ATI's TV WONDER ELITE (TV capture card)

[syyid]

Got my Hauppauge PVR150 but its showing up as PVR PCI II (26xx) and isnt working (black screen), will send out some vid as soon as (if) i get it to work

 

[uwannawhat]

Originally posted by: backlund
Also, I ordered mine from Zipzoomfly.com for $85 with FREE 2 day shipping. Unfortunately it's out of stock now. Here's the link, if anyone wants to keep watch of it to come back in stock.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/...jsp?ProductCode=320832

She's back in stock if anyone is interested.

 

[Staples]

I would be surprised if this card was that good. I have three generations of ATI TV cards and they are all inferior to the Leadtek 2000XP.

 

[mcveigh]

sagetv forum with screenshots

well so far the PQ looks the same or slightly less than an PVR-500.

 

[Chadder007]

Originally posted by: mcveigh
sagetv forum with screenshots

well so far the PQ looks the same or slightly less than an PVR-500.

I donno....the PQ on the ATI looks more smoothed out and a tad darker, the PVR's PQ looks a bit more sharp. Noticing the SciFi logo especially you can tell that....there is a slight jaggyness to the PVR's.

edit: n/m about the darkness difference....it was my LCD...backlight is darker at the top.

 

[bodhammer]

When my tivo dies, I will build this:
http://www.mythtv.org/

with this:
http://www.pchdtv.com/ I have to buy it before June to dodge the broadcast flag thing.

 

[Chadder007]

Originally posted by: bodhammer
When my tivo dies, I will build this:
http://www.mythtv.org/

with this:
http://www.pchdtv.com/ I have to buy it before June to dodge the broadcast flag thing.

What is this....broadcast flag thing you speak of....

EDIT: N/M....found some info.
http://www.g4techtv.com/screen...he_Broadcast_Flag.html

 

[bodhammer]

What is this....broadcast flag thing you speak of....

http://www.eff.com/broadcastflag/

 

[aceO07]

Originally posted by: bodhammer

What is this....broadcast flag thing you speak of....

http://www.eff.com/broadcastflag/

ouchh.. thanks for the heads up.

 

[Johnbear007]

Ok, so what is better, this new card or the Hapaugge pvr 150? I have a 6800 nvidia card

 

[Chadder007]

Originally posted by: Johnbear007
Ok, so what is better, this new card or the Hapaugge pvr 150? I have a 6800 nvidia card

This new ATI one *Should* be better but apparently, so far it has not been impressive in the captures. Not enough to warranty a premium price over the PVR150.
Maybe ATI forgot to turn something on in the initial drivers...

 

[imported_backlund]

The thing I don't get so far, is that everyone is comparing this to a PVR-500 (a $200 dual tuner card). This isn't necessarily a fair comparison, unless you want to believe ati's BS PR statement. My Theatrix will be in at 5:30, and I have a PVR-150 already installed. That should make for a better comparison. On the other hand, it seems like the pq is on par (so far from what I've seen in the forum) with the PVR-500. If this is the case, then for $85 it isn't too badly priced. Give it a few months and hopefully we'll see a $125 dual tuner version.

Also, my pvr-150 is one that many people have complained about the "ghosting" issue. It looks fine in highly lite scenes, but as soon as you go to a dark scene, there's ghosts all over the place. Even if the pq is the same as the 150 (which is quite good when it's clear) if it eliminates the ghosting, it will be worth the money for the card. I guess I'll have my final verdict when I pick it up from Fedex after work in an hour....

 

[mcveigh]

Originally posted by: backlund
The thing I don't get so far, is that everyone is comparing this to a PVR-500 (a $200 dual tuner card). This isn't necessarily a fair comparison, unless you want to believe ati's BS PR statement. My Theatrix will be in at 5:30, and I have a PVR-150 already installed. That should make for a better comparison. On the other hand, it seems like the pq is on par (so far from what I've seen in the forum) with the PVR-500. If this is the case, then for $85 it isn't too badly priced. Give it a few months and hopefully we'll see a $125 dual tuner version.

Also, my pvr-150 is one that many people have complained about the "ghosting" issue. It looks fine in highly lite scenes, but as soon as you go to a dark scene, there's ghosts all over the place. Even if the pq is the same as the 150 (which is quite good when it's clear) if it eliminates the ghosting, it will be worth the money for the card. I guess I'll have my final verdict when I pick it up from Fedex after work in an hour....

the 500 is basically a single card with 2 pvr150 tuners. SHS on the sage forums is just using what he has available. I must say so far I am unimpressed with it's performance.

 

[satiger]

I received the card today and installed it without any issues. Since I am planning to use this card with MCE 2005, I didn't install the software it came with (but did installed the drivers).

Installation and MCE2005 setup went very smoothly. After the installation, MCE2005 downloaded the TV guide for next 14 days and then I strted watching the TV on monitor!

My only complain would be that I feel some of the scenes were little grainey. I am not sure how to remove grains. When I checked the CPU usage while watching and recording the show, it averages about 10-12%. (Dell 8400, P4 3.4G, 1G RAM, 256MB Video, 320GB SATA RAID 0 drive). Play back of the recored show too also very smooth.

Remote works well and I was using it about 3 feet from the receiver. It controls full functionality of MCE2005. I guess Microsoft remote itself costs about $40.

Overall, I liked this card. As said earlier, I don't have any other card to compare with it.

Hope this helps................

 

[zinkpig]

one more thing satiger....what is the CPU usage when its just recording ?

 

[mcveigh]

alot of the quality has to do with the decoders you use.
I'd reccomend the sonic decoder which you can buy for $15 or the nvidia NVDVD decoders (amount varies based on dolby decoding)
another alternative is the free, Dscaler 5 decoder. it's picture quality is often considered better than anything else but it can't decode dvd's with their CSS encryption....but it plays back anything you record perfectly.

 

[imported_backlund]

Is Dscaler a compatible decoder with MCE?

 

[mcveigh]

not offically, but others use it.

 

[satiger]

_____________________________________________________________
one more thing satiger....what is the CPU usage when its just recording ?
_____________________________________________________________

I haven't checked that, will check today evening and post the result.

mcveigh,
Thanks for your input. How do I find out which decorder my PC is using?. I know it came with Sonic Record Now for burning DVDs. So, is it safe to assume it could be using Sonic decorder?. One more question, doesn't MCE 2005 come with its own DVD decorder?.

Thanks.

 

[imported_backlund]

MCE does NOT come with its own decoder. You have to supply a third party one that is compatible with MCE. You can check which decoder MCE is using by running this program:

http://www.microsoft.com/downl...ADE9FCB&displaylang=en

 

[syyid]

Finally got the hauppauge pvr-150 working. I've recorded a 1 minute clip (26 megs) of Everybody Loves Raymond. If anyone has space to host it PM me . Also wasnt particularly impressed with the quality , seemed a bit blocky to me (compared to the all in wonder)

 

[cold2000us]

hey guys i was thinking of getting this. i have a LCD TV and I wanted to know if buying this would save me the extra cost of renting a HDTV box from time warner. Will the coaxial wire just go on back of the card and it will work or will I need a cable box also to get it to work?

 

[syyid]

This is not an HDTV card, takes plain analog , tunes it and uses 'hardware encoding' to save it in mpeg2. Thats about it. I dont think there are any 'viable' HDTV cards out there (that can tune channels n decrypt them as well)

Short term: You can use the firewire out on your hdtv box to capture directly
Long term: Need a CableCard capable HDTV card (which dont exist as of now)

 

[mcveigh]

Originally posted by: cold2000us
hey guys i was thinking of getting this. i have a LCD TV and I wanted to know if buying this would save me the extra cost of renting a HDTV box from time warner. Will the coaxial wire just go on back of the card and it will work or will I need a cable box also to get it to work?

no, current cards only do the unencrypted stuff and it varies a lot by cable provider.
rumor has it tthat there will be an update later this year or early next to MCE2005(6) that will support cable cards for the PC

 

[cbrsurfr]

Anyone have a blinking problem with this card? Whenever I open up personal cinema and click on TV my entire screen starts blinking randomly. Video card is a Radeon 9000 Pro with the latest ATI drivers. I ran driver cleaner and got all of the old drivers off with the same results.