Theater 650 Pro Discussion

[Seraphic-]

Well, the TV Wonder 650 is on sale. But good luck find it, i've called every website that lists it but none have it yet.

[dabl]

http://hothardware.com/viewarticle.a...leid=851&cid=2
'Digital Tuner not detected in Window XP MCE'

Wow, this is a show stopper for me.

Did I miss something or did 'Media Mike' not say both tuners would be recognized in Windows Media Center?

http://forums.hexus.net/showpost.php...8&postcount=38

Hi,
So regarding all this about mixing SD and HD, Theater 650 Pro will let you watch both on MCE. So you can just switch channels to whatever SD or HD ones you have. Regarding recording scenarios with other tuners, I'll have to try some things and will get back to you about it. If there are issues though, they would most likely be caused by MCE rather than the card because the app has to take care of what tuner is used for what recording. Regarding lead-in, lead-out times, it's again mostly an app thing, but don't forget you can only watch/record one thing at a time. So you can kind of ignore whether it's HD or SD and just think of it as one recording at a time.

Multimedia Mike

[archcommus]

Well if the Theater 650 PRO is out at retail, shouldn't the CMC be available for download on ATI.com by now? Or is it not going to be a free download?

[Seraphic-]

BestBuy had the "TV Wonder 650"! I paid $140 with tax and i'm going to do a full format of my HDD and test it out. Woot!!

[hrlslcbr]

Originally Posted by Seraphic-

BestBuy had the "TV Wonder 650"! I paid $140 with tax and i'm going to do a full format of my HDD and test it out. Woot!!

If you don't mind... can you post a little 'review' after you test it?

[dabl]

Originally Posted by dabl

http://hothardware.com/viewarticle.a...leid=851&cid=2
'Digital Tuner not detected in Window XP MCE'

Wow, this is a show stopper for me.

Did I miss something or did 'Media Mike' not say both tuners would be recognized in Windows Media Center?

http://forums.hexus.net/showpost.php...8&postcount=38
...

Hmm, none of this is sounding good. So after all the hype and hush it doesn't actually work as advertised in MCE *or* BeyondTV? Incredible.

http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/showthread.php?t=33519

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.c...c64a17112841ab

FOLLOWUP: The card *does* apparently work as advertised in BeyondTV, one user is reporting problems at the moment.

Now to get to the bottom of the story with support for BOTH tuners in Windows Media Center...

[Seraphic-]

The image is just amazing! Very crisp and clean!!

But, just so you know, Catalyst Media Center is a joke. No "real" video quality control settings...all you have is "good", "better", "best". Also, there is a good two second lag from my playstation 2 to what shows up on the screen. The card only seems to have have "YUY2" (it's still losses, so whatever) and there doesn't seem to be 640x480...just 720x480. This isn't good since I think playstation 1 output is 640x480.

Anyway, i'm using what I did with my last capture card, thus, I have "real" setting controls, no lag, and perfect picture.

Catalyst Media Center offers NOTHING like what you find below...

[SHSPVR]

Seraphic all hardware Encoder will have lag

[Seraphic-]

Well, the thing is, I was just viewing the video...not capturing it.

[hrlslcbr]

Even if you were just viewing the video, if the card uses the MPEG encoder output, there will be lag.
By the way. The PS2's output isn't 640x480... (it's analogue so there aren't any pixels, but more like 'lines'), so don't worry about the 720/640 difference. Your video will look fine.
I capture my Gamecube's output, which is NTSC too, @ 720x480 and the video is NOT distorted or anything (when viewed properly; on a DVD for example).

Any screenshots?

[Seraphic-]

Well, PS2 games looks fine at 720x480. However, PS1 games on PS2 don't look too good at 720x480. (didn't try PS1 games played on PS1 yet)

After I crop out the black/un-used video areas I get about 635x445. Anyway, here are a few screenshots (not deinterlaced):

[thatdude90210]

How's the tv tuner picture quality? I'm waiting to see if it's worth it to upgrade from a pair of 550pro cards.

Btw, "good" "better" "best" heh... I have a feeling that CMC is just a reworked Powercinema.

[Seraphic-]

Originally Posted by thatdude90210

How's the tv tuner picture quality? I'm waiting to see if it's worth it to upgrade from a pair of 550pro cards.

Btw, "good" "better" "best" heh... I have a feeling that CMC is just a reworked Powercinema.

I can't really test TV quality as I don't have a cable outlet near my system setup.

Hope you don't mind me asking, but why do you have two 550s? Did it boost picture quality?

As for CMC, yeah it's a real joke. You have no real control other then "good", "better" or "best".

[thatdude90210]

That's ok.

I'm using 2 cards because the software I'm using, Sagetv, turns that pc into a Tivo-like device. Basically it's for recording 2 shows at once. These hardware encoding cards don't take up much cpu power so you can have 4 or 5 (or even more) cards and record that many shows at the same time.

[SHSPVR]

Originally Posted by Seraphic-

Well, PS2 games looks fine at 720x480. However, PS1 games on PS2 don't look too good at 720x480. (didn't try PS1 games played on PS1 yet)

After I crop out the black/un-used video areas I get about 635x445. Anyway, here are a few screenshots (not deinterlaced):

There nothing you can do about it becuase of the way PS1 games setup the Video Digitizer

[forgz]

@Seraphic-

You got this card at bestbuy? In-store or online?