ATI Technologies 100-714127 HD-TV Wonder

by ATI

Product Details

Product Manual [456kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0002K6VWE
• Item model number: 100-714127
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 7, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The HDTV Wonder is a PCI card for analog TV, free-to-air digital TV (DTV: SDTV and EDTV), and full-quality, free-to-air HDTV reception. It offers personal video recorder capabilities, with the controls to watch, pause, and record all forms of TV to your system's hard disk, or to CDs and DVDs. In addition to analog cable support, the HDTV Wonder with its supplied HDTV antenna allows consumers to experience free-to-air HDTV broadcasts without having to subscribe to potentially expensive cable or satellite service charges.

HDTV is the technology of the future. It offers much higher resolution and clarity than analog TV and over twice the resolution of DVDs. The FCC has mandated that it replace analog TV. Broadcasters in the USA are well on their way to achieving this objective:

• Over 50 percent of TV shows and growing are currently broadcast in HDTV
• Over 80 percent of USA households get 5 or more DTV channels

Until now, a special TV costing in excess of $1,000 was required to receive HDTV (high-definition television) signals. Thanks to the HDTV Wonder, the PC is ready to become the home's first HDTV device. Now you can enjoy crystal-clear HDTV broadcasts on your current PC monitor at a very affordable price.

• HDTV Wonder will function as both a HDTV tuner and an analog tuner
• High-definition television does more than just increase image quality; all DTV shows are broadcast in digital stereo sound and most primetime content today comes in as Dolby Digital surround sound

Now you can receive DTV programming in more places across North America than ever before, and at no cost. There are currently 1,129 DTV stations on air in 202 markets in the USA, serving 99.35 percent of households.

Personal video recorder capabilities:

• Watch, pause, and record live analog TV, DTV, and HDTV
• Record TV programs to watch later, add TV clips to your presentations, and more
• Burn HDTV to DVDs and CDs

Treat yourself to the fantastic image quality of HDTV on your PC today with the economical HDTV Wonder and expand your digital universe.

What's in the Box
HDTV Wonder PCI card, a quick-install guide, a user's manual, an ATI Installation CD featuring ATI's Multimedia Center software, a DTV antenna, a Remote Wonder remote control, remote batteries, an RF coaxial video cable, and an ATI input connector.

Product Description

With the HDTV WONDER you’ll enjoy crystal clear HDTV on your current PC monitor with digital audio for a fraction of the price of a HDTV television. HDTV offers over twice the resolution and clarity of DVD’s! Experience free-to-air HDTV broadcasts which reach 99% of USA households with the included antenna and save on cable and satellite charges! Plus, you can view both analog and digital TV shows or burn them to CD or DVD and create an entertainment library. The HDTV WONDER is the perfect PC multimedia companion to your Microsoft DirectX 9.0 supported video card

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It takes some work, but it is very cool and cheap, October 17, 2004

By 

Carl from Chicago (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ATI Technologies 100-714127 HD-TV Wonder (Personal Computers)

I bought this and hooked it up to my PC. In order to make it work I had to update my graphics card to the latest drivers (I have a NVIDIA GEForce 4 MX 440 with 64 meg of RAM so it is kind of slow compared to what is out there now) and update to the latest Microsoft Direct X drivers (you need to be 9.0 or above).

The manual is strange because even though it is in english and seemingly well written it really doesn't tell you much of what you need to know. I put the card in an unused PCI slot and my windows XP machine found the card and then I updated the drivers. But you also need to install other software or it won't work and that is poorly explained, but finally I managed to find it.

After I got it all installed and found I tried digital HDTV (why I bought it) and it didn't even start up. OK, then I tried analog TV and got that to work so I knew it wasn't the card or anything like that. I stumbled through ATI's poorly designed site and sent their customer service group an email (it was saturday night so I didn't really expect a response right away) and FINALLY I found what I was looking for - updated DTV (digital TV) drivers. I downloaded them, and, voila - it works!

I am in chicago so the channels available aren't so great and they vary by station but I was immediately able to watch the baseball playoffs in hdtv and they looked good!

The antenna that it comes with is not powered and from my looking around at tech sites basically you need a powered antenna. I know that the chicago transmission is all from the hancock or sears towers and I can't really face the antenna the right way due to where the computer is located but the stations come in OK, most of the time. I think you need to buy a powered antenna to make it really work.

It comes with a channel guide that is free but that is geared more towards analog than digital TV. It apparently has TIVO like functionality but I haven't figured that out yet.

ATI puts a docking station on the side of your toolbar which isn't too bad.

The remote is very cool! There is a USB antenna you plug in and then the remote allows you to change channels. You can also use this remote for power point presentations and stuff like that. I like it a lot.

This thing is clearly for early adopters and you have to be willing to fiddle around but for 200 bucks you get:

- analog TV card
- digital TV card
- remote control
- non powered antenna
- TV guide software (free)
- ability to do some tivo like stuff and screen captures, and play it back thru the library

Personally I am trying to setup a cheap HDTV system with a PC, 20 inch flat screen and this card. I want to be able to watch some sports in HDTV but I don't want to spend thousands on a current generation HDTV. This allows you to do this.

Don't kid yourself - this is a first generation product, just like the first generation wireles router I bought, etc... And ATI's customer service and web site have not impressed me - they didn't tell me to get the updated drivers, they said it was an XP problem (wrong!). But anyone who gets a first generation product and expects tech support to fix it is just dreaming, unless you happen to reach the one guy or whatever who knows your product, the rest of the tech staff have a boilerplate response.

I mean - what do you expect for 200 bucks? The TV tuner for analog and remote and antenna cost something, right? And then you get HDTV? This is going to come down some in price but as soon as something breaks the 200 dollar price point I am going to be an early adopter just for grins, and that is what this is.

But I don't recommend this unless 1) you are pretty technical 2) you don't mind fixing it all yourself and figuring it out, including drivers, and you can do this w/ a junky manual and non-intuitive web site 3) you have some time on your hands.

To me that is what I expect from a first generation product that is being priced at a mainstream cost (i.e. less than 200 bucks).

Also - if there aren't many stations broadcasting HDTV in your area than you are basically buying a regular TV tuner which is OK but there is probably a cheaper one out there.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars HDTV Blunder, September 27, 2006

By 

rbhatta "rbhatta" (Sunnyvale, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: ATI Technologies 100-714127 HD-TV Wonder (Personal Computers)

Here is what you get in the BOX.


* HDTV Wonder PCI card (contains both NTSC and ATSC tuners)

* ATI's Multimedia Center (MMC) 9.x software suite, which includes apps for standard-definition TV, HDTV, a media library/transcoder that can create DVDs and ATI's DVD player

* Mini-breakout box that has composite and S-Video inputs, as well as analog stereo inputs

* Indoor HDTV Antenna (Similar to Silver Sensor)

* ATI Remote Wonder Kit

* CD containing Software

* Manuals & Documentation

The card itself features a "Philips" HDTV tuner but ATI's NXT2004 receiver chip does most of the Job in processing the signals.

Even though NXT2004 Multimode VSB/QAM demodulator can work in either the ATSC compliant 8 VSB mode for terrestrial broadcasting, or 64 QAM or 256 QAM modes for Digital TV-Cable Connect and Digital TV-Cable Interactive reception. In this HDTV Wonder product, the NXT2004 is set up only as a 2-69 channels off-the-air HDTV receiver, with *no support* for Cable Card.


PROs:

* Very Good hardware
* Nice Bundle of accessories
* Very Good Picture Quality (**)
* Relatively cheaper

CONs:

* Very Buggy Software Suite.
* Difficult to install and setup without proper Knowledge of various Software components that interact and dependent on each other.
* Relatively high end system requirements (**)


(**)(System Requirements)

In order for a satisfactory performance, You must have these following Hardware & Software.

1. Atleast 2.8GHz Pentium 4 CPU
2. Atleast ATI Radeon 9600 graphics card or better with 128MB (On-board) of DDR-2 SDRAM
3. Atleast 1GB of DDR SDRAM Main Memory
4. Fast HDD (IDE with UDMA is okay but "SATA" Recommended)
5. Optimized Latest Drivers and Patches.
6. You *MUST* have an another Analog "Hardware Encoder" Based Tuner in your PC pre-installed in order for it to work under Media Center 2005 (Or have Software Hacks such as KRAM Drivers)


Installation notes:

I have spent countless hours in getting this thing to work properly on my PC, Please save yourself a lot of headache and follow these notes, it will help you in getting best out of this HDTV Blunder.

1. Location, Location, Location - Install the Antenna in a good location, If you live in Fringe reception areas, or places where MultiPath (Digital Term for Ghosting) is an issue, Save yourself time and money, The Included Antenna will *not* give any satisfactory performance, Outdoor UHF/VHF Antenna is recommended.

2. Optimize your system, Make sure that all the necessary CHIPSET drivers for your PC are up-to-date, You have the latest and optimal Video Driver that is capable of OVERLAY and is Direct X 9 compatible.

3. If you have Windows Media Center 2005, Make sure you have the latest Update Rollup 2 which enables additional HDTV features.

4. Do not use the Drivers and Applications that comes with the product, Most of CD is outdated, Visit ATI's Website and download the latest necessary Drivers first. The latest drivers are better than what is on the CD.

5. Save yourself time & frustration, *DO NOT* use the ATI's Multimedia Suite, It is very Buggy. Instead use other Third Party Application like WATCH-HDTV, BEYOND TV4 etc;
If your PC has Media Center 2005 use the built-in MCE application (It is not as good as the Third Party Software in terms of Picture Quality but works better than ATI's own Software Suites!)


Other Notes:


* DO NOT expect to get those unscrambled Digital Cable signals using this card, IT will not work.

* DO NOT expect to capture Analog Video that is protected using Macrovision Protection, IT will not work.


ATI has this product in market for about 2 years now, I must say, ATI makes pretty good hardware as always, but their software is very buggy.

Now with the drop in HDTV Wonder price at Amazon, It is a good time to buy this product if you are willing to have few days of technological adventure :-)

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good product, poor service from ati, hope from Internet - 1080i problem fixed!, August 10, 2005

By 

David Z. Smith "Breaker of Things" (Wichita, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: ATI Technologies 100-714127 HD-TV Wonder (Personal Computers)

I've owned this card for going on 2 weeks and have been extremely frustrated with the poor service I've been getting from ATI, but thanks to kind strangers and google, I can now share a fix to one of the problems that has been bugging me for a while. 480i/p and 720p worked fine out of the box, but 1080i was garbage. Thanks to smileyw, I changed a registry key and now 1080i works great. Here's the secret: hkey_local_machine\software\ati technologies\multimedia\cyberlink\powerdtv
change UIUseHVA from 1 to 0

Credit where credit is due = [...]
The picture quality is beautiful, 5.1 audio is great, and with football season coming on strong, I'm happier now.