HDTV Wonder Discussion

[Dude 007]

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The following product/s which you ordered have been shipped on 7/27/2004
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Order Date: 7/26/2004
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Shipped 1 HDTV WONDER (SKU# 2546404)

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[Hyrax]

Originally Posted by Maxwel

Apparently it's just for XP!

If it is just for XP....

Nah, Nah...That's suicide for ATI. They would not do that to me... THe minimum requirements dont mention XP only.....










O god, It does..... I guess I am going to have to get XP, or a tuner that does support WIN2000....

No for microsoft!!!

[tristancarton]

I run Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 and I plan on buying the hdtv wonder within the next month or two. Due to the lack of support for server 2003 I have found out that a lot of xp drivers and programs work under 2003. My guess is that ati only "officially" supports this card for windows xp however it will prob work on both of these nt kernel operating systems.

note: It better work under those operating systems or else ati is going to get some nice email from me. Honestly aren't 2000, xp , and server so closely related that drivers/software should be the same. (I have been waiting for this to come out ever since I took my wintv-d out of my computer)

Off to view hdtv wonder reviews to see if anyone tested with a windows 2000 setup.

[pxl2566s]

So let's say I have a MSI Radeon 9800 Pro and a KDS XF-9b 19inch and I buy that HDTV Wonder do I have to buy something else to get it to work?

[tristancarton]

I believe the hdtv wonder comes with an antenna. So as long as you are close enough to a digital tv station and have windows xp (or maybe windows 2000 or server 2003) you should be okay.

[dwellen]

Ordered one a few days ago and was wondering if anyone has
received thiers yet?

Thanks,
Dana

[Hyrax]

Does anybody know or can anybody find out for certain that HDTV will work with something other than XP, like 2000? I am fervently awaiting an answer to this...

From what I hear. It cant decode cable signals? I have a dorm cable connection. I doubt they are subscribed to any HDTV packages anyway...

[Maxwel]

Originally Posted by Hyrax

Does anybody know or can anybody find out for certain that HDTV will work with something other than XP, like 2000? I am fervently awaiting an answer to this...

From what I hear. It cant decode cable signals? I have a dorm cable connection. I doubt they are subscribed to any HDTV packages anyway...

The ATI site does not have MMC for Win2K & the HDTV Wonder.

[Grimister]

Ok, I have had my HDTV card since thursday last week, I had one on pre-order. Here are my system specs then some pro's and cons that I see with the new card.

Pentium 4 3.0 ghz 800 mhz front side bus
1 gig ram
Intel 865 perl motherboard
2 sata 120 gig drives raid
1 80 gig maxtor
1 60 seagate
1 memorex 8x dvd burner
1 AIW 9700 pro
1 HDTV pci card

Now I know I already have a capture card with the AIW but I wanted something to capture the free HDTV signal. By the way, they do work together.

CONS:

drivers for the analog capture are very flaky
the mmc ap capturing from ANALOG tuner on HDTV card locks up 95% of time after a few minutes

the HDTV app only captues the stream using the on demand function, you then have to run the file through the library app to get it to a working mpeg file

the mpeg conversion software in the libray app sucks, If you leave it full quality it's ok but if you use the library app to go down to SVCD or VCD then the mpeg has been compressed with what looks to be a low quality mpeg encoding software program.

PRO'S

No more audio cable going from an audio out to the audio in on my sound card, I want to point out to ATI this is a very good thing. I have no audio glitches to work though on this new card

there are 2 antanna inputs on back of card, one for CATV the other for over the air HDTV

there is the standard small blue breakout box for RCA and SVID inputs into the HDTV card

The ANALOG capture using this new card is way better then the ANALOG capture from my AIW, the AIW use's the theater 200 chip this new HDTV card is using something else, it's under a sticker that I don't want to remove since this may unvalidate my waranty

Well that's all I can think of for now if anyone else has anything else to add please feel free to reply. I have been using AIW cards ever since the first AIW rage. And I think if ATI can get some of the software bugs fixed quickly I will keep this card for all capturing and then be free to by one of the high quality x800 cards for my 3d gaming

[vgame64]

well i finally got tired of waiting for buy.com a my status kept seying on order.....so i scooted over to ati.com and into there store and saw that they have limited quantities so I didn't wait and used the $10 off promo and now they are going to ship my card tom for $201 after shipping instead of buy.com's $18x dollars. The price to pay for the impatient like me.

[AcuraTLSFan]

I have a question about the antenna inputs, there are 2, one for Analog, and one for HDTV. Aren't most of the rooftop antennas capable of recieving analog and hdtv signal, or do you have to use the antenna that is supplied for HDTV signal?

[jgs9455]

Technically ANY antenna can be used for HDTV reception. There is no such thing as a HDTV antenna, they are just the same UHF/VHF antennas that have been around forever. Most HDTV channels are on UHF, and only a few are on VHF. The antenna supplied with the HDTV Wonder appears to be the Silver Sensor, which is a very good directional indoor antenna. It is the industry standard. Usually any quality outdoor antenna will out perform a indoor one.

I myself had a amplified Terk TV55 that was just OK, and then bought a Silver Sensor (half the price), put the amp on it, and that is way better. By the way, I live in an apartment that faces north, the opposite direction of the broadcast antennas in the south. The only reception I get is reflected/bounced signal, and I still do pretty good - 70%. When I buy my house, I'm putting a antenna on the roof facing south, hoping to get 95%.

On a different note, I still have not heard anything from my Buy.com preorder. I hope it will be a good match with my 9800 Pro with video out, since the HDTV Wonder has both analog + HD tuners with video in. I couldn't wait or find a X800. Plus the 9800 Pro was on sale for $179 and I had $140 in gift cards

[Grimister]

I live in an apartment complex also, I face the east with most of my channels to the east, south east, I am 40 to 50 miles away from from most of my channels and I could only get the major channels without a line amp. I got ABC, CBS, and NBC channels which was ok but I wanted UPN and PBS HD so I had a friend that still had one of his old line amps laying around from before he got DISH it was a simple in/out VHF/UHF 50-850mhz amp that boosted around 12-15db and I now get with the same included antenna all the HD channels that are broadcast in my area. Since I live in an apartment the signal was way better outside so I have taken one of the $20 camera tripods from walmart and made it my antenna mount, when I want to watch HDTV I pull it out to my patio, plug in the amp and point it east south east and she works like a charm. My apartment complex does not alow mounting of external antenna's.

[df13]

I have it and it works in W2K....but I've also found out you have to an ATI videocard for it to work properly...

[Maxwel]

Originally Posted by df13

I have it and it works in W2K....but I've also found out you have to an ATI videocard for it to work properly...

What works in W2K?

[df13]

the HDTV Wonder card according to ATI's website it's only suppose to work with XP...

[Dude 007]

Well I have mine. Normal TV tuning works now. I have a funky "can't my mouse pointer thing happening in Guideplus" but I'm sure there's some fix for that. The HDTV tuning stutters for some reason. Looking for a fox for that. (Originally I got an error coming out of the initialization wizard, now no error, just chop). What are folks doing for the cable HD channels in the 700's or so? Using the set top box to feed those to the HDTV?

[subferno]

So will a new AIW version with HDTV support come out soon?

I currently have an AIW 9700 Pro and plan on upgrading my vid card to a X800XT PE and was hoping that the HDTV Wonder would be tagged along as the AIW version.

[AcuraTLSFan]

Originally Posted by subferno

So will a new AIW version with HDTV support come out soon?

I currently have an AIW 9700 Pro and plan on upgrading my vid card to a X800XT PE and was hoping that the HDTV Wonder would be tagged along as the AIW version.

I don't think that they will pair up the two cards into one anytime soon. Before when they annouced it, the AIW HTDV was two cards, The AGP video card boxed with the PCI HDTV. Either way, I think it's better two have 2 seperate cards, so when you upgrade, you can still have a TV card instead of nothing.

[AcuraTLSFan]

Any of you guys have a recommendation on a good pre-amp to use with this?

[Agustus]

So the HDTV Wonder supposedly needs WinXP,……

Anyone know if it works with WinXP MCE 2004!?!

Inquiring minds want to know!

[jgs9455]

Yeah, yea - you guys that ordered from ati.com already have yours - but you paid a little more!!

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Order #xxxxxxxx

sku: 10375953
description: HDTV WONDER PCI TV TUNER RCE NA NTSC REMOTE CONTROL
EDITION
qty: 1
ship date: 8/4/2004
--------------------------------------------------------

And when I track the order on FedEx it says est delivery Aug 6th!!

[Maxwel]

Originally Posted by df13

the HDTV Wonder card according to ATI's website it's only suppose to work with XP...

Well, the web site doesn't have MMC for Win2K and the HDTV Wonder. Now with the AIW, you can capture with 3rd party products (Vdub, AVI_IO) as long as the display driver package(which includes the capture drivers) is installed. What about the TV Wonder? Does MMC install the necessary drivers for the capture device?

[grog]

For the ATI HDTV WONDER S-VIDEO and Composite the direct-show filters are used in the same way prior AIW products do.

For example; you can use the amcap program from Microsoft DX-SDK to play and capture from the S-VIDEO and Composite lines of the ATI HDTV WONDER card fine.

\DXSDK\Samples\C++\DirectShow\Capture\AMCap\amcap.exe


InterVideo WinDVD Creator also is able to capture and play video from the S-VIDEO and Composite lines of the ATI HDTV WONDER card.

Now the DTV section is a whole different ball game. I am not sure what ATI is using as far as API level but it works darn well.

Here are some specs that floored me when I did them.
Note: Watching HDTV does require a lot of CPU cycles when compared to SD or even DVD, both of which are much lower quality then HDTV broadcasts.

What really is interesting is how well the ATI components fair when playing HDTV content.

Ch: 30-1 ABC Digital 720P
12:00 PM (180 Minutes)
DTV Program

Watching
--------
% Interrupt Time 0.243
% Processor Time 19.479
% Interrupts/sec 1294.755

Recording
---------
% Interrupt Time 0.158
% Processor Time 20.186
% Interrupts/sec 1292.026

Playing (.vcr format from media Library)
----------------------------------------
% Interrupt Time 0.056
% Processor Time 17.801
% Interrupts/sec 1266.233

Playing (exported HD MPEG2(native format) ATI Media player
----------------------------------------------------------
% Interrupt Time 0.300
% Processor Time 20.913
% Interrupts/sec 1262.699

Playing (exported HD MPEG2(native format)Windows Media Player 9
---------------------------------------------------------------
% Interrupt Time 0.167
% Processor Time 97.879
% Interrupts/sec 1258.071

Playing (exported HD MPEG2(native format)WinDVD version 4.0 DXVA
(Hardware acceleration enabled)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
% Interrupt Time 1.221
% Processor Time 96.045
% Interrupts/sec 1499.669

As you can see the ATI HDTV software uses about 20% worst case with 720p content on my system.

Once the HDTV MPEG NATIVE format was exported ATI software was able to play the content at 20.9% while both Windows Media 9 and WinDVD were near 100% with a lot of dropped frames, they just can't keep up with this rate. WinDVD is using hardware acceleration!

When you think about 720p as 1280x720x24BPP for each frame shown you can see that are moving a lot of data quickly.

With DVD players in the past many went for features, now with HDTV you have to go for speed and ATI has it.

I recorded a PBS Nature series special on Birds which was broadcast 720p format. I burned it to DVD using NERO in UDF format.

The created movie played great on my wife's computer using ATI MMC Player.
She has a Athlon Socket A at 1Ghz and a ATI 8500DV card.

So for right now, today you can use 3rd party products including Virtual Dub and AVI_IO with the S-VIDEO and Composite inputs on the ATI HDTV WONDER card but for DTV you better stick with ATI software. It will take a while for any 3rd Party software to get the performace already including for free with the ATI HDTV card.

Greg

Originally Posted by Maxwel

Well, the web site doesn't have MMC for Win2K and the HDTV Wonder. Now with the AIW, you can capture with 3rd party products (Vdub, AVI_IO) as long as the display driver package(which includes the capture drivers) is installed. What about the TV Wonder? Does MMC install the necessary drivers for the capture device?

[EMunEeE]

How is the remote with the HDTV Wonder?

[jgs9455]

Originally Posted by MrEMan4k

How is the remote with the HDTV Wonder?

It is the original Remote Wonder, not the newer Remote Wonder 2

[EMunEeE]

Originally Posted by jgs9455

It is the original Remote Wonder, not the newer Remote Wonder 2

[jgs9455]

Originally Posted by grog

Once the HDTV MPEG NATIVE format was exported ATI software was able to play the content at 20.9% while both Windows Media 9 and WinDVD were near 100% with a lot of dropped frames, they just can't keep up with this rate. WinDVD is using hardware acceleration!
Greg

This is a great discovery!! People have been quick to bash this card - and it's hardly out yet. Look how long people have been playing with different versions of the MyHD and Fusion cards. Those cards have had many hardware and software revisions and still have issues. I'm not saying the HDTV Wonder is perfect, but it can only get better.

Any new HDTV cards on the scene could be good for all of us. When others start to notice that ATi's cards/software use 20% of resourses, while WinMediaPlayer9 & WinDVD uses >90% - we win. Why? Because maybe they will improve their stuff now that someone else has done it better. Example -
I remember having to originally install a Hollywood Magic Plus mpeg2 card just to watch DVDs some years ago. Now (along with faster processors) computers better support DVDs - with software and graphics cards that can handle mpeg decoding.

[jgs9455]

Does anyone know how this card handles the broadcast flag?
I get mine today

[jgs9455]

Originally Posted by MrEMan4k

How is the remote with the HDTV Wonder?

I'll post how the Remote Wonder I works with the HDTV Wonder, but with my current AIW it works pretty good. Buttons are placed funny, but you get used to it.

Remote Wonder II was supposed to be better, but I haven't tried it. And some people reported issues with it.