Home :: Computers :: Components :: Graphics Cards  

AGP
Mac
PCI
ATI Technologies Inc. ATI-TV Wonder NTSC

ATI Technologies Inc. ATI-TV Wonder NTSC

List Price: $79.00
Your Price:
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 >>

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: ATI has the worst drive support...ever.
Review: I was looking for a replacement for my ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon (which I was using to watch TV/play consoles/etc), and figured this would be decent because it used the same capture technology (bt878xx). Wrong. From the second I put this in my machine it caused nothing but trouble and rarely worked at all. On a clean install of XP the video would init once and then on all subsequent launches would show nothing but rainbow colored verticle lines. ATI support was far from helpful (a phone call ended in 'we are aware of this problem [you are screwed]'). I returned it and ordered the Viewsonic VB50HRTV - which I would strongly recommend to anyone who is just looking to watch tv/get inputs and not record.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: It's as if they want people to return their product...
Review: I was very excited to buy this product after seeing all the great features it had. I heard that some people could not get it to work, so I was skeptical; however based on what the box said, my video card (Nvidia Riva TNT2) was compatible.

After I installed the drivers to my Windows 98 SE 900Mhz computer, Windows failed to boot. I called tech support (no toll free number, had to pay long distance fees) and they had no idea how to repair their crap-for-drivers. I was very disapointed and had to return the card. Very, very bad choice.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Sending this one back....
Review: I wish I would have seen the amazon.com reviews for this before buying it. It got some really good reviews from other computer internet sites (editors choice???).

Installation is easy enough, but after that, it was all down hill.

My experience is similar to others. The video comes in fine, but the audio doesn't seem to work, except for a single step during the set up. The software for television viewing has serious bugs, such that the solution/workaround is to reinstall the software EVERY time the system is rebooted. Combine that with a propensity to crash the system, and you have major, major inconvenience in the useability department.

I currently have a P-III 700Mhz system with a Matrox G400 Max video card. ATI should keep a list showing cards that are INCOMPATIBLE with theirs as well.

The video-editing tool is very primitive, and can only be used for cutting sections from a single video file. There seem to be a wide variety of options for different formats for recording, but the max resolution sometimes stops at 320x240, which makes it less than TV viewing, and results in very small video sizes.

Overall, this type of product is aimed in the right direction, but fails to provide adequately.

The alternative for me would be to spring for the ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 32MB, but after this experience, I am very wary of ATI's driver and software quality.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: If it works for you then you are in the minority
Review: I've probably invested more than ten hours into getting this thing to work. Windows will always open an Explorer Window on an ATI directory every time you start the OS and you have to use Regedit to put quotes around the multimedia software directory paths. Also, I had it working for several months until I purchased a digital camcorder. Installing the camcorder drivers disabled the TV tuner and no amound of uninstall-reinstall could get it to work again. ATI support has not been any help. "Googleing" the web and newsgroups has revealed that the ATI TV Wonder is a nightmare for many people.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It Works with Windows XP!!
Review: I've read numerous reviews all over the web about this card. I've had it now going on 4 years. I had it with Windows 98SE, Windows 2000, and now with Windows XP. I've ran it with numerous processors from a lowly Pentium III 450, AMD 1.3GHz and AMD Athlon 2000+. I've used ATI video cards and nVidia's MX400 based cards. It has worked flawlessly with all set ups.
I initially had problems with Win 2k but after a few tweaks and driver updates all was well.

I love the way it intergrates with your brower(I only use IE, can't vouch for Netscape) You can watch TV while you work on the web. I'm writing this review while watching Monday Night Football in a window incorportated in the browser.

If you like to record TV shows, you can record in Window Media Format .wmv which will save you tons of space on your hard drive. Or you can also save it in a Video CD format and burn to CD's and watch on your home DVD player. I've recorded from my camcorder and from my VCR but the sound quality wasn't to great from the VCR.

For the price this is one of the best values in TV Tuner cards. If you have the older version of ATI's driver and wish to upgrade make sure you uninstall all of ATI's old drivers before you install the new ones and you shouldn't have any problems. I know some of you will say that ATI's driver support is not up to par and in some cases I will agree. Just make sure you follow the instructions. This is a great card that does what it was intended for.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Great idea, bad software
Review: Running windows XP I've found the software that's supposed to run this card is so buggy, it's not even worth the hastle. After spending hours trying to get it to work properly, and I'm not a novice, I gave up and got a refund. Make sure this is really what you want before you invest.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The Best That I have Found
Review: The Good

- Good TV Viewing Software

- Easy to install

- Digital VCR works nice

The Bad

- Video Editing Software always freezes my computer

- Horrible Support from ATI

- Poor Picture Quality: The picture is abnormaly dark

This was the best TV Tuner card that I have found. I would not normally buy an ATI product because of past experience with driver support with the company. I wish some company would make a better TV tuner.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: TV alternative
Review: The one I ordered from amazon did not come with the Win Me drivers... Which I had difficulty with the sound .. no sound tried to download and implement new drivers..from ATI..still did not work... Spent 3-4 hrs... eventually returned this and orderd same card from elsewhere also was (...)cheaper. I installed it in 30 minutes, and works great, it came with latest WIN ME software and drivers..

I love it although the Picture Quality in full screen is very grainy.. smaller Window Picture Qualilty was great..

Maybe the card I ordered was faulty or Drivers could not load..

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: works great with win95, locks up my win2k
Review: The software that came with the card was great in my win95 box. when I upgraded to win2k I had to download new software. When I installed all the software, and I run it, it locks up the box and has to be rebooted. when you go to download the win2k software you will see they have 3 files to download, it will tell you not to install them in the wrong order, and it will say to reboot your box 3 times before you run the program. I want to use my tv card to watch tv, but I can't. now one thing to note, I cant use the card to watch tv. it will lock up the box, and I can't change the channel, but it does continue to play.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Junk
Review: The TV signal processing unit on the TV-Wonder produces noticeable artifacts when an object on screen is in motion. Whenever the camera moves you will notice horizontal banding produced by this junk tuner. The software and drivers that come with the card are even worse then the hardware itself. The TV player will take valueble screen real estate if you want to watch TV and do something else at the same time, because although the tv image can be resized, the ugly interface can not be. To top it all off, even though the digital VCR works, (in low resolution mode only) it can not encode in mpeg2. ATI uses their own sloppy codec for this purpose. What this means is that you can not make video cd's if you have a CD recorder. Avoid this product at all costs.


<< 1 2 3 4 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates