on the market. IMHO there should be quite a lot of pent up demand, just waiting for solutions that so far have been missing.
"I'm looking for QAM in XP" -- if it helps, GBPVR will do it with the 650's in XP.
Win7 MC seems quite a bit improved from Vista, & includes a wtv -> DVR-MS converter, that could possibly be made to work with Vista + TV Pack. There's just a handful of reg entries & 2 - 3 files, but I'm not running Vista anymore to test it out. With the hybrid 650 the biggest setup disappointment in win7 MC is you get 2 tuner sources, so have to choose between analog cable & S-Vid [cable box].
@Agustus
"but now they have cut that to quasi broadcast networks only"
Sad to hear... Allegedly some early model HD cable boxes have broken firmware that removes QAM DRM, but unsure how that works in practice. They really are going full-tilt on DRMing anything in sight now days.
Here in MI it looks like they're switching from 1080 to 720 HD ATSC & QAM -- who knows what they're pushing thru the pipes for restricted programming, but wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't 480p or similar up-converted [up-sampled] in the box. That would go a ways explaining why the DVRs record HD at D1... Yeah I know there are alleged bandwidth issues writing to disk, but watch your hdd light when saving an HD QAM stream.
Brighthouse has been saying that you'll still get an analog signal after the [delayed] switch, but has been very careful not to say whether that's out of the cable or the box. If/when/where cable companies lose the analog from the cable, imagine [hope] there will be hardware & software hacks to access at least the SD/D1 streams. There really was/is no difference between tuning ATSC & QAM -- just slightly different tuning space [looking at different frequencies for signals] & adding in DRM. I'm surprised they havn't beat the DRM already, but maybe there just wasn't critical mass looking for a solution? If millions of people can't watch all of their TVs without a cable box, & all those millions of PC TV cards/tuners are useless [what good's clear QAM, or ATSC when you get 5 channels you don't care to watch?], the demand could be greater than that for booze during prohibition.
But who knows?... When HDMI was new I read several places that technically it was really trivial to disable the built-in DRM using a couple of connectors. Cables are cheap & plentiful enough now days to make cutting a couple up not a big deal by any means. Ajay makes a $200 card that caps un-DRMed HDMI, so it's definitely doable. HD cameras are more common every day, so there should be more HDMI cards on the market. IMHO there should be quite a lot of pent up demand, just waiting for solutions that so far have been missing.
Well the “HD Fury” and “HD Fury 2” apparently circumvent HDCP on HDMI but that results in an analog conversion.
I have two Hauppauge HD PVR units that yield very nice 1080i / 720p AVCHD .ts / .m2ts recordings (no DRM) so I’m not too put out by some of the restrictions out there so long as the analog hole is still open.
The Wife hasn’t met an unscripted network show she doesn’t like so she is happy overall. I like HBO-HD, ShowTime-HD, Max-HD, SciFi-HD (soon to be SyFy-HD) and more. If they, the cable companies, push too hard I may just drop cable TV. Since we have Cable internet I could drop cable TV and still receive all the Clear QAM channels I currently receive for free.
Everything I watch on pay TV is eventually available on DVD via Netflix. Then there is Hulu and Netflix Watchnow as well.
I have two Hauppauge HD PVR units that yield very nice 1080i / 720p AVCHD .ts / .m2ts recordings (no DRM) so I’m not too put out by some of the restrictions out there so long as the analog hole is still open.
The Wife hasn’t met an unscripted network show she doesn’t like so she is happy overall. I like HBO-HD, ShowTime-HD, Max-HD, SciFi-HD (soon to be SyFy-HD) and more. If they, the cable companies, push too hard I may just drop cable TV. Since we have Cable internet I could drop cable TV and still receive all the Clear QAM channels I currently receive for free.
Everything I watch on pay TV is eventually available on DVD via Netflix. Then there is Hulu and Netflix Watchnow as well.
, so rather than having to mess with that in the bedrooms I can figure something out -- finally.It is mandatory for over the air broadcasts not for cable,…
However cable companies have their own timetable and can basically change whenever they feel its advantageous to them. I remember hearing well in advance that my cable company was going to make the change and drop all analog along with encrypting many of the Clear QAM channels we used to enjoy. I distinctly remember thinking,…… Nahhh, they wouldn't do that.
Well, they did it and they had the nerve to call it an upgrade. Those in the USA that still have analog, well I’m glad to hear it but I wouldn’t count on keeping it indefinitely. Our friends up north, Canada, may have more time to breath easy but as I understand it the change will come to them too sooner or later.
Not trying to be all doom and gloom I’m just saying,….
However cable companies have their own timetable and can basically change whenever they feel its advantageous to them. I remember hearing well in advance that my cable company was going to make the change and drop all analog along with encrypting many of the Clear QAM channels we used to enjoy. I distinctly remember thinking,…… Nahhh, they wouldn't do that.
Well, they did it and they had the nerve to call it an upgrade. Those in the USA that still have analog, well I’m glad to hear it but I wouldn’t count on keeping it indefinitely. Our friends up north, Canada, may have more time to breath easy but as I understand it the change will come to them too sooner or later.
Not trying to be all doom and gloom I’m just saying,….
I play over on AVSforum a fair amount these days, especially since before the first wave of conversions in February (all our stations but PBS went digital) and you are the first person i've heard say that there cable co dropped analog. It just seems like a counter productive (at this stage in the game) move. There are still far too many cable subscribers, especially scaling up as you go up the AARP age line that don't have HD capable TV's (and don't have a cable box).
We have one HDTV cable box, but I take the analog (f-type connection - TV Coaxial cable out of that box and run that to one old analog set and to one of my old ATI AIW's and they play the SD digital channel => out as Analog just fine. The HD channels get cropped off, it's like having a full time zoom feature on but I guess when all cable companies do shut analog down, people will still be able to get it by using a box to do the digital => analog convertion for them albeit at an extra ~$5 - $10 a month. :-(
Quite right,….
So we went from a relatively full analog line-up without the need of a cable box (well over ~100 channels) to nothing in this respect,….zero,…zip,…nada! In addition to that we had over ~140 Clear QAM channels that dropped to basically just the local channels (there is digital audio services and HSN as well as local access).
In other words I could split the signal multiple times and have multiple Vista Media Center systems with multiple analog / digital tuners all receiving a rich lineup.
That’s ended now,…..
No analog
Severely limited Clear QAM
Increased charges (probably to subsidies their so called upgrades which are really downgrades in service)
And the need for a cable box for any real functionality
Although since I have two Hauppauge HD PVR units and two cable boxes I must admit that I am happy with its performance. Clear QAM tuners do help since the Wife basically like network TV more then anything else. I’m OK for now, but certainly not happy with the changes.
The ATI Theater HD 750 wont change any of this for me though.
So we went from a relatively full analog line-up without the need of a cable box (well over ~100 channels) to nothing in this respect,….zero,…zip,…nada! In addition to that we had over ~140 Clear QAM channels that dropped to basically just the local channels (there is digital audio services and HSN as well as local access).
In other words I could split the signal multiple times and have multiple Vista Media Center systems with multiple analog / digital tuners all receiving a rich lineup.
That’s ended now,…..
No analog
Severely limited Clear QAM
Increased charges (probably to subsidies their so called upgrades which are really downgrades in service)
And the need for a cable box for any real functionality
Although since I have two Hauppauge HD PVR units and two cable boxes I must admit that I am happy with its performance. Clear QAM tuners do help since the Wife basically like network TV more then anything else. I’m OK for now, but certainly not happy with the changes.
The ATI Theater HD 750 wont change any of this for me though.