ATI Technologies Inc. All In Wonder 128 PCI 16MB

by ATI

Product Details

Product Manual [872kb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 0.8 x 4.8 inches ; 5.3 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00001MXYT
• Item model number: 100-708001
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #380,418 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 4, 1999

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Whether watching TV or DVDs on your PC, creating video content for the Web, or playing games on a big-screen TV, ATI's award-winning All-In-Wonder 128 PCI 16 MB multifunction graphics card with TV tuner, video capture, and DVD playback maximizes your Windows experience with one, integrated solution. The wealth of features include high-performance 3-D and 2-D graphics acceleration, true-color (32-bit) gaming, full-frame DVD video playback, still-image and MPEG-2 motion video capture, video editing, and intelligent TV tuning with closed captioning, instant replay, dialogue monitoring, and zoom.

Powered by Rage 128 graphics acceleration technology, the All-In-Wonder 128 renders stunning action, smooth animation, and lifelike graphics for 3-D gaming applications. High-resolution 1,920 x 1,200 graphics and flicker-free refresh rates of up to 200 Hz ensure superior 3-D gaming performance. You'll also experience greater efficiency with demanding 2-D applications like PowerPoint, Word, and Excel.

The sophisticated digital VCR with real-time video compression and editing capabilities lets you record TV shows and movies on your PC; capture still and moving images from VCRs, camcorders, and laserdiscs; and create your own professional-looking home videos with the included video-editing software.

Watch DVDs on your PC or attached TV set. Scale your DVD movie viewing on the PC to virtually any window size to watch a movie in one window and work in another. You can also connect a PC with an All-In-Wonder 128 card to your TV and watch shows right on your desktop PC and take advantage of intelligent TV tuning. Watch TV silently with closed captioning, program viewing of your favorite shows, scan stations to see what's on, replay something you missed, or use the zoom feature to check out action up close. You can even have the tuner monitor closed-caption dialogue and notify you when shows are on that include specified words.

ATI offers a 5-year limited parts-and-labor warranty on the All-In-Wonder 128 PCI 16 MB (PC only) card.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The sum of the parts is almost greater than the whole, January 20, 2000

By 

tropic_of_criticism - See all my reviews

This review is from: ATI Technologies Inc. All In Wonder 128 PCI 16MB (Personal Computers)

Not so long ago, the All in Wonder was a kind of devil's advocate choice. You bought 'em cause they were a Microsoft Partner, fully integrated with Windows 98. Or you bought 'em cause you didn't have that many PCI slots left, and you needed to get a lot of different functions out of a single slot. Or maybe you bought them cause they were the only name you knew when shopping for a TV card.

But you paid for these compromises. The original versions of this card (pre-Rage 128 chip) had nothing very exciting under the game-playing hood. The DVD control was minimal. And the video capture was barely servicable.

But now the card has been newly fitted with a Rage 128 engine and beefed up video-handling abilities--not to mention the more respectable 16mb memory. Finally, ATI has produced a card which approaches the concept promise of the All-In-Wonder.

With this card, or its even cooler 32mb sister, you'll get a fully competitive 3D engine. For all but the game warrior with a huge monitor set at very high levels of resolution, this is all that you'll need to play the vast majority of 3D-accelerator-necessary games currently on the market. And if you are a 3D junkie, you can piggyback some 3D-only accelerators onto this card, enhancing your performance further. ATI's excellent website gives great after-sale support by providing updated drivers to keep your D3D- and Glide-enabled games running at peak performance. True, this won't accelerate 3Dfx-only games, but such creatures are few and far between. I used to own a 3Dfx card, and so bought games to be enhanced by it--but now all those games are still running in fine 3D detail on this non-3dfx card.

The DVD hardware support, while not the more total solution that say Creative's DX3 dedicated card might provide, gives a substantial, immediately noticable improvement over using software-only DVD players. If you're still using the Zoran software that came bundled with your computer, you're missing out on a much more fully-functional experience that hardware support can offer. One of the best things about this card is it's ability to scale the DVD playback to virtually any window size. Most software-only players don't have that flexibility, so there's no way to get work done while watching a DVD. Fortunately, the additional hardware support of this card not only allows that scalability, it takes some of the pressure off the CPU and lets you do some work while you watch. Granted, a dedicated card would be even better, but as you don't have to give up an extra slot to gain measurable performance increases, the All-In-Wonder DVD features are an attractive part of the card.

Perhaps some of the best features of the card, though, are related to video playback and capture. I've owned three different TV cards (my others were by STB and AverMedia), and this one by far provides the sharpest video. It also has the most feature-rich settings. Video capture is impressive, though still somewhat amateurish. It's more than adequate for most web uses, but in no way compares to what, say, a Macintosh could do. Its capabilities are best described as perfect for the individual who wants to publish video content to the Web, but has no ambition to broadcast or to archive for historical purposes. In other words, it's probably not the option for producing video of a wedding to be cherished for years to come, but it's excellent for publishing video of the reception on your family's website for all those who couldn't make it to the wedding.

What's most exciting about the video editing features are that ATI's website gives excellent anecdotal support. They have a whole section devoted to the most creative uses of the card, along with step-by-step instructions on how to replicate the recommendations.

The one aspect of the card that doesn't really work well is the one thing for which it's arguably most famous. If you use Windows 98, you'll probably have noticed the WebTV for Windows component, and how ATI had a lock on total support from Microsoft. Not so many months ago, it used to be this was the only card which you could use with WebTV for Windows right out of the box. But after using it, it's hardly a selling point. WebTV for Windows is a pretty useless feature, no more useful (at the moment) than simply surfing to TVGuide.

Still, this is a truly versatile tool, which gives excellent value for money. No longer a kind of toy for those desperately looking for a "silver bullet" solution to multimedia, the All-In-Wonder 128 is a genuine solution for each of its functionalities. Its 32MB sister is almost certainly worth the extra money, but even in its current form, it's a purchase that all but the most demanding power users will be happy with.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good Ati card, March 5, 2000

By 

Adam Keckley (Franklin, Tennessee) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ATI Technologies Inc. All In Wonder 128 PCI 16MB (Personal Computers)

4 months ago, when I got the money to buy a new graphics card, I noticed that my PC had no AGP slot. I had originally searched for an agp graphics card that had an s-video out so I could hook my PC up to my TV. After a while I found the Ati All-in-Wonder 128 PCI. I was certainly pleased with the Rage 128 chip. The DVD looked alot better and never started to stop every time in order to load the next hour of the movie. The S-Video out worked well but was slow paced because you had turn off your PC, plug-in the S-Video cable, and turn your PC back on. Installation was easy. The last little problem was that the card would over heat and slow down, but I quickly fixed that by allowing more air to flow over the card. Over all, the card has great 2D, exellent 3D, and easy setup.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Video and TV via your computer!, January 27, 2000

By 

Roney O. Smith (Mableton (Atlanta), Georgia USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: ATI Technologies Inc. All In Wonder 128 PCI 16MB (Personal Computers)

This product by ATI is a great one. We bought it in order to be able to place video on the internet.

What I did not know was that the card allows you to look at TV while using your computer. You can connect either rabbit-ears or a cable from your cable or satellite provider into the system and view everything crystal clear.

One note of caution however is that you should not try to install this product if you are not hardware literate.

I had a person who builds computers and they had a hard time in getting the images and sounds from the camcorder into the computer at the same time.

It took some time to get everything to work, but it was indeed worth the effort.