ATI Theater 650 cards available

Jesse · #1 09-28-2006, 11:53 AM

Hi,

Just thought I would let anyone interested know that the ATI "TV Wonder 650" pci capture cards are again available at BB. They are still not listed on their web site, but I called and they had a half-dozen or so on the shelf. I am really hoping that the SD capture will be better than the my crosshatch plagued 500mce.

Hopefully it wont be much trouble to get it working in sage.....

I will post back with my results.

Jesse

blade · #2 09-28-2006, 12:51 PM

Wasn't the 650 recalled? Or was it re-released?

SHS · #3 09-28-2006, 12:54 PM

Yes the 650 was recalled but was it re-released.

Jesse · #4 09-28-2006, 10:53 PM

Update:

The install was a piece of cake. Sage recognized and configured the card with no problems at all. Note that I am referring to SD capture only, I have not tried to use the HD tuner.

It is a little hard to get sage to reliably switch between tuners on the same channel, but from about twenty minutes of fooling around I have seen a big difference. IE: No More Crosshatch!! The first time I tried watching tv after installing the card I could tell right away that it was using the ATI card and not the hauppauge card. I usually rate the tuner by switching back and forth between sage and our Sony DTV receiver. With the hauppauge card there was always a big difference; no comparison really. With the ATI card it is very hard to see any difference.

I will need to do some more watching, but so far it is looking very good. Looks like I may have a PCR500MCE for sale very soon.

Jesse

malore · #5 09-29-2006, 08:39 AM

A review on amazon.com says "It's back in stores (at least Best Buy - but not on their web site yet) with whatever update they gave it and it works great. This is the best TV capture card yet. NVIDIA's DualTV Media Center Edition card is on par with ATI's 550 card and this card is noticeably better then both. For some reviews I suggest going to Cnet and/or AnandTech and read what they found. For those looking to talk to others and to get more technical, you may enjoy the AVS forum."

So if Jesse didn't also write that, it would seem to confirm what he said.

I have two questions. First, under cons the CNET review says "still a stop-gap measure until the next generation of TV tuners." but doesn't mention any thing about it in the actual review. What would a next generation TV tuner do that this doesn't?

Second, sites that talk about the recall seem to say "They claimed to have 40 channels, but only about 30% to 50% of them worked." Are they talking about ATSC, because the only mention of channels I can see is 125 for analog?

kltye · #6 09-29-2006, 09:00 AM

Can we also use the analog and digital tuners at the same time?

SHS · #7 09-29-2006, 09:05 AM

No you can't use analog and digital tuners at the same time
Read this Discussion
http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=77340

Polypro · #8 09-29-2006, 10:58 AM

I hope the VistsView is at least as good...need 4 tuners and don't have enough slots

Glad it's working for you.

P

kltye · #9 09-29-2006, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SHS

No you can't use analog and digital tuners at the same time
Read this Discussion
http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=77340

Dang, I just found that out after I ran out to BestBuy to get the card. Still, the quality for both digital and analog is amazing. I guess I'll hold on to my Avermedia card for HD.

malore · #10 09-29-2006, 12:29 PM

Is it seen as two separate tuners by SageTV? Will SageTV schedule two shows to record on it, leading to failed recordings?

Diginerd · #11 09-29-2006, 01:32 PM

I stumbled accross this card last weekend at BB. I bought one (dang should have bought 2!), dropped it into my Sage PC, installed drivers and..

Wow!!

Quality is amazing, both analog and digtial. The marketing splurb on the back makes a big thing about their 3D comb filtering technology. Not sure if it's that but picture quality is truely amazing. Better than my cable box.

I initially hooked it up to the 20 year old antenna that was left on the roof of my house by it's previous owner, and out of the gate got 3 HD channels from the Empire State building 40 miles away. this is one more than antennaweb.org predicited. I then rushed to radio shack and bought their highly reccomended $24.99 UHF antenna. I installed that and now have 8 locals working.

To answer the question about how sage see it. It presents as one card, with a toggle option as to tuning digital, analog OTA, or cable. You can't have it tune analog some times and digital sometimes without changing it's configuration. It's like the Hauppage cards in tha respect

wheelrandolph · #12 09-29-2006, 02:10 PM

Hi,
No one has mentioned the price (at BB)--how much is this card?

Also, ATI states it is "available in pci or pci-e"--which one does BB have, or do they have both?

Thanks, Randy

mechling-burgh · #13 09-29-2006, 02:20 PM

Can you add the card twice I have one mce 150 that I use cable and the svideo input on. I just selected it a second time and said it was a different connection. I use the svideo to get the cable box upper channels (100 +) and use exetuner.exe with the firewire connection to change channels, this setup works great

malore · #14 09-29-2006, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mechling-burgh

Can you add the card twice I have one mce 150 that I use cable and the svideo input on. I just selected it a second time and said it was a different connection. I use the svideo to get the cable box upper channels (100 +) and use exetuner.exe with the firewire connection to change channels, this setup works great

So does SageTV try to schedule more than one show at the same time on the mce 150 card? I'm guessing it doesn't.

My original concern was because my ATI HDTV wonder is treated as two separate tuners. The analog recordings were so terrible that I disabled it.

ke6guj · #15 09-29-2006, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by malore

So does SageTV try to schedule more than one show at the same time on the mce 150 card?

Nope, It knows that there is one tuner with multiple input sources available to it, and schedules accordingly.

The question with the ATI-650 seems to be how does it report its tuners to Sage? If it has 2 physical tuners, 1 analog and 1 digital, but can only use 1 at a time, then that info needs to be passed on inside Sage so that it can schedule appropriately. Perhaps some sort of update to Sage so that it can be told, if tuner 1 is in use, don't use tuner 2. I know that people who use Firewire-equipped STB's would like to see that. Trying to record some channels via firewire and others through a separate tuner can be a hassle.

Diginerd · #16 09-29-2006, 03:27 PM

Not sure if you can add it twice. I didn't try. I'll poke at it tonight and let you know.

My Best Buy (Norwalk, CT) just had the PCI version, and it was $130 something.

BobPhoenix · #17 09-29-2006, 03:33 PM

CompUSA has it listed as Coming Soon for 129.99 on the Web Site.

kltye · #18 09-29-2006, 03:49 PM

I have the 650 installed alongside with an A180. To prevent problems with Sage wanting to use the HD tuner on the 650 when it should be using the A180, I edited the encoder merit for the 180 to be higher than zero.

Yes, you can choose a different input on the 650; analog and digital. So Sage knows it can't schedule an analog and a digital recording at the same time with this card.

ptaylor · #19 09-30-2006, 11:17 AM

I picked up an ATI 650 this morning from my local Best Buy. (134.99, so CompUSA will have them beat on price once they get them in stock)

Installed the card, popped in the driver disk, installed the software (only the drivers), rebooted and started Sage. After adding the tuner, it was up and working... So far, I've only added the tuner for SD since I don't have a splitter for my HD Antenna yet. But, it's working just fine so far.

This is opposed to about 8 hours yesterday trying to make a PVR-500 (type B) card work.

Jesse · #20 10-01-2006, 02:52 PM

Hi ptaylor,

How is your pq?

Jesse

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