Catalyst Media Center is in fact Cyberlink PowerCinema

A

Agustus

New member
ATI “Catalyst Media Center” is in fact Cyberlink “PowerCinema 4”,….!!!

I don’t know how to say it in any other way but from my observations I can say with certainty that this is indeed the case. Cyberlink MakeDVD 2.0 also seems to be an integral part of Catalyst Media Center so it may be more accurate to say that Catalyst Media Center is in fact PowerCinema 4 + MakeDVD 2.0 +.

PowerCinema 4 shipped with EPG support but not for the USA. There were rumors of a patch to add EPG support inside the USA. Since Catalyst Media Center has an EPG for the USA it would then seem to be modified or patched for the USA.

Obviously Catalyst Media Center also seems to sport a new skin allowing it to look like something other then what it actually is.

For comparison, one can compare ATI Catalyst Media Center screenshots with Cyberlink PowerCinema screenshots to note the striking and unmistakable similarities:


TV
http://www.ati.com/products/catalystmediacenter/images/6.jpg
http://images.digitalmedianet.com/2006/Week_2/uqgbonoa/story/livetv500.jpg
The navigation bar and PVR controls should slide in and out of view when the mouse is used or possibly when a keyboard / remote button is used.

Videos
http://www.ati.com/products/catalystmediacenter/images/5.jpg
http://images.digitalmedianet.com/2006/Week_2/uqgbonoa/story/videos500.jpg
MakeDVD 2.0 adds the “Burn to Disc” option to the menu list and an ATI-Cyberlink H.264 pack may add addition options to the package.

EPG
http://www.ati.com/products/catalystmediacenter/images/2.jpg
http://www.cyberlink.com/english/products/powercinema/4/images/TVprogram.jpg
EPG for USA users seems to be added


MakeDVD 2.0
http://www.ati.com/products/catalystmediacenter/images/4.jpg
http://www.softpedia.com/screenshots//CyberLink-MakeDVD_1.jpg
The ATI screenshot actually says “MakeDVD” (a known Cyberlink product)

Home
http://www.ati.com/products/catalystmediacenter/images/1.jpg
http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/10/0,1425,sz=1&i=108686,00.jpg
The Home screen differs somewhat but not necessarily in any significant way considring the skinning capabilities of PowerCinema.

TV record settings and TV Guide Settings
http://www.ati.com/products/catalystmediacenter/images/3.jpg
http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/10/0,1425,sz=1&i=108687,00.jpg
Cyberlink PowerCinema TV EPG setup screen and ATI TV recording settings screenshots

http://oceania.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=36802
http://www.ati.com/products/catalystmediacenter/screenshots.html


Also note the translucent ATI logo in the lower right-hand side with respect to the translucent Cyberlink logo in the lower right-hand side. Not to mention the location and style of menus, font as well as title screen similarities,….

In my mind there is no doubt whatsoever what ATI “Catalyst Media Center” actually is.

There should be a definitive test though. Cyberlink PowerCinema takes on different forms such as
Dell Media Experience and is quite prevalent in other forms as well.

However, multiple installations my not be permissible so the PowerCinema install program typically detects and prompts the user to uninstall previous versions (older or newer) of the program that goes by so many different names before continuing.

There in is the test, if CMC (Catalyst Media Center) is installed on your system download and attempt to install the CPC demo (Cyberlink PowerCinema). You may or may not need to direct the install path to the CMC installed path. A positive result would be a prompt to uninstall CMC within the CPC demo install program.

Whatever the case, IMO, PowerCinema 4 isn’t that bad of a program and Make DVD is actually very useful and easy to use. The Catalyst Media Center package “may” also include the Cyberlink HD264 Pack for ATI hardware acceleration and the new decoder included in PowerDVD 7 (rather then v6 currently available to ATI users with supported original ATI CD).

Now then, if you are not sure that your existing ATI hardware is supported in Catalyst Media Center simply download and install the PowerCinema 4 trial.

TV Wonder Pro, TV Wonder VE, TV Wonder PCI, TV Wonder USB 2.0, TV Wonder USB and the HDTV Wonder will likely work in CMC. We already know the Theater 650 and 550 will work.

AIW cards, will probably work as well,….

As for a free download for those who still want Catalyst Media Center:

If there is currently a free downloadable version of PowerCinema in some form or another then it would be nothing new for ATI to provide this service to their installed base (albeit costly). Dell probably has patches and upgrade programs (CPC v3 to CPC v4 for example) for the “Dell Media Experience” but this likely depends on a preinstalled state.

From my observations of Cyberlink PowerCinema v3 and v4 (and MakeDVD) the install process requires the entry of a key on the CD case. There is no hardware or BIOS check that would restrict installation to ATI customers and therefore the software would work on a wide variety of hardware. Naturally this would be addressed before the package could be made available to public.

Also consider that the ATI version of PowerCinema v3 that shipped with Theater 550 Pro cards was the only version officially upgradable to support new features:

http://www.cyberlink.com/cinema/ati/3/free-upgrade.jsp


It seems far more likely (cheaper and easier) to upgrade only those ATI customers that already have the ATI version of PowerCinema 3 (TV Wonder Elite) via some sort of downloadable upgrade. Non-ATI customers that bought their products from Sapphire, Visiontek, PowerColor and so on may be left out in the cold (as they were with the free ATI only PowerCinema upgrade linked to above).
 
you are so right.
looking in the SETUP for the TV in the AUDIO, trying to select the "downmix" options, and there it is too. cyberlink audio renderer.
also in the registry is ATItechnologies/cyberlink/powerdvd/atimmc


of course i cant find a way to just Pass through to my sound card that already does the dolby stuff, so the options there are decode and smush it into 2 speakers, or pass it to the cyberlink to be psudo dolbyised?

i just got 7 speaker thing, and a 7 speaker audio card, and heck if i can figure out 2 things. how to keep stereo on, and how to just pass it on through out of the ATI tuner, so the sound card can handle the rest.
 
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I think Cyberlink PowerCinema 4 only supports 5.1 channels but Power DVD 7 supports Dolby Digital EX (7.1) with the “Advanced Audio Pack”. Not really sure if that’s applicable to TV though,…

There may be some audio upgrade packs for PowerCinema 4 as well and if so it may be possible to use them in Catalyst Media Center too.

You can probably see what decoder is used by Catalyst Media Center / PowerCinema 4 by using the “Microsoft Windows XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility”. Catalyst Media Center / PowerCinema 4 probably uses either version 6 or 7.
 
It should also be noted that Catalyst Media Center is likely ATI’s choice for multimedia functionality in Windows Vista for products that do not function in Vista MCE or versions of Vista that do not have Vista MCE.

If this is true, then theoretically Cyberlink PowerCinema 4 and Catalyst Media Center should also be functional in Vista now (possibly RC1 build 5600 and 5728 ). If not, a patch may allow for such functionality in the future.
 
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That is what I have trying to figure out all along as stated below.

This information is quoted from a different forum

I don't know if this information is useful, but read my post at the following link. http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33865160
From what I was told from ATI is the All in Wonder and the TV Wonder 200 are both using the Theater 200 Chip? My question is what prevents me from using the new Catalysts Media Center on my All in Wonder X1900? I was also told that the TV Wonder 200 will support picture in picture on the new All in Wonder cards. I'm only speculating and would like feedback. Thanks...

Hey Zob,
From what I had just posted,

Quote:
ATI has not announced official support for CMC on AIW and previous generation TV Wonder products, like the AIW X1900.

That doesn't mean that it won't work at all, it will probly work fine as you said. But since we do not officially support it, there may be some minor problems that may go unresolved. But since CMC is only available with the TV Wonder 650, and 200, you should not even have to worry about this. <-- That's what prevents you from using CMC on you AIW X1900.

Thanks for the reply. The information you tell me is useful. One of the reasons I am asking is, since I'm using the All in Wonder X1900 and would like to use the TV Wonder 650 for the high-definition TV tuner. Will the two TV tuner cards play well together on the same computer? And if so which software would you use or could you have both media center programs on the same computer together? The All in Wonder X1900 works fairly well as a TV tuner, but the picture quality is nothing to get excited about. There's a couple of irritating glitches in the Media Center software. One of which, every time you hit a mono station then go back to a stereo station the tuner stays in the mono mode. Another glitch is the Remote Wonder Plus guide button does nothing. It is the same if you use the furnished CD or download the new drivers off the Internet. I have reported both of these incidents to ATI and they say they're aware of the problem but there's no known resolution at this time.

Zob,
I see what you are trying to do. This should work with CMC, but since there is no "Official Support" for the AIW cards, I can't really guarantee you that it will work. To make it simple, it works, but if there is any problems with it, ATI probably won't do anything about it untill it is officially supported. If it ever is.

I hope this info is useful.
 
Wow, good find!

I guess my earlier prediction that inactivity and reduced trend of quality of MMC and WDM drivers for the past several years being resources on production of new software was off-track.

Has anyone tried PowerCinema 4 with ATI AIW hardware? It looks unclear how well supported AIW/RW may be. But if $99 solves my 3+ year long headaches, I'm totally up for it.

I have Power Directory and Power DVD as well, so I'm very fond of Cyberlink's software. They've been really good on the support for me too... answering emails, opening tickets and getting REAL fixes in a very timely, attentive manner.
 
There is no need to buy PowerCinema 4 for $99.

I recently bought a Powercolor Theater 550 Pro T55E-P03 PCIe x1 card for $44.99 (after rebate) and it came with PowerCinema 4 and Cyberlink DVD Solutions (with PowerDVD 6) at no extra cost.

Granted the PowerColor version didn’t come with MakeDVD 2.0 or any additional bells and whistles like the AVIVO transcode utilities or the like but the retail version of PowerCinema doesn’t come with that either. The new ~$50 TV Wonder 200 comes with ATI’s Catalyst Media Center as well,…

So ~$99 for PowerCinema isnt exactly a bargain IMO.
 
Has anybody tried the Catalyst Media Center on the All in Wonder video cards yet? The TV Wonder 200 comes with this media center. It is on sale this week at Best Buy for $49. It would be interesting to find out. I don't know if I would spend $50 to find out if it works or not but could be a solution to many of the problems
 
I tried Power Cinema 4 with my AIW X800XT, but I can't remember if it was with CATs 6.2 or 6.8. But it was only very brief, certain not a full feature test.

I found the interface was pretty good, at least I had no problems with the way it worked or the way it was arranged. It seems a lot of these apps are using the same style (like gbpvr, mythtv and the like) -- all integrated into one app, media centre style. Setup went without a problem.

The tuning of the channels was horrendously slow, and buggy. The tuning of the channels didn't always get pulled in correctly -- had to go up and down just to fix it.

I didn't give it a full chance to be honest, and I may or may not have had updated drivers installed. So it may have been an abberation. Regardless, this was enough to kill it for me.

Take this for what is worth. Ciao.
 
Jogee, was that test with PowerCinema 3 or PowerCinema 4 ?

PowerCinema 3, was IMO, a rather poor effort on the part of Cyberlink. Due to its many flaws, PowerCinema 3 was widely despised by Theater 550 Pro users that had the misfortune of having the application bundled with their card.

PowerCinema 4 is something of a different animal and greatly improved. While it isn’t an excellent product without flaw it is very serviceable.

PowerCinema 4 will probably be stigmatized by its predecessor. ATI is well aware of the cold reception PowerCinema 3 received which is probably why (in part) they are not volunteering information about Catalyst Media Center’s origins / source.
 
Agustus,

As I stated that was with Power Cinema 4. I had also heard bad things about version 3 from a friend with a Theater 550. So I was curious to try version 4 what with all the talk about it being essentially CMC.

I honestly don't remember which drivers I tested with. I wish I had written down notes on this one. If I'm feeling up to it this weekend, I might just try again.

Ciao.
 
Ah, I missed that sorry,…

Well then your input could be very telling with respect to AIW + CMC (AKA CPC) performance and functionality. Driver version may be of much less importance in an application like CMC / CPC. Indeed, MMC may have been very sensitive to driver changes but this might not be the case with other applications. My ATI hardware in MCE 2K5 had very little variation in performance due to driver change.

Actually, most of the issues that I have come across in the past almost certainly stemmed directly from MMC, not the drivers.

Since I mainly use MCE 2K5 I don’t really want to test CPC / CMC or any other PVR software on such platforms for fear of causing problems with otherwise well working systems. I tested MMC 9.04 once and it caused a problem in MCE that remained after uninstalling it. It was hell to fix too. It can really be difficult troubleshooting and fixing MCE 2K5 if something goes wrong. After all, you cannot just uninstall and reinstall the PVR app since it is integrated into the OS.

At any rate, for those that are interested, CPC should still be a good test and an accurate representation of CMC form and function.

I have to say though, after finally knowing what CMC actually is,….I am somewhat disappointed. I mean, I probably wouldn’t be swayed away from MCE 2K5 anyway save for Vista MCE which is looking really good in RC1 5600 (didn’t try 5728 yet but will soon),…. But I am still a bit disappointed that CMC isn’t,… more,… new,…. different,… unique,…..

CMC is basically,… off the rack,…

I’m not really surprised though,…
 
Agustus, I tried Power Cinema 4 on a test hard drive it has Catalyst Control Center 6.9 and Multimedia Center 9.15. It seemed to work fairly well with a little bit of audio problems on the TV. The FM radio worked fine. The picture quality is about the same as the ATI Multimedia Center. There's no TV Guide and limited functionality with the TV Wonder Remote. So if your theory is correct then Catalyst Media Center should work fine on the All in Wonder X1900. The ATI representative also stated it would function, but if you had problems with it you were on your own.
 
Well for what its worth, the TV Wonder 200 and probably the Theater 650 Pro install disc number is as follows:

180-V01118-100

If ATI stays true to form, it will sell this disc for ~$12.99 at shop.ati.com in due time!!!

$12.99 sure beats ~$99 for PowerCinema 4 retail or ~$50 for PowerCinema 4 OEM with a Theater 550 Pro or Catalyst Media Center with a TV Wonder 200.

CMC may have a few tweaks added to it though,…

Good to know the AIW works in CPC 4 / CMC though even if it needs a little help here and there,…

What audio problems did you experience?

Perhaps there will be some new enhancements for the remote wonder in the next driver refresh. For example, last time there were some added features (plug-in) for MCE with remote wonder drivers. Perhaps this time there will be a CMC / CPC plug-in.
 
Agustus, on CPC 4 the audio occasionally breaks up. The TV Wonder 650 is probably the best way to go but I don't know if I'm willing to part $135 plus tax at BB, since the MSRP is only $130. Other stores will be carrying them shortly and the price will go down. From what I have read the TV video quality is excellent. I just have not found anybody that has one with the All-in-Wonder card. Windows Media Edition seems to be the best way to go for these All in Wonder & TV cards. But being this close to a new operating system I don't know about buying XP Media Edition when Windows Vista will be out shortly.
 
zob said:
Windows Media Edition seems to be the best way to go for these All in Wonder & TV cards. But being this close to a new operating system I don't know about buying XP Media Edition when Windows Vista will be out shortly.
Click to expand...

Well, since MCE is my PVR of choice I am hardly impartial in this respect but I agree with this sentiment. BeyondTV is really good too though.

It may not be wise to buy MCE 2K5 now considering that Vista is supposedly so close but one needs to consider a few things:

1) MCE 2K5 will support the AIW line now (AIW 9000 and up).

2) Vista builds and ATI drivers thus far do not support the multimedia components of the AIW line and there is no evidence that they ever will.

3) Only Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate Edition will have Vista MCE

4) MCE 2K5 goes for about $109 and is OEM only while Vista will come in both OEM and Retail packages ranging from about $150 for the upgrade version of Vista Home Premium and goes up from their.

However, since we don’t know if AIW cards and Vista MCE will ever work, users may have to make some tough choices. Frankly, the closer we get to 2007 without AIW support in current builds of Vista the worse it looks,… but they may pull it together in the 11 th hour.

fanbanlo said:
I can't see this item on the page.
Click to expand...

With all due respect, I’m not sure what you are looking for. I said:

Agustus said:
If ATI stays true to form, it will sell this disc for ~$12.99 at shop.ati.com in due time!!!
Click to expand...

“In due time” meaning sooner or later the 180-V01118-100 disc will likely be for sale at the going rate of most if not all other included software discs. The location or point of sale would be shop.ati.com if this comes to pass.

If you do a search for disc number 180-V01118-100 on ati.com you probably will not find it but just about every other disc will show up.

Users with the ATI install disc housing CMC can verify the disc number but I got the disc number here :

It’s a series of photos from the TV Wonder 200 product including three close-up shots of the tuner card, cables, close-up shot of the install disc and product packaging.

TV Wonder 200 TV Tuner - Retail
 
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MCE 2K5 is probably the most stable because it is integrated into the operating system. It is not dealing with any third party software outside of the drivers for the card.

Catalysts Media Center may be a fix but the only way, at this time to acquire it is to purchase one of the new TV cards. The TV Wonder 650 seems to have the best picture quality on the market, from what I've read. And will also have Windows Vista support in the future. Unless some third-party programmer can provide additional support for the All in Wonder series video cards or ATI decides to make drivers available for the new operating system it may be the only alternative to use the All in Wonder as a TV tuner in the future.

The All in Wonder X series video cards are not showing up on the ATI's discontinued list so it is impossible to predict the future unless you have some other inside information. Only time will tell.
 
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