Theater 650 Pro Discussion

[Super XP]

I'm looking for one in Canada, and cannot find them just yet. I like the PCI-express version because of the dual tuners & its faster.

[Lazarus]

Well, North America is the one place you should be able to get one.

I got an email back from ATI saying they're not releasing the 650
in Europe, though something in this area is planned (nothing
more precise than that).

[Octavean]

I couldn’t find any TV Wonder 650 Combo PCIe tuners yet either. Last weekend I went to Bestbuy and they didn’t have any of the Visiontek TV Wonder 650 Combo or 600 PCIe / PCI or USB solutions on the shelf. I had to ask one of the floor staff to check the stock room and he came back with a TV Wonder 650 Combo USB and a TV Wonder 600 USB. I bought the TV Wonder 650 Combo USB but there was a signal loss issue on the analog tuner under specific circumstances.

Basically, under Vista Media Center, the TV Wonder 650 Combo USB analog tuner would suffer signal loss when a recording was ended on the TV Wonder 650 Combo USB digital tuner during quad recordings (with a Vbox Cat’s Eye 164e PCIe dual configurable analog / digital tuner). The only way to recover the signal on the TV Wonder 650 Combo USB was with a reboot.

This was repeatable and thus would happened every time under these conditions.

I eventually returned it for a full refund.

BTW, the USB connection on the TV Wonder 650 Combo USB is a very tight fit so you may have to use more force then you are comfortable with to get it in and out. Also the RF connectors and connecting cables to said RF connectors get very, very, very HOT!!! Even if the tuners aren’t being used it gets hot, as long as it is powered up it gets hot. Furthermore the black remote with ATI logo pictured on the box may actually be a typical run of the mill “Remote Wonder Plus” in the box.

The Catalyst Media Center software version is 1.0.3202 which is an update from the 1.0.1829 version that shipped with the original TV Wonder 650 PCI. The install CD has a CMC install folder for XP and a different install folder for Vista. These folders are of a different file count and size. The “info” file states a version number of 4.7.1325 (for both XP / Vista versions) which may suggest that it is based on Powercinema Version 4.7.1325,….not version 5.xxx as was expected.

[j6nguyen]

I bought the Sapphire Theatre 650 TV Tuner. I cannot get the card detected in Vista Media Center, but I can watch tv on GBPVR just fine. Anyone know why this is the reason?

[jonaslasky]

I bought the Sapphire Theatre 650 TV Tuner. I cannot get the card detected in Vista Media Center, but I can watch tv on GBPVR just fine. Anyone know why this is the reason?

Run! ... don't walk and return that card if you still can. Then buy a NON-ATI HDTV tuner. Your life will be MUCH MUCH better believe me. Most HD tuners come with an analog tuner built-in so if you need that, you can still have it. But trust me you wouldn't want to mess with crappy ATI tuners. Look how long this thread is. ATI is nothing but trouble. The only good news is, it looks like they've finally given up their half-assed attempt at producing TV tuners.

A decent HD tuner (With analog built in) can be had for well under a hundred dollars. But if you're an ATI fan boy, please by all means torture yourself by sticking with ATI.

Jonas

[j6nguyen]

Yeah, if I could return my card, I would. I'm past that point. But for the future, I know not to buy this card for anyone else.

[denyart]

Jonas has a very negative opinion, and I for one think it may be a little over-done. Granted ATI can have problems, but there are people who use their tuners without too much trouble. I have a TV Wonder 650 hybrid tuner running in Vista. It works just fine for analog, but the digital part is a little bad at tuning in stations in comparison to my other cards (a VBox and a couple of AverMedia PCIe cards). If you can't get the 650 to work in Vista media center there may be a hardware problem or something else. You would need to post more info to get some help here.

[j6nguyen]

It works fine in GBPVR. So it seems like the hardware is working fine. I've used ATI tuners in the past and have been happy with them. This is the first one I've used in Vista.

The main problem is, the Vista MCE is telling me that there is no tv tuner hardware installed, when clearly its working. I've installed the latest drivers from the ATI website for them. I only use analog cable anyways, so the other issues won't bother me.

Do you know which drivers you used to install your tv card?

[denyart]

Actually, I let Vista find the driver and install it. I didn't put one in manually. 6.14.10.226 is the driver version I have showing. The date was 1/4/2007. This driver was just what Vista picked for me. I have never updated it or added the newer ATI drivers since my past experience with ATI (or other hardware too) is to leave well enough alone. It works, no real problems as long as you use only one 650 card at a time. When I was using 2 650s in the same system, one of them wouldn't work after resuming from S3 standby. I now have my 650s split up so there is only one in each media center PC and all is well again. In any case, the fact that you have GBPVR running/installed may have something to do with it. I don't know since I have never used this software, but it may be something to look into.

[j6nguyen]

I uninstalled the GBPVR software and I rolled back the driver to the one that you were using, but MCE still doesn't detect the tuner. Really weird...

[denyart]

If you look at the registry, I am guessing it isn't enabled. The quick thing to do is remove the card. Restart. Reinsert the card. Ledt it load drivers from Windows Update. Then go and make sure the cable input is connected to the TV input on the tuner. Run the TV setup in Vista. Hopefully it would now work. There really isn't much more I can think of at this point. I know it won't show up in media center if it can't detect a signal on the tuner input, but otherwise it should just work. The fact that you had it working already would lead one to think the hardware was working. Anyway, I would try the first suggestion if it were me. Good luck.

[jonaslasky]

If you look at the registry, I am guessing it isn't enabled. The quick thing to do is remove the card. Restart. Reinsert the card. Ledt it load drivers from Windows Update. Then go and make sure the cable input is connected to the TV input on the tuner. Run the TV setup in Vista. Hopefully it would now work. There really isn't much more I can think of at this point. I know it won't show up in media center if it can't detect a signal on the tuner input, but otherwise it should just work. The fact that you had it working already would lead one to think the hardware was working. Anyway, I would try the first suggestion if it were me. Good luck.

.... or you could return that piece of crap and get a NON-ATI tuner card that will work the very first try. Why does anyone have to go into their registry just so they can watch TV? That's a huge pile of doo doo. No one other than idiotic ATI fan boys and employees should have to go through that.

As I said, the only good news is that ATI has stopped TRYING to make tuner chips and cards.... and from the look of things AMD will soon go down the drain too. It's too bad because I like AMD processors.

Jonas

[Super XP]

AMD buying out ATI is the best thing to ever happen to ATI. Now you will see powerful TV-Tuner cards coming out.

[vankemp]

I am new to tv tuners, and have done "some" reading on the 650 pro, however im a little confused on what its true capeabilites are...

For example:

I have read many prior posts about updated software/drivers--If I were to purchase a new one today, would there still be software/driver issues?

Also--I currently have direct tv with many different hd channels--Is any of this content available for viewing and recording using the 650--or is it only limited to over the air antenna.

Im currently running vista, have 4 hd tv's in the house and also have the hd-dvr through direct tv. Im trying to find out what is and is not possible given my components. (In simple beginners terms)

Thanks in advance for anyone that explains--

VK

[Octavean]

The ATI Product Matrix lists the TV Wonder 650 Combo USB, TV Wonder 650 Combo PCIe and the TV Wonder 650 (Hybrid) PCI as being QAM capable but stipulates the latest Version of CMC and Vista as being necessary:

Unencrypted Clear-QAM Digital Cable TV (with Catalyst Media Center build 1.0.3202 and higher in Windows Vista®)

ATI TV Wonder™ Series Comparison Chart

Mind you, there has been, as far as I know, no distinction made between the originally released TV Wonder 650 PCI (Hybrid) and any currently shipping TV Wonder 650 PCI (Hybrid) card. Also note that the original TV Wonder 650 PCI (Hybride) made no mention of QAM support whatsoever,….

So as far as I am concerned this constitutes a paradox or an outright mistake in the ATI Product Matrix claim of QAM support for the TV Wonder 650 PCI (Hybrid). That is to say that I’ll error on the side of caution and thus question the claimed prowess and feature set of the TV Wonder 650 PCI (Hybrid) with respect to QAM.

For what its worth I have found QAM support to be invaluable!!! I have basically been using dual AverMedia AverTV Combo PCIe (M780) cards and an HDHomeRun in two different systems for this. One is a MCE 2K5 system and the other is a Vista Home Premium system (Vista Media Center). I receive approximately ~140 in the clear QAM channels that closely mirror my standard cable lineup. I also receive some addition HD channels I didn’t expect such as the “National Geographic Channel HD”, “TBS HD” “SNY HD” and more besides the local affiliates in HD,….. All via digital cable Clear QAM with channel mapping in MCE / VMC.

Its really great and much more reliable then OTA ATSC!!!

Unfortunately the HDHomeRun is limited to only mapping up to 68 channels so on the HDHomeRun system I had to cull some digital channels. The AverTV Combo PCIe (M780) doesn't have such a limitation so it can tune the full ~140 channels and map them.

[denyart]

...

For what its worth I have found QAM support to be invaluable!!! I have basically been using dual AverMedia AverTV Combo PCIe (M780) cards and an HDHomeRun in two different systems for this. One is a MCE 2K5 system and the other is a Vista Home Premium system (Vista Media Center). I receive approximately ~140 in the clear QAM channels that closely mirror my standard cable lineup. I also receive some addition HD channels I didn’t expect such as the “National Geographic Channel HD”, “TBS HD” “SNY HD” and more besides the local affiliates in HD,….. All via digital cable Clear QAM with channel mapping in MCE / VMC.

Its really great and much more reliable then OTA ATSC!!!

Unfortunately the HDHomeRun is limited to only mapping up to 68 channels so on the HDHomeRun system I had to cull some digital channels. The AverTV Combo PCIe (M780) doesn't have such a limitation so it can tune the full ~140 channels and map them.

Hey, I have a couple of the M780's and was wondering what you did to get QAM with them in Vista. Is it in Vista Media Center using some trick such as the HDHomerun does with a "remap" file and some software running to enable Vista Media Center to think it is tuning ATSC channels? Thanks.