ATI Technologies TV Wonder Pro PCI-NTSC (100-703138)

by ATI

Product Details

Product Manual [204kb PDF]

• Item Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000C0COH
• Item model number: 100-703138
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 8, 2005

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

TV WONDER PRO is the leading-edge PC stereo TV-tuner and video capture solution. Simply install the card and user-friendly software, then connect your TV cable to the TV tuner card. Then sit back and enjoy up to 125 channels of high-quality television on your desktop PC. This product also accepts S-video and composite input and audio input. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it!

Stereo TV for your PC

• Scan channels easily with a built-in 125-channel TV tuner featuring the user-friendly GUIDE Plus+ Interactive TV Guide and channel preview software that lets you see what's on at a glance.
• Watch TV in silence with closed captioning featuring HOTWORDS.
• Watch TV on your PC monitor on a full screen or in a window while you work in other applications or surfing the net using THRUVIEW.

Feature-rich Digital VCR

• Schedule and record TV programs at any time.
• Capture more video and still images in MPEG-2 format than ever before using the same amount of disk space.
• Zoom-in, pan or freeze video action.

Bolstered Business/Education Presentation Tool

Create a "TV magazine" with saved images and text from selected TV programs -- use the images to enhance your presentations, e-mails, Websites and other projects.

Automatically record program transcripts for business or school projects.

Use the HOTWORDS real-time word notification feature to let you know when words or phrases are detected -- a great tool for journalists, investors, students or sports fans.

Connectors
The TV WONDER PRO will also accept S-video and composite input and audio input.

Product Description

ATI TECHNOLOGIES (100-703138) ATI Technologies ATI-TV Wonder PRO TV / video input adapter - PCI - NTSC

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Decent product, December 22, 2003

By 

H. Kim "fluffy bunny" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: ATI Technologies TV Wonder Pro PCI-NTSC (100-703138) (Personal Computers)

It works pretty well.

On the other hand the setup was a mess (I'm using Windows XP).

a) The CD that came with the hardware didn't have the same folder/directory structure as described in the manual. Had to browse and locate the XP drivers myself.
b) TV viewing and recording worked pretty well the first time, but the captured images had a totally green tint (red objects appeared black, so somehow "R" was missing from RGB signals). At first I thought the hardware was defective. Really freaked me out.
c) ATI.com had downloads for a newer version 8.8. I forgot to uninstall the CD's 8.2 first, and 8.8 didn't recognize 8.2 and got everything mixed up. Eventually had to uninstall both 8.2 and 8.8 and reinstall 8.8 (Urgh).

Anyway, after all this, it started working pretty well. Picture quality is decent. Video encoding works well on my humble P3 machine.

The software is not great but okay with me (I just want to watch TV and occasionally record and capture stuff so what do I care). The user interface is not very pleasing to the eyes by the way.

For $65 it's a pretty good bang for the buck. I would give it 5 stars if it weren't for the trouble I had. I'm gonna burn a CD myself and keep it for downloaded 8.8 stuff instead of that sorry CD.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Went flawlessly, September 3, 2004

By 

J. Miller (NE) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: ATI Technologies TV Wonder Pro PCI-NTSC (100-703138) (Personal Computers)

I was kind of worried when I read reviews on how this didn't work with video cards other than ATI. (I have an 128MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200, which is a fairly common card.) I recieved this TV-Wonder card as a gift, so I was about ready to ask to return it without even trying it. However, I decided it wouldn't hurt to try it out since they still returned opened defective hardware.

And low-and-behold, it worked! Despite building my own computers, and feeling that directions were below me, I followed them carefully as to not ruin the experiment. I probably would have done a few directions out of order, so that was a good idea.

In the end, I suppose people still have problems with it, probably with different video cards. All I can say is, it works with the Nvidia FX5200 card I mentioned above, and to follow the directions, carefully and treat the card like a holy grail while taking it out of the box.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Product With a Couple Tweaks, March 7, 2005

By 

bookshark - See all my reviews

This review is from: ATI Technologies TV Wonder Pro PCI-NTSC (100-703138) (Personal Computers)

At first I was worried about this product due to the reviews it recieved. In my experience with the card thoguh, I have actually found it's preformance excellent. First off, people complain of the quality of the image. This is called a cable signal, you can't expect your computer to magically make it better. If you ask why it doesn't look so bad on your TV, there's a simple answer, go sit right next to your TV and tell me how it looks. In the room my computer is in, I have a comfortable seat about 8 feet from the computer screen. The image looks perfect in full screen from there.

The second problem that people stated with this card is that there is an audio sync issue. This is very easy to solve, it's all in the setup of the computer. This is not an ATi problem, but rather a windows problem. When the cord is plugged from the back of your TV card and into your sound card, it goes in the microphone jack. Here is where most people have the problem. To process the cable image takes some time from where it comes in, therefore the image is delayed. Most people experience either the sound being early, or an echo. I have seen several reviews where the stated solution for the echo is to mute the media center. This is what creates the delay. ATi media center delays the audio to match the video perfectly. Mic thru speaker needs to be disabled in your audio pannel. This way, the programs get the audio signal, but the signal doesn't go through your speaker.

A+ work on this one ATi, sorry everyone who didn't know until now, but there's the fix, it's in the instructions, it even has pictures.... there you have it.