Theater 550Pro - Almost Total Lack of Support by ATI

[Slithy1]

B]THIS is AIMED at the ATI EMPLOYEE who is a Member/Lurks Here:
[/b]
I bought this card six months ago despite serious qualms about ATI drivers and support. My qualms were based on previous experience with ATI Video cards with very bad drivers and almost useless support. Despite this I purchased the Theater 550Pro card for my first HTPC. This was based on the early reviews about video quality, and the on board audio processing.

I should note that all but one of my computers use video/graphics cards from nVIdia. Frankly, the contrast between nVidia Release notes, driver documentation, and other support is so stark that I am unlikely to purchase another ATI Card.

ATI have done several driver updates with Absolutly no Support Documents or Release Notes
**This is totally unacceptable - Am I supposed to just download these updates based on my faith in ATI - NOT BLOODY LIKELY!
** I have audio and synchronization problems with this card despite ATI's claims about superior audio performance and I am living with it rather than update to an unknown drive release that could cause even worse problems.
** I have not found a way to completely uninstall the drivers for this card prior to an upgrade (Driver Cleaner does not work - the old Drivers come back on re-boot even after a complete DC cycle)
** I have to again manually uninstall the driver and hope the new one does not conflict with any registry entries, and hope it will work better (BLIND FAITH!)
**I am not about to download yet another update from ATI based on wishful thinking and hope.

FINAL RAVE

I have searched this site and found it pretty useless. Nobody seems willing to really call ATI out and get them OFF THEIR BUTTS for their almost total lack of support for this product. The postings on the Theater 550Pro are mostly whining and complaining with not one actual demand that ATI do something (I mean anything at all) to support this chip and their card vendor partners.

At this point the Hexus site is really the only place that I have found that could possibly provide support for this card. ATI's web page is almost useless except for blind, undocumented driver update downloads. It does not even reference the Hexus forum as a possible solution for problems (for any card).

I just wish that more people here had the cojones to bluntly tell ATI (and their resident member/lurker) how bad their support for the 550Pro card really is. Is it possible not enough people have bought the card to make it actually matter.

: I am looking into a tuner card for my secondary PC, and frankly, based on my support experience to date with ATI, I will l will likely look to Hauppage or another solution.

I would recommend that others do the same, if there is no immediate improvement in ATI support for the Theater 550Pro. I believe that up to date Driver Support documentation is critical to implementation and ongoing successful operation of an HTPC.

Regards

Garth


PS: I bought the card through NewEgg. If I do not see an acceptable response here, I will post an abbreviated version on Newegg with 1 egg.

[Slithy1]

Originally Posted by spacded

Your an Idiot

550 pro works SUPERBLY in my MCE set up for about 18 months now, If the 650 Pro is much better I will be amazed
as Its as good as the direct Tv feed.

you must be a bit of a KNOB!

I am really happy that the card worked out for you, in your particular environment. This is not necessarily true for people with other set-ups. Look at the Beyond TV and GB-PVR forums if you want to educate yourself.

Your title and last personal comment are cheap and unwarented. Your response does not adress my problem in any manner. I built my HTPC system with an nVidea GeForce board, AMD processor, and nVidea video card, with Windows XP Pro. I am currently using GB-PVR.

I am perfectly willing to troubleshoot and fix my computer systems. All I need is at least adequate documentation, and release notes so I know what I am looking at, and for. Please actually read my posting. Usefull technical support from ATI would be a bonus but I am not counting on it unless AMD makes wholesale changes in ATI marketing and support MANAGEMENT. I find AMD support excellent.

ATI's card vendor partners point to the ATI support site for any real support. It is difficult to find anything of real substance for this card on the ATI site. At best for the 550, the site provides quick access to totally undocumented driver updates. The manual is a PDF Marketing BS File -- no usefull information for trouble-shooting, or for that matter. much else. The FAQ's, If I were to be cynical, would appear to have no substantive user input.

Regards:

[gesaugen]

Originally Posted by Slithy1

At this point the Hexus site is really the only place that I have found that could possibly provide support for this card. ATI's web page is almost useless except for blind, undocumented driver update downloads. It does not even reference the Hexus forum as a possible solution for problems (for any card).

U are so wrong...
This Hexus forum is like Holly sanctuary of ATI lovers... no one here doesn't know anything besides to call u names because u don't LOVE ATI as much as they do...
I completely support your point of view, and also have similar problems with my T550PRO. Theres no solution: we are on mercy of ATI (which is BTW. still POS even if great AMD bought them (I feel so sorry for AMD))

My advice is to buy TerraTec's tuners. TerraTec is great company with superb support and super quality hardware. Also Leadtek does the job very very fine... And Haupauge is in my opinion too pricy for what they offer. Something like ATI but in TV tuner world...

And sell this POS of T550PRO. I'm selling mine for some time for 60$ (no one wants it, guess why? ) and my next buy is TerraTec Cinergy HT PCI: a REAL hybrid tuner (not like this POS which is "digital-analog" tuner. Digital my a*s! Only digital on it is colored picture noise which I constantly have on every channel)

[Slithy1]

Originally Posted by Bill T

Sometimes you need to have faith

ATI Lurker

Not So Bill T!

This is not a religion, it is a computer add in chip that ATI has released as a supposedly superior hardware/software solution. If you want users to accept update releases on faith, you actually have to do something to earn it.

This means some usable level of documentation for both novice and sophisticated users. This would help people to understand at some level if an encountered problem is known, or caused by some configuration issue. In my opinion ATI provide no such support for this card.

I did not mean my posts to be a personal comment on you. You actually seem to be trying, in some cases, to get answers. That is more than I can say for the ATI web site. I would suspect that the lack of information from the Theater 550 engineering and marketing groups extends to support groups within ATI.

This gives me a very bad feeling about the discipline and design quality that went into the card. In my experience poorly documented released designs are typically time bombs. They were either badly managed and, or there are things the team don't yet want known out there.

In my opinion no competent Product Manager would sign off on release of a major product as poorly documented as this. The only documentation I have found looks like it was done by an ad agency.

I also think the previous poster has a point about this forum. I am a member of several forums, and find this one to be the least useful (to this point, it has been useless). It seems to be an insular and defensive group with marginal interest in helping all users (only the selected few).

Cynically Yours

Slithy 1

[Bill T]

Hi Slithy 1,

I agree that it would help to have our driver updates properly documented, and I have had a few other people mention this too. But there is not much I can do about it, and I don't think this will change unless there is a major reason for it.
Our engineers make good use out of their time trying to fix as many problem as they can in each driver release. Writing detailed reports on each problem that they fixed would take out of their time, and less fixing would get done.

Now if you have a specific problem, you can let me know the details so I, and many other nice people in this forum, can try to help you solve your problem. ATI bashing doesn't solve problems

FYI, if you are having any problem with any hardware. The first thing I will tell you, and many other people in this forum will tell you, is to make sure you have the latest software. Whether it is well documented or not.

[Octavean]

Originally Posted by Bill T

Sometimes you need to have faith

ATI Lurker

This response doesn’t seem very professional, appropriate or respectful to the original poster given the subject matter and tone of the thread.

[Bill T]

I personally removed that comment. But I also believe that this thread isn't very useful. There is no problems being solved here. So there's not much else I can do. Sorry guys.

[Octavean]

I agree that the subject matter of this thread is dubious and questionable. It certainly isn’t a cool-headed unbiased assessment by any means,…

However, even a drunken bum on the street might be called “Sir” by a police officer telling him to move on.

In other words, maintaining ones bearing goes a long way and reflect positively on you and the company you represent,….no one should have to tell you this,…

[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.