Theater 650 Pro Discussion

[Octavean]

The main Catalyst Media Center application on the ATI install CD was located in the following path:

D:\Install\CMC\CMC\PCinema

Where “D” represents the CD/DVD drive and “PCinema” is a clear representation of Cyberlink “PowerCinema”.

The partner Cyberlink add-on / Plug-in “MakeDVD 2.0” was located similarly:

D:\Install\CMC\CMC\MDVD

MakeDVD is typically a stand-alone program that once installed will show up in the MCE home screen menu and Cyberlink PowerCinema home screen menu. This particular version of MakeDVD has an install program that specifically rejects a stand-alone install or possibly even rejects installs with non-modified retail / OEM versions of PowerCinema.

I have an OEM Sapphire versions of PowerCinema 3 and an OEM PowerColor Version of PowerCinema 4. Comparing the Catalyst Media Center install disc with these other OEM install discs makes the origins of CMC very clear,…….

If it wasn’t already clear Catalyst Media Center is a modified version of PowerCinema 4 + MakeDVD 2.0 +

Catalyst Media Center is ATI software in the same sense that the ATI Decoder is ATI software Wherein the ATI Decoder on ATI install discs is actually licensed from Cyberlink.

***edit***

If ATI contributed anything to “Catalyst Media Center” it was likely something superficial such as the skin and maybe some AVIVO specific plug-in. For example, the Dell “Media Experience” is also PowerCinema but Dell did contribute the custom skin.

[sTrAnGeFrUiT!]

I personally would never buy anything with ATI written in it

just had to get that of my chest!!

[SHSPVR]

Octavean newegg dosen't have any ATI 650

[Octavean]

They did,….

They must have yanked it.

Newegg has a tendency to pull the link to a product that they no longer have in stock. When I bought my ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe I had to buy it from a competitor due to similar circumstances.

I know of at least one person that ordered their TV Wonder 650 from newegg and has since received it. My guess is the TV Wonder 650 will be back at newegg soon but it may not be going for the same $119.99 + $5.64 S&H price.

[Tepabajo]

Originally Posted by sTrAnGeFrUiT!

I personally would never buy anything with ATI written in it

just had to get that of my chest!!

Well, thanks for your unsolicited opinion. Not sure how this contributes to this thread but then again I guess you couldn't tell me either.

Originally Posted by SHSPVR

Octavean newegg dosen't have any ATI 650

Yeah I saw it there on Newegg as well and was about to order one, they must have run it for just a few days.

[Octavean]

Here is a link to a rather interesting TV Wonder 650 review:

Digital TV Goes Mainstream: TV Wonder 650 Review

They made mention of Cyberlink when referring to Catalyst Media Center:

Originally Posted by By_Thomas Soderstrom

The same functionality previously found in MultiMedia Center's Eazylook interface gets the Cyberlink treatment, and this full-screen menu is launched at each use without so much as a quick launch bar to take you directly to your task.

They did have some interesting comments and findings about the TV Wonder 650 and Catalyst Media Center so it is worth the read:

Originally Posted by By_Thomas Soderstrom

Though listed in a few menus, MulTView did not work with any of our previously reviewed ATI products, nor were we able to record one channel while viewing another using two tuners. This may be possible using two Theater 650 cards, but testing when paired with a "compatible" Theater 550 card puts great doubt to this. While the second tuner card is functional, the inability to use both at the same time make this option irrelevant.

BTW, the test system used in the review had an AIW X1900 and they provided contrasting screen shots from the TV Wonder 650 and the AIW X1900,….big difference too,…

One thing that really seems puzzling now though, where are all the third-party Theater 650 based cards or are they all still recovering from the recall?

If these third-party cards ever do make it to market one has to wonder if they will have the sloppy rework on the back too.

[esuyengh]

Originally Posted by fdisker

Bill,

Any idea when we'll see some Vista drivers available for the 650? I have a fresh copy of RC2 installed but the 650 is not recognized.

TIA.

Hey fdisker, I am running RC2 also and have my 650 running great showing all the OTA HDTV channels in my area (although I have not tested analog channels as my fiancee stole my other feed from my splitter to run her tuner).

The way I installed was a bit roundabout but has worked everytime (I have reinstalled RC2 twice for various reasons). I run the install CD that comes with the 650. If it installs, great...if not (and yes one of the two times for whatever reason the install did not work properly), the install process will at least copy all the needed .inf and .dlls to your system. Your job is to go through device manager and then manually update via right click the driver for your tuner, manually pointing the system to search for drivers wherever the install process expanded the .inf and dll's.

Once you do this, you should have the *.137 (or is it 136) version of the tuner drivers in and working. In fact, you should be able to view HDTV in Vista MCE at this point, but you aren't quite done if you want full functionality. I downloaded and ran the *.149 drivers off ATi's website (grab them off the XP drivers page). Again, it did not fully install, konking out near the end. But again, I had all the expanded .inf's and .dll's. So I manually pointed the device manager to the directory (hope you take note of the expansion directory during install, or you will have to run a search before manually pointing the device manager). BAM, you have *.149 drivers running in RC2 if nothing else random gets in your way.

To note, I had both feeds in with the *.137 drivers and could only get MCE to recognize either the HDTV or the analog tuners, not both as MCE could in RC1. I haven't tested this in *.149, but with *.149, my HD channels are smooth and clear without any of the stuttering I complained about earlier in this thread (which I now realize was due to the *.137 drivers not liking Vista). And I get all the local channels in HD, so I am happy.

[fdisker]

Yeah, I was going to try to hack the current XP drivers into Vista but I figured it wasn't worth my time. My last MCE 2K5 rebuild is working so well (ATI 650 + Vbox 150) that I probably won't touch my system until the current NFL and NCAA football season is over. I'm recording up to 10 games each weekend (most of them in high definition) and I just need my system to work. I'm sure by that time there will be native Vista drivers for the 650.

[Octavean]

Well here is another review of the TV Wonder 650 over at motherboards.org dated 10-04-2006:

ATI TV Wonder 650 TV Tuner Review :: TV Wonder 650

This review probably has one of the most detailed pictures of the rework on the back of the card:

http://www.motherboards.org/imagevie.../1660_p2_8.jpg

Their review specimen was an engineering sample and they mistakenly concluded that production boards wouldn’t have the rework.

[jonaslasky]

Originally Posted by Octavean

One thing that really seems puzzling now though, where are all the third-party Theater 650 based cards or are they all still recovering from the recall?

If these third-party cards ever do make it to market one has to wonder if they will have the sloppy rework on the back too.

one can only hope that they've given up on ATI's tv chips My god, enough people have suffered enough trying to make ATI's experiments work. How hard can it be to make two tuner cards work at the same time? Everyone else has done it for less money.

Jonas

[Decipher]

Hmm, after reading a bunch of reviews I got kinda excited about the product, but I've been unable to find ANY third party manufacturer marketing it anywhere - and this means also no PAL options.

Does anyone know of a third party mfg that will be marketing a board based on the 650 any time soon ? (preferably that also isn't NTSC, but I can settle.. )

[kheim]

Is anyone using CMC to record and play back HD OTA. I'm using the defaults. My recordings seem very good. Play back of these mpeg files use 100% of my CPU. My machine is a AMD 3800+ with 1gb of ram. I'm using one hard drive for Windows Pro and another for the mpegs. Also no other software installed. Video card is a ATI X1300 pro.

[jonaslasky]

Originally Posted by kheim

Is anyone using CMC to record and play back HD OTA. I'm using the defaults. My recordings seem very good. Play back of these mpeg files use 100% of my CPU. My machine is a AMD 3800+ with 1gb of ram. I'm using one hard drive for Windows Pro and another for the mpegs. Also no other software installed. Video card is a ATI X1300 pro.

Your processor is more than up to the task. Even a lowly Sempron will do the trick. However your decoder could be the problem. What MPEG decoder are you using? It has to be capable of working with your hardware (video card) to do transport stream decoding. Without it your CPU is hopelessly bogged down, no matter how fast it is. You should also look at your X1300.... seems like it would be up to the task but check it out just to make sure.

Jonas

[Octavean]

Kheim,…

Catalyst Media Center unsurprisingly uses the typical and ubiquitous Cyberlink decoder v6.0.1.xxxx. So if you’re using Catalyst Media Center for playback that’s likely the decoder you are using by default. You may be able to change the decoder in the setup, not really sure though.

You can also fire up WMP10 or WMP11 and right click on the file while playing. Select properties (or something like that) to get some decoder info.

[kheim]

Thanks Jonaslaki and Octavean
I don't know how to tell what decoder I am using. I assume this means a codec for playback. (I'm sorry this video stuff is new to me.) I am not sure if I can get CMC/Cyberlink to use a different codec for playback. I don't know what to look for when hunting down a codec. I need to learn how to do all of this. I called ATI, but this turned out to be a waste of time. No one could tell me if they have product to hardware decode their mpeg file or what to download for a software decoder. I thought by using 100% of ATI hardware and software products, this would be easy or at least I could get support. (TV 650 & X1300). I was wrong. I tried BeyondTV but it had strange artifacts when using the 650 card. I would get a copy of Windows MCE if I knew it would solve my HD playback problems. Watching analog is fine as is recording analog. I used a couple of mpeg information reporting tools but both reported that I have all the codecs that I need.

What I did notice, is that there is something very strange about the HD mpeg file that the 650 hardware encodes through CMC. Maybe someone out there has noticed this too or can tell me my observation is wrong. This HD mpeg file won't play in MMP10 or BeyoundTV with out artifacts. Sometimes of the mpeg files won't play in MMP10 at all. I don't recall ever having problems playing any normal mpeg with MMP10 in the past. Maybe I'm a fool but shouldn't CMC playback anything that it records when all the hardware and software are new and of the same brand? Great forum btw.

[dabl]

Originally Posted by Decipher

...Does anyone know of a third party mfg that will be marketing a board based on the 650 any time soon ? (preferably that also isn't NTSC, but I can settle.. )

There were some manufacturers mentioned earlier in the thread, I was focusing on Powercolor myself, hoping for a PCI-e version sometime before next year......