New ATI Tuner Card.

[hrlslcbr]

OK spacded. Maybe people using MCE just use it to watch TV, but users looking for the best quality they can get when capturing VHS and other stuff for transferring to DVD (myself included) DO notice some problems with these cards.
ATI never said the chip was 'designed' to work ONLY with MCE, that's why the cards work (somewhat) on windows XP systems. Otherwise, ATI wouldn't have released a MMC version that works with these cards (under WinXP), or released drivers for Windows XP, right?

Thanks for the help Mike.

btw spacded, Octavean is a MCE user, and has problems with his card.

[spacded]

well octavean needs to set his system up properly .

this card was primarily designed with MCE in mind fact

Why did it not support MMC directly when it was released?
u seem to forget all the fudges and work arounds to get it to work, it was ridiculous , GO BACK and read the posts.

14 months later ur all still here griping, if it was designed for what you say it was WHY DOESNT IT WORK? and who uses VHS these days?

This card was sold on its TV quality in MCE 3d comb filters etc etc
and also recording ability which it excels at and its very cheap.

I would say its far and away the best picture quality i have seen for a tv card, on my system its literally identical to the direct STB feed.

Think how much time you lot have spent fruitlessly trying to get ATI to support a $50 TV card, 14 months!!! thats mental!!

[hrlslcbr]

well octavean needs to set his system up properly .

this card was primarily designed with MCE in mind fact

Why did it not support MMC directly when it was released?
u seem to forget all the fudges and work arounds to get it to work, it was ridiculous , GO BACK and read the posts.

14 months later ur all still here griping, if it was designed for what you say it was WHY DOESNT IT WORK? and who uses VHS these days?

This card was sold on its TV quality in MCE 3d comb filters etc etc
and also recording ability which it excels at and its very cheap.

I would say its far and away the best picture quality i have seen for a tv card, on my system its literally identical to the direct STB feed.

Think how much time you lot have spent fruitlessly trying to get ATI to support a $50 TV card, 14 months!!! thats mental!!

mmm... a lot of things you didn't understand from my post.
We were trying to get ATI to support the card under WinXP, because the card was meant to be usable under that OS.
Who uses VHS tapes these days? Well, if you read my post again, you'll know I don't use them anymore, but I USED them, and I want to transfer the important ones to DVD.
I never said this card has the best capturing quality; it was about getting the card's best quality.
By the way, do you remember that the 3D comb filter wasn't working when it was released?
The card has issues, and ATI is trying to help us; but you're just telling everyone something like 'this card if only for MCE... if you don't want to use it buy another card'

[spacded]

Sometimes you have to realise the horse is dead!!

so stop flogging it!

We were trying to get ATI to support the card under WinXP, because the card was meant to be usable under that OS

clearly it wasnt! 14 months should have made that obvious!

maybe the next card will do what you want

[Octavean]

Actually, as I have stated a number of times recently that I have NO noteworthy issues with either of my Theater 550 Pro cards (Visiontek Xtasy T550P and Sapphire T550P) in their respective MCE 2K5 systems.

The only real issue I had was the low volume issue and even that has been fixed to my satisfaction in drivers some time ago.

That’s not to say that the volume is perfect because it is still lower then the installed ATI HDTV Wonder cards (for both HD and SD components of the HDTV Wonder) in the same respective systems. So clearly, IMO, there is still work to be done in this respect but I’m not going to freak out about it because I can hear it just fine. If the T550P were the only tuner card in these systems I might not have even noticed.

If ATI can fix this to everyone’s satisfaction than that would be great. However, the links I provided in my last post and Multimedia Mike’s response on the issue don’t fill me with hope that this will actually happen.

IMO, MCE users are a breed apart from many other types of people who would be interested in owning such a card. Basically, I watch, I record and I burn to DVD+/-RW on occasion and I do all this from within MCE. This is hardly demanding,….and power users who might want to fire up all sorts of apps are less likely to be as happy with the T550P.

The HDTV Wonder will not work properly in all markets all over the world. Its basically a USA and maybe a Canada part,…maybe a few other markets, I don’t really know. Anyway, this is a limitation that should be and likely is made clear by the manufacturer.

If the T550P were a MCE only part ATI would likely make this clear and even if they didn’t they would be duly obligated to do so (not to mention legally obligated). Since ATI has not stated as much in any capacity
(as far as I know) and since the T550P works with some other apps,….do I really need to draw a picture,…?

Come to think of it, I’m not really aware of any TV tuner cards that were designed to only work with MCE. Perhaps some specialty dual tuner cards from Hauppauge or the like but generally speaking its more lucrative to make hardware that’s less restrictive/exclusive. Actually, the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 500 MCE works in MCE, Home and Pro,…

***edit***

BTW, the Theater 650 Pro supposedly sports (or will sport) a Windows Vista premium logo but one would hope that it will work just fine with other applications as well or it will not be usable until late 2006 to early 2007 (assuming Vista isn’t delayed yet again).

Also keep in mind that Vista support doesn’t necessary mean Vista MCE support since presumably only Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate will have the MCE PVR app.

I don’t know about anyone else but I’m buying a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate or Home Premium as soon as it comes out.

[jonaslasky]

The only real issue I had was the low volume issue and even that has been fixed to my satisfaction in drivers some time ago.

That’s not to say that the volume is perfect because it is still lower then the installed ATI HDTV Wonder cards (for both HD and SD components of the HDTV Wonder) in the same respective systems. So clearly, IMO, there is still work to be done in this respect but I’m not going to freak out about it because I can hear it just fine. If the T550P were the only tuner card in these systems I might not have even noticed.
.

I don't know about that.... I mean the volume is just so off compared to every other source, that you have to turn the volume up or down whenever you have to switch to or from the T 550. In my book, that's not a market-ready product. Somebody in the ATI engineering staff messed up. I've upgraded to the latest driver too, and while it's louder now, it's still not loud enough so the user doesn't have to change the system sound volume whenever they switch sources. If I designed this piece of hardware I wouldn't be satisfied with it.

But really the biggest problem is the ATI hype machine. They raised expectations so much with their introduction campaign that there was no way they were ever going to live up to it. Not only that, they weren't watching what lies their partners were spreading. The only real hardware that can deliver all of ATI's claims for the T 550 is an HDTV tuner.

I appreciate what Mike has done (more than anybody else from ATI) but I doubt he can offer any real remedy for the problems with the T550. Encoding is forever limited I'm afraid, or else they would have already fixed it a long time ago. I refuse to believe that their engineers are so dumb that they can't see the value of being able to encode at a specific bit rate.... or that they're so blind that they can't see the microblocking and the pixelated highlights. I grant you it's OK for casual TV viewing, but when you're trying to preserve the best possible quality from a video recording, the T550 definitely falls short. MCE or no MCE. BTV with WinXP is just as good as any MCE setup.

Jonas

[satnav4]

BTV with WinXP is just as good as any MCE setup.

Jonas

Actually, BTV is better. You can have more than 2 tuners, it records in "real" mpeg2 format, and it converts to Divx automatically to save space. MCE is a shadow of BTV, and some of those completely satisfied with MCE probably still listen to 8 tracks.

S.

[jonaslasky]

Actually, BTV is better. You can have more than 2 tuners, it records in "real" mpeg2 format, and it converts to Divx automatically to save space. MCE is a shadow of BTV, and some of those completely satisfied with MCE probably still listen to 8 tracks.

S.

Well.. I was being charitable, but you're right of course. BTV is superior to MCE and it's cheaper too, by a huge margin. MCE is a joke inflicted upon the gullible.

Jonas

[spacded]

Well.. I was being charitable, but you're right of course. BTV is superior to MCE and it's cheaper too, by a huge margin. MCE is a joke inflicted upon the gullible.

1.MCE works and is easy to use by people who are non technical and not interested in bitrates , you know those people we live with our families and friends. (have you got any?)

2. MCE actually works outside of the USA and Canada , where funnily enough the rest of the world live.

3. What kind of sad person needs to record more than 2 different channels at the same time , maybe you should get out more

4. £70 for an operating system that also includes the PVR application is no doubt cheaper than BYTV and XP!

[satnav4]

[B] What kind of sad person needs to record more than 2 different channels at the same time , maybe you should get out more

Some of us have jobs. Some of us have families with divergent interests. Some of us like more than just Sesame Street, Barney and TelleTubbies. BTW, do tell us what songs Barney sang today.

S.

[Multimedia Mike]

Hello everyone,
I'd again like to ask everyone to please relax a little bit and refrain from negative comments about any other users. I'd like to have a helping and supporting atmosphere here and am trying to do my best to create that. Now lets get back to the issues. So the next one that seems hot on people's minds is this bitrate issue. I have responded before that the bitrate at which you record can be overwritten by the app you're using even if you set something else in say GraphEdit. Now whoever is having issues can you please tell me the application you're using and the settings you're setting and not seeing the correct results? If I could see what you're seeing then it would be really helpful in finding issues!

[spacded]

Some of us have jobs. Some of us have families with divergent interests. Some of us like more than just Sesame Street, Barney and TelleTubbies. BTW, do tell us what songs Barney sang today.


thats a crap response from a sad man!

u cant answer the other points can you

really satnav do u actually have a life other than this forum?

[satnav4]

Some of us have jobs. Some of us have families with divergent interests. Some of us like more than just Sesame Street, Barney and TelleTubbies. BTW, do tell us what songs Barney sang today.


thats a crap response from a sad man!

u cant answer the other points can you

really satnav do u actually have a life other than this forum?

Now, now---if you can dish it, you need to take it. Please add something constuctive from this point forward.

Thanks and regards

S.

[jonaslasky]

[B]
4. £70 for an operating system that also includes the PVR application is no doubt cheaper than BYTV and XP!

Computers with MCE OS are usually sold at a premium, so I doubt anyone is saving any money on them. If you start out with a computer with Win XP then you're paying twice for your operating system to get MCE. No savings there either. No matter how you look at it MCE is a rip-off. The "benefits" you get aren't worth it.

Jonas

[Octavean]

Perhaps its best to take this argument elsewhere since it adds nothing to the thread topic and serves no purpose other then to take up space.

It is my understanding that Microsoft has started proceedings to bond OEM OSes to the OEM hardware that they were originally installed on. So if someone where to buy an XP Pro, Home, MCE 2K5 or other OS, it can no longer be installed and activated on another system when the OEM hardware is no longer useful or fast enough.

In essence, the OS license dies when the hardware dies (motherboard).

I’m sure Microsoft is working on a way for users to hemorrhage cash money whenever they tuner on a PC with a Microsoft OS,……don’t laugh,…I’m serious,….

Arguably buying any OEM Microsoft OS with a PC can be seen as a waste of money from this point on.

Media Center edition, Beyond TV + Beyond Media, GB-PVR and Media Portal, I have tried them all and more. Only the later two cannot be seen as a waste of money since they are FREE but they all work with the T550P,…..and that is really the most important issue IMO,…..they work with the T550P.

If you already have a licensed version of Windows XP then it would be true that buying MCE 2K5 wouldn’t necessarily be the best way to spend your money. However, MCE 2K5 is relatively cheap when buying just the OS with respect to XP Pro,…in fact it could be cheaper then XP Pro.

[satnav4]

Media Center edition, Beyond TV + Beyond Media, GB-PVR and Media Portal, I have tried them all and more. Only the later two cannot be seen as a waste of money since they are FREE but they all work with the T550P,…..and that is really the most important issue IMO,…..they work with the T550P.

I wouldn't call Beyond TV a waste of money. I own 2 copies, and don't regret buying either one. In addition to the user friendly program guide, I like the ability to remote record from any internet connected computer. I set up a recording in the States while in Hong Kong once when I forgot to schedule an episode of 24. When I returned home, there it was. Does MCE support remote recording, Divx, Wmv, Commercial skip, mpeg2......? This finishes my comments on why there is better PVR software than MCE (unless, of course, you are simple minded). I will try now to return to the topic---the ATI 550.