[Slithy1]

I initially considered following the advice of Octavean, and opening a new thread with proper details of the audio problems that I have encountered, as well as summarizing the experience of others from the GB-PVR forum.

When I next accessed the thread I found more ill behaved nonsense and insults, both to me and to another person who responded. The other person was insulted for grammar and spelling, most likely because English is not his native language (although his response was also offensive). His post was not that difficult to understand,however, and the subsequent response appears meant to demean him because of his english.

Based on my experience to date, I have decided continuing would be a waste of time. I find the general tenor of the forum strange and nasty ( I did a random walk through other threads and found more of the same nonsense - I also noted that there is a posting outiling a reasonable code of behavour that does not seem to be followed or enforced in any manner). I have therefore nulled out all communication options in my CP except for the administrator. (Only because I cannot find a way to remove my profile through the CP pages)

Since Bill T is apparently an ATI employee, I originally thought this forum might be a way to get an ear in ATI to hear a user perception of the lack of real support by ATI for the 550 chip/cards/Partners.

TO Bill T: I think your view of what the engineers priorities should be is mistaken, and if you were stating a company position, it explains a lot. In my opinion a fundamental part of ensuring quality in engineering would require a software engineer to state a brief description of the problem to be solved (in writing - could even be just copying the actual bug report, I presume you do those), and a brief description of the solution (in writing). If the engineers (or release managers) time is "so valuable" that these cannot be quickly collated into release notes, then possibly someone whose time is "less valuable" such as a product manager or tech writer could do this. Have a look at theFirefox bugzilla and release notes, or the nVidea outline, and full release notes if you want some examples on what needs to be done. It is not rocket science!

The above was written for my own satisfaction so that I can say to myself that at least I tried. You can use it or ignore it as you see fit.

I plan to relegate the 550 card to a secondary computer fairly soon, where it will do spot recordings (covering time conflicts) where the shortcomings will have minimal effect. I will replace it in my main HTPC with a non-ATI card. I have no illusions that ATI will consider this significant in any manner.

I originally had kept this as a private report, but the continuing nonsense in the thread convinced me to make one final post. I also plan to withdraw my recommendation on the GB-PVR forum directing people to Hexus as a possible useful resource source for Theater 550 problems. If they get here by themselves, fine, but I do not want to be the one responsible for directing them here.