Theater 650 Pro Discussion

[AIW_VID_FAN]

Today I returned the third 650 and am testing my
4th TV wonder 650 card.
The rework looks the same, But the ATSC tuner works and works well and the cable looks great too.
This cards ATSC tuner does seem a bit finicky, I now have the amplifier moved close to the antenna as it is split 2 more times.
The 650 now pulls in as many channels as the HDTV Wonder.
Both ATSC and cable look very good.
4th board ive tried, 1st that works.
Hmmm.

update regarding cable picture quality: As some complained with the 550 the
650 produces a somewhat grainy soft digital picture that looked horrible with a
less than perfect cable and low cable signal strength. As we all do I have
split my feed more than once. I am using an amplifier on the Antenna feed for the ATSC
tuner which helped considerably.
I will now have to add another for the cable feed.

[ArsenalSam]

i got my directional info from antennaweb.org and i am only 10 miles from the transmitters...

shouldn't i be getting all of the local channels. not just 2 or 3?

[MarkA]

Hi,

I've managed to get both CMC and Multimedia Center 9.13 to work in Vista. For the latter, I just installed everything in Compatibility Mode for Windows XP, SP2. I can watch TV and record in both apps. The only problem is that sometimes MMC freezes Vista and turns off Aero, but I was surprised I could get it to work. I first installed the beta drivers from ATI for RC1. P.S. I turned off UAC. That removes a lot of the problems in installing apps in Vista. I had to install some devices is Windows 98 Compatibility mode.

Mark

[jonaslasky]

Originally Posted by ArsenalSam

i got my directional info from antennaweb.org and i am only 10 miles from the transmitters...

shouldn't i be getting all of the local channels. not just 2 or 3?

You certainly should get all channels. Unless they're scattered all around you so you need to re-aim your antenna for every channel. But I think in most communities, antennas from the various TV channels are grouped together on some hill somewhere so that's usually not a problem.

I'm 50 miles from the signal and I get all the relevant channels just fine... plus quite a few I don't care to watch


Jonas

[ArsenalSam]

i ordered a Dvico FusionHDTV 5 USB Gold, primarily for the laptop....on another note about the 650, the analog capture wasn't as good as my previous 550...i had the cable signal coming from the wall and split to my cable modem, comcast dvr and then to my 550 and live tv and dvr capture was almost as good as it was on the dvr...as for the 650, a much grainier picture..

i am only 10 miles away from my local transmitters.

[Octavean]

I’m about 3 miles from local transmitters in NYC but there are some NJ transmitters that are further away. Compass Orientation is similar for all but not identical. I use to have to realign the antenna going from some channels to others but a custom antenna setup has changed all that.

ArsenalSam, do let us know how the Dvico FusionHDTV 5 USB Gold works out for you,…I have heard good things about it.

AIW_VID_FAN, so you’re keeping your Theater 650 card? It’s a shame you had to go through four of them before you came across one that functioned correctly. Perhaps if defective serial numbers were published you wouldn’t have had to go through all that and you can be sure that many people would have given up way before four.

BTW,…

Where is Bill T,…..?

MIA,….?

[Bill T]

Hey everyone,

FYI, in Canada we had thanksgiving this weekend, so we had monday off, and I was away from a computer for the weekend.

Anyways, I'm glad you are all very interested in using Vista with the 650 and CMC, and other ATI products. But as it is now, nothing is supported, so there are going to be many bugs with that. Many of which will be fixed by the time Vista is released. Also, there is no plan to support ATI MMC in Vista.

The analog picture on the 650 is better then the 550. If you like the best picture quality then it is worth the upgrade. Anyone else want to comment on that too. I'm sure noone is going to listen to me on that

[Octavean]

Bill T

Good to see you are still with us. I trust you had a restful weekend,…

Would you please address the questions outlined here:

http://forums.hexus.net/showpost.php...&postcount=335

Originally Posted by Bill T

Anyways, I'm glad you are all very interested in using Vista with the 650 and CMC, and other ATI products. But as it is now, nothing is supported, so there are going to be many bugs with that. Many of which will be fixed by the time Vista is released. Also, there is no plan to support ATI MMC in Vista.

It is interesting that you should mention that MMC has no planned support in Vista. It was suspected but it is good to hear official or unofficially.

There are so many ATI products out there and so few have official or unofficial announcements with respect to whether or not these products will be supported in Vista,…or even if support is being considered,…or worked on,…

An accurate definitive answer is always welcome IMO.

Care to inform us if current AIW cards (with Theater 200 chip) and legacy TV tuner cards such as the TV Wonder Pro (PCI, VE, USB, and USB 2.0) will or will not have Vista / Vista MCE support?

[dabl]

Can anyone confirm they've got their 650 working with Vista RC2?

By 'working' I mean both tuners are recognized and operational in Media Center.

[esuyengh]

Hi,
Still a bit busy so not much time to test or comment; however, I have recently installed Vista RC2 and was able to eventually force in *.149 version of the drivers after much more trouble than in RC1. I can get MCE to recognize either the DTV tuner or the TV tuner but not both at the same time. So everytime I want to watch HDTV I have to redo my settings and vice versa for analog TV. It is a pain and disappointment, since I could get both to be recognized in RC1. Just to clarify, I am using the 64-bit version of Vista RC2.

Now I am unsure what to do because RC2 plays almost all my games while RC1 played very few. But RC2 is so far worse at the HTPC functions.

The 650 clarity however is great when compared to my Hauppauge 250. I guess the comb filter does make a difference even for analog TV.

[Octavean]

esuyengh, the RC2 build 5744 might be able to be manipulated manually via the registry to accommodate both the analog and digital components of the Theater 650 Pro.

Discussions on how to go about doing just that can be found here:

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/142985.aspx

This thread was started for the HDTV Wonder but the techniques therein are applicable to the Theater 650 Pro which seems to be exhibiting the same behavior in RC2.

[jonaslasky]

Originally Posted by esuyengh

Hi,
Still a bit busy so not much time to test or comment; however, I have recently installed Vista RC2 and was able to eventually force in *.149 version of the drivers after much more trouble than in RC1. I can get MCE to recognize either the DTV tuner or the TV tuner but not both at the same time. So everytime I want to watch HDTV I have to redo my settings and vice versa for analog TV. It is a pain and disappointment, since I could get both to be recognized in RC1. Just to clarify, I am using the 64-bit version of Vista RC2.

Now I am unsure what to do because RC2 plays almost all my games while RC1 played very few. But RC2 is so far worse at the HTPC functions.

The 650 clarity however is great when compared to my Hauppauge 250. I guess the comb filter does make a difference even for analog TV.

I'm not surprised regarding RC2. Apparently Microsoft inexplicably took away some features in that release candidate. The CNET tester didn't like it much.

http://news.com.com/Vista+still+not+...l?tag=fd_carsl

Jonas

[Octavean]

ATI TV WONDER 650 PCI Tuner Card Model: 100-715331 now listed on bestbuy.com:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1149206843868

[Seraphic-]

Originally Posted by Bill T

Hi Seraphic-,

NTSC standard is 720x480, and I'm not sure why you need to chang it to 640x480. I'm not sure if the 550 would do the same thing. If you let mw know the name of the software, I might be able to dig into this for you a little further.
And if you are having any problems with your current TV Wonder 650, call ATI Support, and they will be able to help you.
The new ATI Driver should still work with the old card version. I just tried it myself to make sure. What is the problem you are having with the new driver?

I could be wrong on this but I think the NTSC standard is both 640x480 and 720x480. I need 640x480 for two PSOne games that just do not look right when captured at 720x480.

Well, no, I am not having any problems with my current 650 Pro (version 1) as I just use it for S-Video/Audio. However, was there not a recall? So it must be defective, correct?

[Mighty_Mauz]

Does the 650 come with support for NTSC and PAL? Or are there 2 versions? Because I live in Europe and I want to order one from the US.

[Bill T]

Hey Mighty_Mauz

Sorry, but there is currently no PAL version of the TV Wonder 650. Buying one from the US would be pretty much useless to you. We are currently working on one, but there is no set dates, and nothing really announced on that yet. It will be a few months at least.