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ATI Technologies All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV Graphics Card

ATI Technologies All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV Graphics Card

List Price: $399.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: NOTICE
Review: Someone mentioned maybe trying an ATI Radeon 7500. If you get the All In Wonder Version many of them DO NOT come with a cooling fan on the card!!! Believe me, with this much power you NEED a cooling fan. Always check the ATI site and click on their 'large' picture image and make sure you get a cooling fan with EVERY card, built in. I have a 7500 without AIW and it works 100% great and runs cool with the factory fan on the card.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Both the good & bad reviews are right.
Review: There are a _lot_ of issues with this card, its software, and its documentation. However, it was still worth buying, at least for me.

Tech support calls are toll calls to Canada, but most of the tech people are quite friendly and helpful. However, they do acknowledge certain bugs and limitations in the product. Other problems I found they hadn't heard of.

Among the issues I encountered: 1) The installer for the DVD software doesn't accept the code number on the disc nor a replacement code number supplied by the techs. A new CD is being sent to me (for free). 2) On my system, there is no usable video going to the monitor when booting with VGA mode enabled (XP). This may be an incompatibility with my large LCD monitor, but a prior competing card worked OK. 3) I tried the feature that allowed flipping the image 180 degrees; the software allowed the initial flip but then didn't realize so and disallowed flipping back -- I had to reinstall drivers (using upside-down display and backwards-working mouse!). 4) If you download the various drivers and software apps (5 total) from the ATI site and install them from a directory not on C:, some of the installs may fail until you move them to a directory on C:. Others install fine from anywhere. 5) To get tech support, you first have register, which involves supplying a TON of info about yourself, your usage, your buying habits, and the card's incredibly long product code (and normal-length SN). If you've already installed the card, you probably need to physically remove it to get these numbers because they are NOT on the box or anywhere else except in tiny print on the bottom-facing part of the card. 6) The installer for the remote control software in part ignores the directory you chose for installation and puts some components in the default (apparently hard-coded) location anyway. To move it so all the remote software is together, you have to edit the registry. 7) The system-testing software incorrectly says you don't have DirectX installed, even if you DO have DirectX 9 installed. This bug was acknowledged by several techs. 8) There's no feature-by-feature install choice (it's only all or none) on the CD. 9) When I booted with a VCR connected to the outputs but not having configured TV out, the monitor image rolled violently like an old TV with its vertical hold broken, making it totally unusable. ATI almost had me send the card back as a result, but I figured out the issue myself (disconnect the VCR and reboot). 10) I've had recurring issues where the sound comes out of the left channel only -- system beeps etc. are still in stereo but TV is left-channel-only. 11) Sometimes the window showing the TV picture goes blank and you must move it or resize it or change the channel to get it to display again. 12) The feature to show the TV in Internet Explorer causes IE and the TV app both to crash. The techs acknowledged that this feature is unstable.

A couple of the above issues may be unique to my setup, but some definitely are not. Also, reviews I've read say that if you hook up a TV (I haven't) as a "second" display (e.g., to watch movies played thru your PC, using the RF remote to control them), you must a) reboot and b) use the TV as the FIRST display and your monitor as the second one! That could be a major issue if you intend to use this feature (which I may in the future). And of course you'd have to reboot again to use the monitor as your main display again.

But, as I said, the card is still worthwhile at today's lower prices (down from twice as high). The remote is very nice, the capture is good, the TV watching/recording features are many and powerful, and it's a decent 2D/3D video card to boot. Even if you don't have use for the FireWire ports (I already had FireWire on my PC), the price/performance of this card is very good -- even considering the likely toll calls to tech support in Canada.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Impressive Multimedia Video Card
Review: This card really amaze me, for the first time I have created special effects home video, signs on video and so on it will take me a while to know all the features txanx to AIW card.
I must admit it is very simple to use, the manual book explains everything there slowly step buy step.
At Amazon they have the same card but with more memory too, up to 128Mb, you choose which ever you can afford. Although 128MB is better deal.
Card works great, there was only one problem one game did not wanted to play, was due to drivers issue, so I downloaded the newest drivers from ATI web site and the problem gone. Game worked fine.
The only recommendation for users is to make sure they have the newest drivers from ATI website, to get maximum power out this card.
ATI Rodeon 8500 is my new friend now.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One amazing graphics card that does it all
Review: This graphics card is one of the most advanced graphics cards around. The things that really take this graphics card far above the competition are:

1) Includes a programmable RF remote control, not an IR remote like most other brands have. This means you can control your PC from another room anywhere in the house! I use it to control the playing of my MP3 music collection. It even works with WinAmp (if you download the WinAmp plug-in from ATI) and can work for any program (make sure you get the latest drivers from ATI). You can even use the remote as a mouse! The programmable buttons can be programmed to do almost anything from launching a program to shutting the system down. And the new plug-in architecture (download the updates for this) is great. ATI even has an SDK for developing custom plug-ins available on-line! However, there are two drawbacks to the remote. One is that you cannot control anything other than the PC because its an RF remote, not an IR remote, so you can't use it to control your TV for example. The other is that there is no light feature to see the buttons at night. But this is still by far the BEST REMOTE I've seen for the PC.

2) Built in hardware DVD quality MPEG2 playback (using an on board MPEG2 decompressor). This is the equivalent to having a dedicated MPEG2 decoder card for DVD playback, but its built in. The quality is excellent.

3) The included TV and digital VCR allow you to watch TV shows, and record them in DVD quality. You can even pause live TV shows, and continue watching the program from right where you paused it, in real time! There is even a TV guide that is updated in real-time. With two clicks of the mouse you can program the digital VCR to record any program listed in the TV guide! No need for a real VCR anymore, no need to enter times, dates, or anything, just point and click the mouse and program recording will be scheduled automatically for you! This is a powerful feature that will impress most users. The quality of the digital VCR is DVD quality (unless the stuff you're recording is not good quality), and its easier to program than a real VCR! And if you don't need DVD quality you can specify many other formats and even custom ones.

4) Includes many different types of video and audio connectors. DV and analog video inputs allow you to record from either digital or analog video devices to DVD quality MPEG2 in real time using the 8500DV. So if you have a VHS video tape you'd like to preserve on DVD, its a snap. VHS tapes degrade with time, DVD lasts far longer than VHS and the quality is higher, so what are you waiting for? Put those important tapes on DVD before its too late!

5) Many video and audio formats are supported by this product, including DVD (MPEG2), VCD (MPEG1), AVI, MP3, WAV, etc.

6) Supports the use of two separate monitors. Each monitor can be configured separately.

Overall, this card is a bit pricey but its worth it. Now, I have not used this card to play games much, because I have a PS2 for that, but the card's 3D performance is pretty impressive. If you only need a card for games, this isn't the card for you, because while it can do games well, you'll be wasting your money if you don't use the built in TV, MPEG decoder, digital VCR, DV, analog video connectivity, and remote control. But then again, if you buy this card only for games, I'll bet you'll end up using the other features quite often enough that you'll really appreciate the purchase.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Breath taking Rodeon AIW 8500,
Review: This is truly amazing video card with TV tuner and radio. I was reading about rodeon 8500 it won more than 40 awards for best pc video card. Even the newest NVIDIA doesn't have same technology as Rodeon 8500. This is highly advance video card, no other card like it so far were not invented. Its pretty expensive but its well worth the money, I can watch movies live from cable I can even freezes live channels this blows me away, games work fantastic the frames are incredible, it look like this card will be in my pc for long long time.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: This Card is fair - service is really bad
Review: Used the card for about 4 weeks and had problems with audio which traced to the bad (...) connector on back..efforts to get service have failed ...
This card and its associated software should have been more extensively tested by ATI.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: good card, bad support
Review: Warning! There is no toll-free support number. Warning! If you buy this card, plan on spending ...additional [money] in long distance charges (that's what my bill came to) or maybe more, to fix any installation problems. And, problems seem inevitable with their self-contradicting installation directions.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good card, serious DVI flaws
Review: While I'm generally pleased with the performance of this card, there is a serious flaw with the clock synchornization. Using the analog output, this creates only a small problem: slight pixel wavering, which most modern LCD monitors can correct for. Using the DVI output, however, *should* produce superior stability and quality. Instead, any black area on my screen is filled with horizontal lines. This makes many games (including NWN) nigh-unplayable, and has forced me to change my display settings for normal work (white backgrounds instead of black, etc.)

ATI says it's a problem with the monitor, but these monitors and cables work fine with other cards and other monitors and cables have the same problem with my ATI card.

Update: ATI has released a driver which uses a lower, more stable frequency for DVI. The stability problems mentioned above are now gone. On the other hand, the refresh rate is capped around 50 frames/second.


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