ATI Technologies 100-714127 HD-TV All-in-Wonder

Rating:
Summary: Amazing options/value
Review: If you read the bad reviews of this product, you'll notice that they are complaining about the quality of their reception, not the product itself...too bad. You must live in a major metropolitan area in order to get the DTV HDTV stations, yes. Some cites and areas are better than others. New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, S.F. Bay Area, San Jose, Miami...these are the areas i am talking about.
You defintely must take note of the requirements, most notably a 64mb video card supporting Directx9.0.
What this pci card does: Record, pause, etc...HDTV and normal analog TV. You can burn to DVD and CD. It has a remote. Amazing. Comparable ATSC tuners set top boxes made by SOny and Samsung cost 300 plus...and they dont record HDTV onto your PC..and burn too.
This PCI card is serious HDTV technology, using a chip that ATI has been using already in other applications. Now we have tivo hdvt functionality on the pc with no monthly fees. This is a great product and more people that live in major cities should check it out. The future of TV...the FCC is forcing this transition anyway...

Rating:
Summary: It takes some work, but it is very cool and cheap
Review: I bought this and hooked it up to my PC. In order to make it work I had to update my graphics card to the latest drivers (I have a NVIDIA GEForce 4 MX 440 with 64 meg of RAM so it is kind of slow compared to what is out there now) and update to the latest Microsoft Direct X drivers (you need to be 9.0 or above).

The manual is strange because even though it is in english and seemingly well written it really doesn't tell you much of what you need to know. I put the card in an unused PCI slot and my windows XP machine found the card and then I updated the drivers. But you also need to install other software or it won't work and that is poorly explained, but finally I managed to find it.

After I got it all installed and found I tried digital HDTV (why I bought it) and it didn't even start up. OK, then I tried analog TV and got that to work so I knew it wasn't the card or anything like that. I stumbled through ATI's poorly designed site and sent their customer service group an email (it was saturday night so I didn't really expect a response right away) and FINALLY I found what I was looking for - updated DTV (digital TV) drivers. I downloaded them, and, voila - it works!

I am in chicago so the channels available aren't so great and they vary by station but I was immediately able to watch the baseball playoffs in hdtv and they looked good!

The antenna that it comes with is not powered and from my looking around at tech sites basically you need a powered antenna. I know that the chicago transmission is all from the hancock or sears towers and I can't really face the antenna the right way due to where the computer is located but the stations come in OK, most of the time. I think you need to buy a powered antenna to make it really work.

It comes with a channel guide that is free but that is geared more towards analog than digital TV. It apparently has TIVO like functionality but I haven't figured that out yet.

ATI puts a docking station on the side of your toolbar which isn't too bad.

The remote is very cool! There is a USB antenna you plug in and then the remote allows you to change channels. You can also use this remote for power point presentations and stuff like that. I like it a lot.

This thing is clearly for early adopters and you have to be willing to fiddle around but for 200 bucks you get:

- analog TV card
- digital TV card
- remote control
- non powered antenna
- TV guide software (free)
- ability to do some tivo like stuff and screen captures, and play it back thru the library

Personally I am trying to setup a cheap HDTV system with a PC, 20 inch flat screen and this card. I want to be able to watch some sports in HDTV but I don't want to spend thousands on a current generation HDTV. This allows you to do this.

Don't kid yourself - this is a first generation product, just like the first generation wireles router I bought, etc... And ATI's customer service and web site have not impressed me - they didn't tell me to get the updated drivers, they said it was an XP problem (wrong!). But anyone who gets a first generation product and expects tech support to fix it is just dreaming, unless you happen to reach the one guy or whatever who knows your product, the rest of the tech staff have a boilerplate response.

I mean - what do you expect for 200 bucks? The TV tuner for analog and remote and antenna cost something, right? And then you get HDTV? This is going to come down some in price but as soon as something breaks the 200 dollar price point I am going to be an early adopter just for grins, and that is what this is.

But I don't recommend this unless 1) you are pretty technical 2) you don't mind fixing it all yourself and figuring it out, including drivers, and you can do this w/ a junky manual and non-intuitive web site 3) you have some time on your hands.

To me that is what I expect from a first generation product that is being priced at a mainstream cost (i.e. less than 200 bucks).

Also - if there aren't many stations broadcasting HDTV in your area than you are basically buying a regular TV tuner which is OK but there is probably a cheaper one out there.

Rating:
Summary: Card's not half bad but support is awful
Review: I happen to live in an area with strong HDTV over-the-air signals and HDTV WONDER works quite well BUT Channel 2, for whatever reason, fails to display video even though the signal strength indicator is very strong. So I called ATI support which offers no toll free number and is located in Canada, they gave me the usual BS and a reference number BUT NO HELP. Said they'd get back to me. They didn't. Wrote them an email, got a canned response that showed no one actually read my problem discription.
IN SHORT THE CARD AIN'T AWFUL BUT THE SUPPORT IS.

Rating:
Summary: HDTV WONDER NIGHTMARE
Review: I spent days and nights trying to install this card on my computer even when my computer over pass all the hardware and software requirements. The image quality was not that good after all and the image also keeps flitting and freezing. I rather keeps watching my regular home TV and save the money and the frustration.

Rating:
Summary: HDTV Blunder
Review: Let's sum up the problems....
- Sound volume too low on Decode and Downmix
- Pass through to Audio Device does not work for more than 10 seconds.
- PBS affiliate video displays only upper left hand corner unless I switch from a 720p station.
- Cannot read features pull down menu in scheduler
- Can't get dual mode display to work (although this could be because my 9000 pro is not DX 9 compliant, but Power DVD player doesn't care).
- Lost video from Fox affiliate on 9/11/04. It worked on 9/10.
- Crashes frequently.
- No response from ATI "Customer Care".

I need something I can tell my wife and kid how to use. This is not it. I think this product is a failure that is going to cost them big time. Should have gotten that clue that the HDTV Blunder was in trouble when they announced it in February and it took until August to get it on the shelf.

Rating:
Summary: Misnamed Product
Review: Note that this product is the "HDTV Wonder", not an "All-In-Wonder" as noted in the title. An "All-In-Wonder" also acts as a video card for your computer. This product does not; you'll have to buy a separate video card for high-end applications such as video games that require 3D acceleration.

Rating:
Summary: Not ready for prime time
Review: Pros-
When the video is not stalling and audio popping, the image looks great.

Cons-
Drivers on CD did not work.
Consumes 90 to 95% of the CPU.
Their tech support web site is little help.

Details-
After installing the card and software, their HDTV app would not run. It reported a problem with a video driver. They did give any more details about which driver or what the problem was. They did give you the option to run their diagnostic program. This app let me know about my system, like speed of CPU, memory installed, sound card and various other useless facts. This was zero help diagnosing a driver issue. After visiting the ATI web site and downloading >50MB of new drivers, the DTV tuner started working. Then the next problem arose, high CPU utilization. Even with a 2.8GHz P4 with 1GB of memory, ATI's Multimedia Studio was averaging 95% of the CPU. Another visit to ATI's website yielded their 9 tips to get their app from hogging the system. (At least they are aware of the problem.) I competed all the tasks, like installing SP2, upgrading my BIOS, turning off virus scanning,...but nothing helped. I'm not looking forward to going through the hassle of returning this unit. So overall, it you want to experience HDTV skip this but if you like to tinker with your computer for hours then by all means buy it.


Overall Rating:
Major disappointment

Rating:
Summary: Installation nightmare - have your XP emergency disks ready.
Review: Reading other reviews it seems that some were able to get this card working without a hitch, while others have had considerable problems. I fall into the latter group. Searching the web I found that "Tom's Hardware Guide" also documented problems when they were trying to get it to run - and these guys are real experts. I have reinstalled XP SP2 clean (3 time so far), and then reinstalled the software from the original CD and it complains about Directx and the Capture driver not being installed properly. Other reviewers have noted the same problem. During one round, I downloaded drivers from the ATI site, and the DTV Decoder installer trashed my CDrom drivers, requiring XP to be reinstalled (since I didn't fancy spending days trying to track down that problem).
Bottom line. The hardware might be fine, but the software installer really sucks. You might be lucky and get it to work straight off the bat, but if not, you will be sorry that you purchased the card.
The software installer for this product is pre-beta.

Rating:
Summary: Good luck finding the signals
Review: So far I've been much less than pleased with the HDTV Wonder. Before purchasing this I made sure to check what stations I would be able to pick up in my areas. I lived in Atlanta, GA and CheckHD said that CBS, NBC, TBS, FOX, WB, ABC, REL, TBN, PAX, UPN, Univision, and 2 PBS stations would be receivable via DTV. No problem. So I installed my card and setup my antenna (I made sure to meet the DirectX, processor and video board requirements), and all I can receive consistantly is PAX?! TBS is JUST BARELY coming in, and the signal is never peaking 20%. Ridiculous. I recently relocated to Savannah where I'm supposed to be able to pick up NBC, CBS and FOX over the HD signal, and now I can pick up none. What's the point of buying this product if you won't be able to use it?

Rating:
Summary: Good but not perfect by a long shot, Bleeding Edge!
Review: This is a decidedly MIXED review.
First I live in West Los Angeles, CA, and signals are plentiful and strong.
Second, the install is "easy" but didn't work for me the first time and second and third. Just pop in the PCI card attach the antenna (CATV if you have it for SDTV), install the software and you're off! Well off is right, it didn't work at first.
So I then went to the ATI site and found newer drivers and software. Windows update also found the card and updated the drivers on its own. Installing the rest of these drivers resulted in version 9.02 of the MMC software not installing. It hangs during the install (as I learned "A known issue" on some PCs). After a lot of grief and uninstalling/reinstalling I wound up with a combination of newest drivers and 9.01 MMC from the original CD.
This combination sort of worked. I was finding signal and channels but they were very jittery.
I wrote to ATI (your option is call Canada toll) and was told about a day later to try moving the card. I reopened the PC (BTW Windows was totally happy with the card in its current slot) and juggled my PCI cards.
It now gets relatively stable HD images in the "Large" windowed format. I watched the Tonight Show entirely in HD in a window about 13" on my 19" LCD. If I try running full screen the image "tears" and stutters.
I currently have a Dell Dimension 4500 P4-2.8GHz w/1G RAM. NVidia 5700LE 256MB. Well above minimum spec. It's not enough. It's possible I have too much installed and something is troubling the ATI card or it doesn't like NVidia.
I'm getting a new powerhouse and it has an ATI PCIe card. It will "probably" work well in that, I'll report my results later.
As of now it's working in a window and sometimes stutters.
Not for the faint of heart. But it's cool when it works. Do you dare?
BTW it also has a S-Video/Audio capture dongle and input which I haven't tested and the remote hasn't been set up either. I'm waiting on the new PC do do all that. UPS says it arrives today.