Customer Reviews

ATI Technologies 100-714127 HD-TV Wonder

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

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.

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 :-)

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.

If you read the bad reviews of this product, you'll notice that they are complaining about the quality of their reception, not the product itself...too bad. You must live in a major metropolitan area in order to get the DTV HDTV stations, yes. Some cites and areas are better than others. New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, S.F. Bay Area, San Jose, Miami...these are the areas i am talking about.
You defintely must take note of the requirements, most notably a 64mb video card supporting Directx9.0.
What this pci card does: Record, pause, etc...HDTV and normal analog TV. You can burn to DVD and CD. It has a remote. Amazing. Comparable ATSC tuners set top boxes made by SOny and Samsung cost 300 plus...and they dont record HDTV onto your PC..and burn too.
This PCI card is serious HDTV technology, using a chip that ATI has been using already in other applications. Now we have tivo hdvt functionality on the pc with no monthly fees. This is a great product and more people that live in major cities should check it out. The future of TV...the FCC is forcing this transition anyway...

I've read MANY reviews before deciding to take my chances by purchasing this product. Lots of people have bashed it or complained on how hard it is to setup. It's as easy as this...

1.) Install the card
2.) Click cancel on the "Found new hardware wizard" and insert the included CD.
3.) ONLY install the hardware drivers and then install something called "ATI Multimedia Center."
4.) On the multimedia center setep, choose "Custom" and ONLY install something called "DTV."
5.) Restart your PC and open the newly installed program, "DTV."

In case you're wondering, I'm using an HP Media Center 2005 PC with an Intel Pentium D 820. 1GB RAM and an ATI Radeon X700 card.

REVIEW UPDATE: WINDOWS UPDATE FOR WINDOWS XP NOW FINDS A DRIVER FOR THIS DIVICE WITHOUT THE NEED FOR THE ATI CD. THIS ALLOWS THE HDTV CARD TO WORK DIRECTLY WITHIN MEDIA CENTER. WINDOWS VISTA ALSO SEES THE CARD WITHOUT THE ATI DISC AND MEDIA CENTER SEES IT. ENJOY!

I am just forcing myself to learn all about the evils of digital high definition programming and all the beautiful things it can do for me.

Purchased this card and it was moderately easy to install. I highly recommend making sure that your video card drivers are at the latest revision and that you download all of the latest drivers from ATI for the setup. You should also take the recommended configuration seriously as you will experience degradation in your experience if you don't (picture quality will not be pleasing...especially for the analog cable signals).

I installed this card into my computer (Athlon 64 3000+ with 1 GB of RAM and nVidia FX5200 (128MB) card. Monitor is an older ViewSonic VE170 LCD.

I updated the drivers and software and then plugged in the supplied HD Indoor antenna...no signal. Moved my computer to the top floor of my house...no signal. Held the antenna over my head (hey there's a channel :-). Ran the antenna into my attic and picked up a few channels and I was very impressed. At that point I realized that in order to really enjoy this I was going to need to order a "real" antenna (and mount it outside). This will probably set me back at least a couple hundred dollars (but now that I have had my taste of digital it'll be worth it)

The point of the above paragraph is that you should check out antennaweb.com and checkhd.com first to check the HD programming and location of that programming in your area before you get too excited. Also take into account the obstacles (houses, trees, hills, large buildings) that are in the way of the signal from the channels that you want to receive. This will dictate wheter A) What type of antenna you should end up getting B) Whether the effort will be worth it.

Don't expect the world from this card but if you live in the middle of a flat plain and want to watch HD Television on your PC monitor this will not disappoint.

I love my HDTV All-in Wonder. I watch all my TV on it now. However, I feel the pain of those who've been frustrated with it. Please understand, the hardware is very good and ATI builds and maintains good drivers (although, their documentation is sometimes a little weak). However, if you have an old computer or aren't comfortable installing and reinstalling drivers, this product is not for you. I think you pretty much have to know what you're doing if you are going to get full enjoyment out of this. After all, it is designed to work in a PC, which is a highly imperfect environment. Not everything is ATI's fault.

I do want to add a few comments that I think will be helpful regarding reception. The documentation is unclear as to whether you can connect the HDTV All-in-Wonder to an external antenna. Yes you can, and that will GREATLY improve your digital (HDTV) reception--and I live 30 miles from the transmitters. Generally, you'll need a high-gain UHF antenna (I put mine in the attic) and maybe a signal amplifier. I got a signal upon first connecting the card to a regular TV antenna in the attic, but now that I've learned more about antennas and upgraded its components, I'm getting great reception.
(...)
I hope this helps

The ATI HDTV Wonder hardware is pretty good, but the software is a disaster. I have a relatively new Compaq Athlon 3500 based system with Windows MCE 2005 and I was unable to get the software to function in this system at all. I tried both the software on the CD and the updated drivers and software on the ATI web site, but never did I get the card to work properly with ATI software. The analog tuner never functioned despite trying the workaround noted on the ATI site. The HDTV tuner would only work the first time the software was installed and only on the first channel it found. If I ever stopped or changed the channel, the video would never work again. The audio would be fine.

Fortunately, I found the free Watch HDTV program on the web and it works just fine. It is not as whizzy as the ATI software tries to be, but it functions. This proves to me that the hardware is just fine.

As far as reception goes, I'm about 25 miles from the transmitters and the indoor antenna was okay for some stations, but had a little stuttering here and there. I switched to my old rooftop antenna and now I can receive about 20 stations (counting the subchannels) with no stuttering at all (SF Bay Area - I'm in the south bay).

A final note to MCE 2005 users: due to a limitation in Windows MCE 2005, the analog tuner is useless on this card when you are using Media Center for some obscure Microsoft reason. And now add the fact that MCE won't see any HDTV card in the system until you have an analog NTSC tuner. So if you want to try the Media Center with this card, be sure to add another NTSC analog tuner (rumor is that the NVTV card is reasonable).

All in all I have to agree with others that this card isn't really ready for prime time. But there is a glimmer of hope. It might or might not work for you. Be sure and back up your system before you start and make absolutely certain you get a system restore point so you can go back to what was working. I've enjoyed the card without the ATI software, but I shouldn't have to watch it that way.

[ Update: The latest ATI drivers (January 18, 2006) seem to make an enormous difference. The card now functions with the ATI multimedia center which it did not before and the ATI software sees the analog tuner. I upgrade my rating to at least three stars, but scold ATI for putting out such shoddy software in the first place. ]

I purchased this card and installed it on my Sony Viao 3.2-GHz machine with XP Media Center 2005. The price is almost too good to be true especially when it includes a Silver Sensor antenna and a remote control. However, the documentation and the CD ROM which came with this card will confuse you more than they will help you. The best thing is just to go to their site and download their latest drivers. ATI's Multimedia Center 9.08 software became very flaky on my machine, i.e. I would get some channels fine, but most of the channels would come good for a few seconds and the screen would turn black but the audio would remain good. I could also see the resolution number flicker from 1080i to 480i. Spending a significant amout of time, I could not get it to work. Then, I turned my focus to get Windows XP Media Center 2005 to work with it. At first, I was confused and and did not realize that XP Media Center had the digital channels lined up below the analog ones and I spent quite a bit of time looking for an icon or a menu item spefic for the digital channels. Reading a lot of on-line reviews and suggestions, I noticed that the digital channels were listed below the analog ones. When I finally went down to the digital channels and opened them, everything worked flawlessly. I have a Dell 24" flat panel monitor with a DVI connection and the graphics card is ATI Wonder x700 and the video quality is so amazing that it makes you forget all the pain you had to go through getting it to work. I unstalled all of ATI's Multimedia software including the DTV decoder as well as ATI's remote control control. Everything works fine with Windows XP Media Center remote control.

I would give all five starts to the hardware, and I less than one star for the software except, of course, all five stars for the drivers which obviously work fine since the XP Media Center 2005 works fine with these drivers.

This is a decidedly MIXED review.
First I live in West Los Angeles, CA, and signals are plentiful and strong.
Second, the install is "easy" but didn't work for me the first time and second and third. Just pop in the PCI card attach the antenna (CATV if you have it for SDTV), install the software and you're off! Well off is right, it didn't work at first.
So I then went to the ATI site and found newer drivers and software. Windows update also found the card and updated the drivers on its own. Installing the rest of these drivers resulted in version 9.02 of the MMC software not installing. It hangs during the install (as I learned "A known issue" on some PCs). After a lot of grief and uninstalling/reinstalling I wound up with a combination of newest drivers and 9.01 MMC from the original CD.
This combination sort of worked. I was finding signal and channels but they were very jittery.
I wrote to ATI (your option is call Canada toll) and was told about a day later to try moving the card. I reopened the PC (BTW Windows was totally happy with the card in its current slot) and juggled my PCI cards.
It now gets relatively stable HD images in the "Large" windowed format. I watched the Tonight Show entirely in HD in a window about 13" on my 19" LCD. If I try running full screen the image "tears" and stutters.
I currently have a Dell Dimension 4500 P4-2.8GHz w/1G RAM. NVidia 5700LE 256MB. Well above minimum spec. It's not enough. It's possible I have too much installed and something is troubling the ATI card or it doesn't like NVidia.
I'm getting a new powerhouse and it has an ATI PCIe card. It will "probably" work well in that, I'll report my results later.
As of now it's working in a window and sometimes stutters.
Not for the faint of heart. But it's cool when it works. Do you dare?
BTW it also has a S-Video/Audio capture dongle and input which I haven't tested and the remote hasn't been set up either. I'm waiting on the new PC do do all that. UPS says it arrives today.