Woot: ATI TV Wonder USB

[bela41]

Anyone using this tuner with Sage? Looks like a pretty good deal for $20 if you want an extra ATSC tuner or three.

[MitchSchaft]

I have the PCI version and it's worked well for the past 3 years. I originally bought it for MCE2005. I'd chance it for $20.

[mechling-burgh]

The only thing to watch is that the ATI website said the 600 doesn't do QAM so if you plan to use Cable TV signal it won't work.

[ottoman1384]

does anyone know if this will work using windows home server?

[jchiso]

I can confirm that it works for OTA ATSC on Windows XP with v4.x and v6.4.X.

[electron]

Originally Posted by mechling-burgh

The only thing to watch is that the ATI website said the 600 doesn't do QAM so if you plan to use Cable TV signal it won't work.

I realized that after I ordered mine from woot, however, I received mine today, and the diagram shows QAM, very confusing.

That said, I am having trouble getting it to work with SageTV, but I'm still playing around with settings etc. If someone does have this model running, would love to know the exact parameters (Digital? TV Tuner? etc).

[mc510]

like electron, i bought this from woot and am having difficulty getting it and sage to work together ... probably user error; can anyone tip me to what i should try? (I should mention that this is my very first time with sage, or any TV on PC stuff.)

I'm running XP MCE2005 SP3 (on Athlon XP 1700; Geforce4 MX400 integrated graphics); I installed ONLY the ATI driver (not the Avivo codec, not the ATI media center application); then I downloaded and installed the latest sagetv demo. (I do NOT have any third party MPEG2 decoder installed.)

Sage lets me select the ATI tuner as OTA digital TV source (which is what I want), and autoscan finds several channels. But the video test fails in all four modes ... I don't even know what I'm supposed to see here, but all I get is a black screen and the Y/N question about whether it's working.

[electron]

I got it working, I had to select 'digital tuner', but it only found 1 channel (antenna is in the basement). I did install all the components, so maybe that made the difference. However, the one channel I got was stuttering like crazy, and only worked in preview, so I'm guessing my PC is way too slow (P4 3.2ghz).

Originally Posted by mc510

like electron, i bought this from woot and am having difficulty getting it and sage to work together ... probably user error; can anyone tip me to what i should try? (I should mention that this is my very first time with sage, or any TV on PC stuff.)

I'm running XP MCE2005 SP3 (on Athlon XP 1700; Geforce4 MX400 integrated graphics); I installed ONLY the ATI driver (not the Avivo codec, not the ATI media center application); then I downloaded and installed the latest sagetv demo. (I do NOT have any third party MPEG2 decoder installed.)

Sage lets me select the ATI tuner as OTA digital TV source (which is what I want), and autoscan finds several channels. But the video test fails in all four modes ... I don't even know what I'm supposed to see here, but all I get is a black screen and the Y/N question about whether it's working.

[MitchSchaft]

If your antennae is in the basement, there's your problem. Studdering is usually bad signal.

[jchiso]

Originally Posted by electron

I got it working, I had to select 'digital tuner', but it only found 1 channel (antenna is in the basement). I did install all the components, so maybe that made the difference. However, the one channel I got was stuttering like crazy, and only worked in preview, so I'm guessing my PC is way too slow (P4 3.2ghz).

I have found that the system will almost always work even at times when preview does not. That being said, you may want to install the ATI Media Center codecs if you don't have third-party stuff on your system. And a P4 3.2 GHz is plenty capable for OTA HDTV with Sage...

[mc510]

Originally Posted by jchiso

you may want to install the ATI Media Center codecs if you don't have third-party stuff on your system.

jchiso, can you explain the codec thing a bit (I'm confused by what I need). Why would someone need the ATI codec, or other 3rd party codec? I thought Sage comes with everything needed in this department (other than for watching CSS protected DVDs).

[electron]

Originally Posted by jchiso

I have found that the system will almost always work even at times when preview does not. That being said, you may want to install the ATI Media Center codecs if you don't have third-party stuff on your system. And a P4 3.2 GHz is plenty capable for OTA HDTV with Sage...

Good to know about the performance requirements. I guess I need to find a better antenna location, as I am using the ATI codecs. Is anyone using this tuner to receive HD channels via cable? The diagram on the box shows QAM as an option, but didn't work for me.

[electron]

Does anyone have this tuner working with analog channels (eventho it doesn't have an MPEG2 hardware encoder)?

[Spot]

Originally Posted by electron

Does anyone have this tuner working with analog channels (eventho it doesn't have an MPEG2 hardware encoder)?

I just ditched my ATI wonder 650 setup for Composite/S-VHSinput via cablebox because it wasn't reliable. I'd love to hear from others that it was operator error, but I had a couple of Hauppauge WinPVR USB2 units available...and they work fine.

[PiX64]

I have been using an ATI HDTV wonder 650 USB for over a year and not had a single problem with it.