ATI Theater 550 or 650?

[morfinx]

I have an old Hauppauge tuner with software encoding right now. I think it might be time to upgrade. Would it be better to just get a Theater 550 card right now, or wait until Theater 650 cards come out? Would the improvements justify the higher cost?

[chairmanmao]

Speaking as someone who's used both the 550 and 650 cards (although the later was only for a few minutes), the 650 is better but the 550 is good enough. That's for standard definition TV, BTW; I don't have HDTV.

FYI, right now the 650s are not available (they were released and then recalled by ATI). The ATI-branded 550s seems to be in short supply, too (not surprising, manufacturers usually try to empty the distribution channel of older products when newer ones are released).

Your mileage may vary, of course!

- Mark

[morfinx]

Originally Posted by chairmanmao

Speaking as someone who's used both the 550 and 650 cards (although the later was only for a few minutes), the 650 is better but the 550 is good enough. That's for standard definition TV, BTW; I don't have HDTV.

FYI, right now the 650s are not available (they were released and then recalled by ATI). The ATI-branded 550s seems to be in short supply, too (not surprising, manufacturers usually try to empty the distribution channel of older products when newer ones are released).

Your mileage may vary, of course!

- Mark

Mark, so you are saying that the higher price of the 650 isn't worth the improvement over the 550?

[chairmanmao]

Oops, I guess I wasn't too clear, was I?

Let's put it this way: for me, it's a close call. I bought the 650, but after returning it I spent some time shopping for a second 550. I found the 650 to be better, but the 550 was Good Enough (again, I don't have HD).

- Mark

[morfinx]

I see, I'm sure anything is better than my old Hauppauge (Phillips BT878) tuner.

Anyone else have a second opinion?

[morfinx]

Also I read that the 650 has 128MB of onboard memory and the 550 has only 16MB?

[SHS]

650 only has 16MB not 128 nor 64 nor 32.

[morfinx]

Here's where I saw the info:

The Theater 650 Pro reference card was also outfitted with 128MB of Samsung K4D261638I-LC40 GDDR Memory, which is rated at 250MHz, for buffering purposes.

http://www.hothardware.com/viewartic...leid=851&cid=2

[SHS]

Well if really dose have 128MB then there more then enough buffer for 10+sec at MAX bitrate which way more then is needed.

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by SHS

Well if really dose have 128MB then there more then enough buffer for 10+sec at MAX bitrate which way more then is needed.

What's the max bitrate for HD capture?

[SHS]

The HD capture dose count becuases it all ready in MPEG2 stream format which need any encoding, but HD stream can be as low 12 to high 19MBits in 1280x720p or 1920x1080i depent on the broadcaster.