4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
No card is PERFECT, but this is way to Awesome to get less than 5 STARS!, May 27, 2007
This review is from: ATI All-in-Wonder X1900 256 MB PCI Express Video Card (Personal Computers)
SOME CORRECTIONS OF OTHER POSTS OR CLARRIFICATIONS:
Mark Spray: "Using this in an ASUS 8n-SLI premium. TV sucks. Goes black, have to shutdown restart. The TV saves xx minutes of TV letting you go back. This will access HD constantly causing an annoying click. No way to disable the caching of video for playback. Dissapointed in the layout of the TV controls. Have had Happagues and Voodoo 3500's, loved their TV capabilities. Buy a non-wonder card then get a seperate TV card from Happague."
You are either an ANTI-ATI person or you have no business building a computer by yourself. I must assume that b/c of the ASUS mobo being a great mobo & the ATI AIW card being equally great. You clearly need different drivers, either you need "newer drivers" or you need to roll back to a previous version(s), Impossible for me to tell over the internet.
Second, There are multiple "layouts" to use the TV tuner functions. You can use Catalyst's built in media center which looks similar & is supposed to be a Windows media player replacement/alternative.
BUT you are not REQUIRED to use it or Windows Media center to operate this or any ATI All-In-Wonder Card. You can simply run the streamlined TV tuner itself with no extra overhead...it allows you to watch, record, thru-view etcetera.
AND YOU ARE WRONG! About "no way to disable the caching of video for playback" WRONG! That is just ONE feature that acts like a tivo or other pvr/dvr. Allows you to record watch rewind time shift while recording goes on; ITS A FEATURE THAT IS ABLE TO BE TURNED OFF -OR- NOT USED AT ALL, PERSONALLY I NEVER USE IT! (See the comments under your posting here about your hard-drive issues). You obviously have NO IDEA what you are DOING! I say this with some jest...because you appear to be trying to build your own system, & I don't fault you entirely as it takes a long time to read the PDF directions.... but when you build your own system you CAN'T expect there not to be issues. If you want that, then buy a pre-assembled unit from one of the Companies that will allow you to ADJUST next to nothing in order that they can lock down all things to precise specs. Just as frustrating as it appears to be for you (who are in over your head with this build at of all things (((THE GRAPHICS CARD))) THAT IS WHAT MAKES THE REST OF US WANT TO BUILD OUR OWN SYSTEMS. It gives us control to adjust ever thing we can. But to someone who doesn't understand basic building systems problems has NO business telling others that something doesn't work!
This is my 5th ATI All-In-Wonder Card. I know why you think the things you do, but you should READ & LEARN...before telling others that there is something wrong with the product and rather NOT WITH YOUR UNDERSTANDING, LACK THEREOF, and OVER ALL SKILL LEVELS!
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James M. Gambill: You Mean a DVI to D-Sub 15 Analog Converter. As CRT's Don't have DVI connections. Just clarifying what you wrote a little bit. Even simpler need a White to Blue conversion connector.
"unit comes without a DVI connector for CRT monitors."
ALSO JUST TO CLARIFY FURTHER. This does come with dual display-> 1-CRT (D-Sub; Analog) & 1 - DVI Digital (So it does come with one of each. Really only problematic if you want to display two digital at once. But most LCD monitors that have DVI also have an older Analog port.
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Luiz Alberto Taipera (Brazil)
"It do not receive PAL-M TV signal and do not have driver for this."
Seems to be a slight language barrior here. But S.A. (Brazil) I believe DOES use PAL. Therefore the problem would be that this card is set up in Hardware for NTSC. Because the Drivers (Software) ATI sends are ready to handle BOTH NTSC, or PAL so that is what leads me to believe that he is having actually a hardware problem. He can't hook it up to the card (PAL) needs the European version...if that isn't the problem and Brazil does use NTSC... then of course he would not have any problem.
This card comes with great software (ADOBE Premiere 4 & Elements 2) they have since Adobe has updated to versions 5 & 3 but so what? The software is stellar! It has so many tools options ways to import & export video in High Definition or not, there are multiple programs to import/copy the video.... This card has 48 Pixel shaders. It Beats the X1950 GT, X1950 PRO AND IT DOES TELEVISION, EDITING, ON & ON! If you have problems installing any graphics card no matter the brand, DO YOUR RESEARCH. MESSAGE BOARDS have excellent content. Think about the 50 some processors now INTEL & AMD put out how many different motherboards.... and you can't make every PCI-Express Card work in EVERY SINGLE SITUATION. That is why updates/drivers are released. To fix broad problems or target specific ones! Sometimes you get something working right out of the box & an update will only SCREW SOMETHING UP! Sometimes nothing works until you update them WHAM, off to the races. Simple rule if it isn't broke don't try and "fix it up".
This card tries to tackle multiple tasks at once and does so with excellent power, options. It is not for everyone, if you don't like to watch TV or don't have movie content or VCR tapes etc to import to digital via your computer then there are NOW Faster CARDS for less money (move on). When this first CAME out it was AMAZING...it is now aging and in 1-2 years it will no longer be able to play top of the line games. In part because it is DX-9 and eventually DX-10 games will be the mainstream. So if you are a gamer and want a GAMING CARD, LOOK ELSEWHERE (if you are a gamer you have already). This is the LAST OF ATI's A-I-W series.
When AMD bought ATI, this card was one of the first things on the chopping board; to the dismay & astonishment of it's fans (ME INCLUDED). Which is SO UNFORTUNATE! ATI should have put in the 550 TV tuner Chip into this card rather than the 220 which was OLD technology when this card came out...But in the future you will have to buy two seperate cards and work with multiple drivers trying to get things to work out.! I also own both ATI HDTV PCI cards and a host of Hauppauges & Kworlds products!
LAST POINT. Hauppauge does not hold a candle to the 550 & 650 they blow ANYTHING HAUPPAUGE HAS HANDS DOWN! It is roughly equal to the 220 in auppauges higher end cards. But they are more expensive for less quality and lacking HDTV and poorer software.
OK THE NEW LAST POINT> These cards were down to $199 about 4-5 months back. Since the word that they are going the way of the dinosaurs, Ebay has gotten expensive and so have these third tier stores that have bought up all the remaining stock and are trying to gouge out an extra $40 off of a clearanced card. STILL WORTH IT, but supply & demand will also free more of these cards up in the next 1 to 2 years as people begin to upgrade and move on selling there current A-I-W x1900. Don't get ripped off on these. $200 is still a good price point. $240 TOO MUCH!
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fast, Good graphics, Quiet, but some system crashes, January 19, 2007
This review is from: ATI All-in-Wonder X1900 256 MB PCI Express Video Card (Personal Computers)
I put this card in a new AMD dual core system. It is the card you want if you do a lot of graphics work, video conversion, etc., because the card has everything you need built right in including the TV tuner. It comes with connectors for everything that you might want to hook up to it (TV, Radio, Video camera, etc.). The one glaring exception is that the unit comes without a DVI connector for CRT monitors. Why include all the other stuff and leave out a $2.00 part that many of us will have to have?
For the most part the card works well, and graphics are fast enough for everything I do. One problem that I have had is that the card and/or software associated with the card causes occasional system hang-ups and crashes. I suspect a conflict with something else on my system, but have so far been unable to localize the problem.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Not meeting expectation, September 24, 2007
This review is from: ATI All-in-Wonder X1900 256 MB PCI Express Video Card (Personal Computers)
When I purchased my latest Dell PC I got the dual TV tuner Windows Media Center. It was a big disappointment. Poor video quality, and the software is dumbed down to where it is only for cable TV input. There is no provision for Satellite TV or connecting a video camera.
So I bought the ATI All-in-Wonder X1900 256 MB PCI Express Video Card, my 3rd ATI AIW card, hoping this one would deliver what was missing in my previous experience with the first two.
My Objective: Cleanly and easily capture video off of TV and home video in a compact, transferable format such as Mpeg. To date this card has not met this objective.
It does work, the video image quality is better than the card Dell provided, 3D gaming works well, and I don't have lockups and installation problems mentioned by other reviewers. However, I did have to buy a new 500W Power supply for the computer. I have a dual-core 2.8 Ghz Pentium system with 1gig of RAM..
The card will capture video, but I have only had success when capturing at AVI format which makes file size huge. ATI's proprietary "VCR" format has good compression, but doesn't play on other PCs. When you use MPEG format for compression, Movies have very fine lines in the picture, and the sound gets out of sync with the picture. Sometimes you don't notice this at first, so you think you have successfully captured the movie, but one hour into the movie, you see these types of problems.
There may be a way to set the capture up with good compression and MPEG portability. But I don't find the Media Center Software easy to use, and instructions are poor. I have spent way too much time trying to figure out how to do this looking for tips on bulletin boards and forums, and I am disappointed with ATI and their support.
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