ATI Theater 650 Pro users

[alan92rttt]

ATI Theater 650 Pro users did you have to do anything special to get sage to tune channels with your card?

[Striker:WG]

Can you provide some additional detail about how you are trying to do this?

Are you using an external STB connected via S-Video or Composite or are you going directly into the card via COAX?

If you are using an external STB, what are you using to control the STB? IR? Firewire? Serial/DB9?

-Striker-

[alan92rttt]

Just using the internal tuner with an antena.

[tai1spin]

I was able to tune channels, I was UNABLE to use both the analog and digital tuner simultaneously. Did you have that problem?

[alan92rttt]

I can't get it to tune at all.

Their must be some differance between the basic card and the version on the AIW HD.

[paulbeers]

The 650 is not currently supported by Sage. It is NOT the same card as the AIW HD and the ATI Theater 550 Pro

[alan92rttt]

The AIW HD I have it based on the 650 chipset.

I know its not "supported" but other unsupported cards have worked. Tech support says they are looking into getting it supported.


Ya can't blame a guy for trying

[Jesse]

Hi,

I am using two ATI TV Wonder Theater 650 pro pci cards. I am using the svid inputs with D* boxs, not ATSC. They work just fine. I have seen some talk at AVS that they will not support ATSC and svid capture simultaneously (as tai1spin indicated). Over at AVS there was a lot of talk about the 650 when it was released. I would definitely do a search there.

Last I checked the 650 cards had not made it onto the officially supported tuner list, but I have been using mine for a couple of years now. I had a little trouble with live tv at first, but one of the subsequent sage releases fixed that a long while back. FWIW, the driver package from ATI is the same for both the 550 and 650 cards.

Jesse

[sunray]

The ATI 650 tuner cards don't allow you to use both the analog tuner and the digital tuner at the same time. You have to use one tuner or the other. Its a hardware limitation of the cards and can't be fixed in software.

[alan92rttt]

If I could get the digital side to work I'd be happy.

[sunray]

You might try a better antenna. The ATI 650 cards are known for having poor reception of digital signals and thus not being to pick up signals other tuners have no problem with. The (Philips/RCA/Magnavox) Silver Sensor is a very good indoor antenna. There are also amplified antennas you can try. But an outdoor antenna is best. There's a big thread over on AVSForum.com on antennas if you are willing to do some reading.

[alan92rttt]

Its a sage issue. Works fine in other TV apps.

In theroy they are "working on it"

If I get too frustrated waiting I'll just use Windows Media center.

[sagetviwanna]

on another pvr applicatin (www.gbpvr.com), i've been able to get both the analog and digital tuners (using cable) to work simultaneously. but can't do it with the latest 6.5 release.

if anyone has gotten it to work, please advise what you did. although I can get the analog side to work, the digital does not tune any channels.

[pichner2346]

Alan;

Don't know if this is the issue, but Windows XP Service pack 3 isn't compatible with the latest Theater 650 digital drivers.

This is a known ATI issue (not very well known) which was difficult for me to track down, but ATI "knows" about it and isn't bothering to fix.

There are reports that previous versions of the 650 drivers work with XP SP 3 but I wasn't able to resolve this issue via that route.

If using XP, roll back to SP2 (so the reports go) or upgrade to Vista.
The XP I was using had SP 3 on the disk and I couldn't "roll-back."

I went Vista route and the 650 and Sage TV run fine (out of the box fine) together (both x86 and x64 versions).

Cannot get Sage to use both tuners at the same time but that is different issue. Windows 7 may work but I haven't tested this.

This was frustrating for me, worked on VISTA but not XP SP3 until I found the documentation online reporting this 650 driver issue.

David.

Originally Posted by alan92rttt

Its a sage issue. Works fine in other TV apps.
In theroy they are "working on it"
If I get too frustrated waiting I'll just use Windows Media center.