ATI TV Wonder 650 HD tuners - WHICH WOULD YOU BUY

[pawluk]

Hi,

I'm running Windows XP SP3 and looking to buy a new ATI TV Wonder 650 HD tuner. USB, PCIe and PCI bus are all available.

Looking to poll RAGE3D members, I am wondering (no pun intended) which ATI TV Wonder 650 HD tuner our members would buy, and why?

ATI TV Wonder HD 650 Combo USB
http://ati.amd.com/products/tvwonder650/usb/index.html

ATI TV Wonder HD 650 Combo PCI Express

http://ati.amd.com/products/tvwonder650/pcie/index.html

ATI TV Wonder HD 650 PCI (NTSC/ATSC)

http://ati.amd.com/products/tvwonder650/pci/index.html

It may be wise to exclude or otherwise overlook the fact that ATI's Catalyst Media Center software has problems and therefore it seems reasonable to request that the discussion be limited to hardware only as defined by the links for the above ATI tuners.

Thanks in advance.

Pawluk

[Agustus]

Well I have owned the new ATI TV Wonder 650 Combo USB and am a current owner of the original ATI TV Wonder 650 PCI Hybrid card.

I returned the ATI TV Wonder HD 650 Combo USB to best buy for a full refund because there was an odd signal loss issue whereby the recordings on the 650 USB would error out in Vista Media Center. It was installed alongside a Vbox Cat’s Eye 164e Dual Analog / Digital configurable PCIe X1 card (which worked correctly in analog / analog, digital / digital or analog / digital mode). During quad recordings the ATI TV Wonder 650 Combo USB would always drop the recordings whenever any recording went to completion or was manually stopped. The ATI TV Wonder 650 Combo USB would also get very hot, heating up the connected coaxial cable considerably. This would happen even when the tuners were not in use. As long as power was applied it was hot. It was even stated in the documentation that it should be allowed to cool off if there are operational issues. Also the remote included was a standard ATI Remote Wonder Plus not the newer black model pictured on the box. The documentation and the fine print on the box said that the remote may differ from what was pictured (paraphrased). This was a very early release retail model though so the product and its drivers may have improved greatly since then. I ended up buying a SiliconDust HDHomeRun with dual digital ATSC / QAM tuners to fill this void, I don’t regret it at all and get a lot of use out of it even on my laptop (multiple direct system use via network). The HDHomeRun gets a little warm too but nowhere near as hot as the TV Wonder 650 Combo USB and only when the tuners are directly in use,….as opposed to all the time.

There was one other thing about the TV Wonder 650 Combo USB that was odd. All the physical connections just seemed a bit off, wrong or not to spec. For example, the RCN connections and USB connections on the unit seemed too small so all standard cables seem to fit too tightly,…thus requiring an excess of force to insert or remove such cables. But again this was when the TV Wonder 650 Combo USB came out (Visiontek model) and this may have been addressed.

If the price has dropped considerably the TV Wonder 650 Combo USB may be worth considering for loyalists but if its still hovering in the ~$120 to ~$140 range I would personally avoid it.

As for the TV Wonder 650 PCI, this is an older card by design and it was an improvement over its predecessor the Theater 550 Pro. If the price is significantly lower then its introductory price it may well be worth considering. I find the non-concurrent design a bit problematic at times and as such also hints at the necessity of a lower asking price. This card is worth approximately ~$60 or so to me, IMO, so the retail price should reflect that. Other Hybrid cards of this design type can be had for about ~$69.99 so that’s the absolute upper limit on a fair price for the TV Wonder 650 PCI Hybrid,…IMO. Some of these TV Wonder 650 PCI Hybrid cards are still going for ~$100 or more so I would watch out for that.

Unfortunately I have no experience with the new TV Wonder 650 Combo PCIe card but they weren’t in stock anywhere when I had interest in the product.

For what its worth I bought an AverMedia AverTV Combo PCIe X1 (M780) card and liked it so much that I bought another retail kit.

Included software is basically irrelevant to me because I already have a number of MCE 2K5 and Vista Home Premium (Vista Media Center) licenses which is my preferred PVR software. I do have a few XP Pro and XP Home licenses though but I would just use a BeyondTV license for that.

[x-tech]

I would also like to add that I have the TV Wonder 650 PCIe combo version and it works beautifully for me in both Vista and XP (I'm using the Catalyst Media Center and not the Vista Media Center). It did come with the black remote but I don't personally use it.

I love this card and can't stop praising it!

[enter]

I also have a ATI 650 PCIe combo and its picture quality is the best I have seen with analog or digital. BUT my only problem and its pretty big at that is that you cannot use the FM tuner if you have a cable tv coax plugged into it, which has got to be the stupidest thing I have ever seen ATI manage to do with this tuner. The older PCI version had the fm tuner shared with the digital antenna input, so having OTA antenna plugged in you would also recieve FM stations....the way it should be....but ATI had to "fix" something that wasn't broken and of coarse now it is.

[pawluk]

Hey, thanks for your input, Agustus, x-tech and enter.

Given your experiences, thus far, it looks like a new PCIe card is a winner.

I am looking forward to what others have experienced with their ATI cards.

Thanks again.

Pawluk

[Agustus]

Well the original TV Wonder 650 PCI Hybrid is supposedly QAM capable (as are the newer TV Wonder 650 PCIe and USB models). So one would imagine that when QAM is used on the TV Wonder 650 PCI Hybrid there would be a radio related issue on the digital connection.

I get something on the order of ~140 QAM channels in the clear (with a healthy number of HD channels) in contrast to about ~24 or so OTA ATSC channels (which includes sub-channels). Unfortunately, since ATI has no channel mapping utilities the TV Wonder 650 line has no QAM functionality in my application(s) of choice (VMC, MCE 2K5 and BeyondTV in that order) so I haven’t been able to use my TV Wonder 650 PCI Hybrid in this capacity.

[x-tech]

I also have a ATI 650 PCIe combo and its picture quality is the best I have seen with analog or digital. BUT my only problem and its pretty big at that is that you cannot use the FM tuner if you have a cable tv coax plugged into it, which has got to be the stupidest thing I have ever seen ATI manage to do with this tuner. The older PCI version had the fm tuner shared with the digital antenna input, so having OTA antenna plugged in you would also recieve FM stations....the way it should be....but ATI had to "fix" something that wasn't broken and of coarse now it is.

Could it also be that coax is going the way of the dinosaur and it makes more sense to keep the digital input separate? Therefore allowing for two separate antenna and reducing radio issues?

I honestly don't know, I'm only asking the question.

[x-tech]

Hey, thanks for your input, Agustus, x-tech and enter.

Given your experiences, thus far, it looks like a new PCIe card is a winner.

I am looking forward to what others have experienced with their ATI cards.

Thanks again.

Pawluk

You're welcome! Let us know how you make out.

[enter]

Could it also be that coax is going the way of the dinosaur and it makes more sense to keep the digital input separate? Therefore allowing for two separate antenna and reducing radio issues?

I honestly don't know, I'm only asking the question.

Well I'm not real sure either, except for the fact I have no FM tuner, and I'm sure coax is gonna be around for quite some time. Like I said in my other post, it worked great with the PCI version not sure why they had to change it. If its a future related fix then thats stupid cause I don't live in the future,lol.

[Agustus]

Since I have no experience with TV Wonder 650 Combo PCIe X1 card I would probably default to that one out of the other two choices which I found somewhat lacking. I still think the prices for the TV Wonder 650 line is a bit elevated for what you get. I don’t think there is one card that is perfect or that can satisfy all situations but there are some that tend to raise above the others.

I own a number of TV tuner cards such as:

ATI TV Wonder 650 PCI Hybrid

2X ATI HDTV Wonder

3X Theater 550 Pro (VisionteK, Sapphire and PowerColor PCIe)

AIW X1900

AIW 9800 Pro

ATI TV Wonder VE

Vbox Cat’s Eye 164E Dual Configurable Analog / Digital PCIe X1

Silicondust HDHomeRun Dual Digital ATSC / QAM network tuner

2X AverMedia AverTV Combo PCIe X1 M780 Analog / Digital NTSC/ ATSC / QAM

AverMedia AVerTVHD MCE A180 PCI Digital TV Tuner QAM

Kworld PVR-TV 305U Analog USB stick

And I also have an old Hauppauge WinTV card but the TV Wonder 650 USB was the only one I felt a compelling need to return. I was on the fence with the Vbox Cat’s Eye 164E and the TV Wonder 650 PCI Hybrid but I ended up keeping them.

At this point I look for qualities that are unique or quasi unique and or good pricing with respect to feature set. A high price may be acceptable to me but it must be justified in some way. I don’t really see any of the TV Wonder 650 products as being unique or particularly well priced. In fact I see the TV Wonder 650 Combo PCIe X1 as somewhat late to market since AverMedia has basically had their feature comparable card out longer and is less expensive. Also note that the AverMedia AverTV Combo PCIe X1 isn’t limited to official QAM support in only Vista like the TV Wonder 650 line (with Vista capable CMC, not to say third party apps wouldn't work).

However as unique products go I think the new Hauppauge HD PVR model 1212 with its capability of recording premium HD media from premium pay channels via component output of a capable HD STB is worth honorable mention.

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html

At $249 MSRP it seems a bit pricy but the Hauppauge HD PVR can do something that all of the above products can’t. The real problem I see with the Hauppauge HD PVR from my point of view is that it wont likely work with Vista Media Center until the Fiji update. Thats not a problem unless you are actually using Vista Media Center though. Still it has much of the functionality or quasi functionality of the “ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner”, “OCUR” or AKA “cablecard” which you simply cant get unless you have a typically costly OEM Cablelabs certified Vista system.

[Djinn]

Hey Pawluk - Been here yet? They have dedicated discussion forums that might offer some insights.

http://www.tv-cards.com/

[pawluk]

http://www.tv-cards.com/

Thanks for the referral, Djinn.

Took a look and decided to register and will post the same topic there.

Its always good to have another source for info, so thanks again, Djinn!

Pawluk

[Agustus]

If you’re hell-bent on one of the three above ATI (AMD) tuners you can checkout this link which has a sale:

http://promotions.newegg.com/amd/tvtuners/index.html?cm_sp=HomepageSL-_-AMDtvtuners-_-http%3a%2f%2fpromotions.newegg.com%2famd%2ftvtuners%2f270x120.gif

These prices are about where they should be IMO at retail, or maybe a little lower would be better. BTW, free shipping too.