New ATI Tuner Card.

[e.lectronick]

Ok, so Andrzej...

After this crucible has burned away everything but the truth as it must be accepted, I suspect I will be left with but a few questions for those at ATI:

1. Will the 550Pro based product line ever have more configurable software support on the level of that which MMC provides? If so, when, and what shall we expect it to be?

[This is the crux of our whole argument. It doesn't matter whether MMC is ever released again. We just want any program that allows configurability common to every other quality TV/PVR card. The 550 Pro should be top of the food chain, but as it stands, it is not.]

2.When capturing to AVI via a software program, Are the 550P's highly touted new filters listed below:

-"industry leading 2D 5-line comb filter"
-"Professional quality 3D comb filter"
-"Automatic Gain Control (AGC) circuitry"
-"dedicated engine to intelligently remove noise"

... still a part of the signal path? In other words, does the signal take advantage of everything the chip has to offer except hardware encode? Or does the signal bypass any of these benefits altogether? We'd particularly like a signal flow chart in regards to these features.

3. Will ATI release the necessary information to other third party software designers to create their own more configurable software interfaces for the 550Pro based cards? Ones which might allow for bitrate selection, resolution choice, filter controls, etc...

Please make every effort to answer these for us despite any Company policy against revealing info about future product releases. We feel it would be more respectful of ATI's customers to tell them exactly what this card *does* do and allow them to make an informed decision whether to buy it or not. And I mean exactly. We want hard and truthful answers to our questions. There have been too many conflicting messages from various sources who should be "in the know" for anyone here to be certain of anything at this time.

-Erik.

[hrlslcbr]

check this Powercolor

choose : Accurate video capture (21.5 MB)

Thanks, but I was talking about the sharpness control (the one in the drivers), not the 'sharpness' it delivers.

[spacded]

'figured that, I was just trying to help out specded cus he seemed to be very anxious to get one of these cards for PAL, sorry spacded, I tried'


Cheers M8 guess i will just have to kepp waiting

BTW MCE 2005 has a whole section where you can correct your TV picture
in settings , not sure if it includes sharpness or not its a while since i did it


My name was supposed to be SPACED not SPACDED but i spelt it wrong!!

[mrbear]

hi
i just bought this card sapphire theatrix and it has been disaster ever since. So here i am, poping in like this and seek help.

Here's what happened, first, i had no trouble installing this card or the software from winxp..however, the problem was that winxp no longer picked up my soundblaster aud 2 after i install it. ok fine, my patience was challeneged and there i went swapping it in and out like mad. My mobo then started to act weird..it no longer boot the system. I had no idea why this was happening.

About 3 hours later, at midnight, my system now boots (?!) and i finally manage to get windows picked up my sound card....however, i notice the sound level became very very low. (i had to open everything to max. vol.)

Not only that, i noticed that now windows was not picking up my tuner! super great. my patience is now reaching the boiling point.

Now, just before i throw something out of the window, i would like to know if this mess could be caused by my low power supply? or some irq setting things like someone mentioned before?

Thanks (bad grammer apologies)

my spec
1800+ 2x256PC2100 300W Radeon9500pro, 2 hd, 1dvdrom 1dvdwriter 2 case fans 1 soundbastard card winxpsp2

[mrbear]

please ignore my problem...somehow i get them all picked up by windows..
although the sound level produce by the soundcard is still very low but it's ok
i'm all happy now
thanks

[blakev]

check this Powercolor

choose : Accurate video capture (21.5 MB)

Jeez, I split my sides over that one. My wintv conexant chip, 3 years old, using hauppauge's mpeg software (granted at 35% of my 1.8 processor) makes better captures than EITHER of those in the demo flick. Mind you, this could be the diff between NTSC and PAL/SECAM...

Given that this add-on board either ties us to XP MCE, or to cyberturd et al or to a long wait and the hope ATi cooperate with partners, I am going to rethink my approach. Perhaps a DVD HD recorder and a canopus unit.

I had such hopes for this add-on board

I really thought the techno was ripe to just slot in a PCI card and let 'er rip. Compact and elegant. I really thought that I could get decent quality and avoid the DVD burner approach, which, as of writing, is still a very expensive way to go.

A last point: if you read all of Andrzej's posts, you'll find he has clearly spelled out what we are going to get from this add-on board. He only made one small error: in telling us the only data stream outputted was MPEG2, when the board can send out a perfectly good raw stream. But he corrected himself.

We still don't know if the filters work on a raw stream, however, or whether they only are active when doing MPEG hardware compression. My limited knowledge of electronic circuitry tells me the filters must be available on any stream: but you'll still need someone in dev to code up the drivers so the switches can be reached using software...

Other than this last bit of doubt, we have already been told all there is to know about this add-on board.

Or should I say, all there is worth knowing. Because if you are like me, this is a good concept that failed in execution. The bean counters got a hold of it, and they foresee very nice profits by cementing this add-on board to MCE, and now the decision has been made, they aren't going to do very much else to this product until it's run is over: until MS changes stuff in MCE, a good 2 year wait, I'd say.

If we want this chip, and control over this chip when MPEG encoding in hard, we're going to have to wait for ATi to get the finger out on their other products. Or pray ATi gives an SDK to it's partners, so they can improve the way their soft handles this card. In either case a nice wait of XXX months.

And if they take long enough, a solution DVD HD + canopus, only one of many examples, will be closer to the price as that future AIW. I discount from the get-go the foolish notion that the powerturd can ever be better, no matter how much support ATi throws at them. Intervideo is capable, however.

So given the above rant, I'm sure you can all guess which decision I'm now leaning toward. Time to start stacking the pennies....

As for those of you who bought and now want to sell: throw the board up on e-bay: given the recent price hike, you may end up getting more than you paid for it (after all, not everyone is reading this thread...). At least then you don't pay the shipping!

[satnav4]

This just in from Beyond TV:

"Hello,

Currently the ati theatrix chipset is not supported by beyondTV, it may work using the generic hardware encoder capture settings however since we have not tested it in our development labs we are unable to certify if the device will or will not work. Only those devices on the following list are certified to work with beyondTV:

Title: INFO: Tuner devices supported for use with Beyond TV
URL: http://snapstream.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/snapstream.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=47&p_created=1084559712"

So don't expect BTV to be your $70 saviour when you become dissatisfied with the very limited Cyberlink Power Cinema software. I understand, however, at least jonas has gotten it to work with BTV. I was unable to do so.

S.

[MrFr33z3]

I installed my Sapphire Theatrix 550 Pro last night from ZipZoomFly. Since others may *still* be attempting to figure out whether or not they want to give this card a go, here's how it went:

The install went fine, I had not a single issue with the card causing issues with my Athlon 3200+ system housing an MSI nForce mobo and an ATI X800 Pro. The card is rather small, so it caused no extra issues regarding space within my Antec mid-tower.

I looked for my PowerCinema CD and realized it wasn't even shipped in the box! I've sent ZipZoomFly an email about this and I'll share what happens at a later date for those interested. I was forced to try other means of testing the hardware to be certain it even worked as expected. So far, off to a bad start.

I downloaded the latest ATI MMC available from ATI's site. I opened the TV app and watched the channel scan go through and find all the channels fine with a blue screen and no audio. I figured something was hosed somewhere, either with the cable or the software, so I tried different cables, cable ports (I opted for extra installs in my home office), and nothing changed. I was getting no picure or audio at all.

I was then obviously interested in installing the trial versions of BeyondTV and PowerCinema to see what happens. I attempted BeyondTV first, due to the extremely poor PR that PowerCinema has been receiving with this card (et al). BeyondTV did the same thing as ATI's MMC. No picture, no sound. I removed the software, and attempted PowerCinema. Same deal...

I figured I'd go back to scratch and install "only" the PowerCinema app after removing the MMC completely, along with the "DAO" package that was "required". I uninstalled the MMC, rebooted, re-installed the drivers listed on Sapphire's site, rebooted, installed PowerCinema.

It now works (sorta).

I must say that after this, whether or not my issues were caused by MMC initially, I am truly disappointed. The card is listed *everywhere* as being supported by a non-existant version of MMC. The poor software package that was "supposed" to be included in the box... wasn't... And after getting it to work, finding that the picture quality isn't really all it is pumped up to be as well as the constant "sputtering" that occurs once every f minutes of viewing or so. Of course, like others, I've found the sound levels to be extremely low. The signal will also "lock up" and only restarting PowerCinema will get it moving again.

There is talk on this forum about how it is understandable that ATI would want to ditch support for MMC moving forward with new offerings, but I find it unacceptible that this product is still being sold as supporting it, all the while offering a substandard product to make up for it.

I would stear clear of these cards until ATI can get their new ventures squared away. Will they? Who knows. I am currently *very* pleased with my X800 Pro that I've had since it was released, so I'm hoping ATI will take this new offering as seriously as their others. The 550 is capable of so much, but like so many other products, it is being met with poor acceptance due to the complete lack of decent software support.

[ciregnol]

MrFr33z3,

Make sure you have the latest drivers for mobo and video card. I just did a re-install of XP MCE and ran into problems because my new install didn't have the latest drivers. New ones fixes them up just fine.

I'll buy your card if you don't want it. PM me.

[Michael B]

Hi

first thanks to PD and Rys for setting me up here,

The Theater 550 pro driver for Europe ( PAL ) has not been released yet, or in fact is due to be released today. it was certified last week, and has been in Final testing with ATI in Toronto. I am confident that your problems are down to not having the final driver and SW yet. I take it you are in Europe?

There is a released NTSC North America only driver released, but this will not work well for you in Europe, it had early PAL support, but nothing to make you feel warm inside,

Its early in Canada still, Iwill check the status of a dload area for the final driver and get back to you today. i am sure you will be well happy with it, it really does rock, provided you have final SW to make it go.

M

[bubbaganoush]

And what exactly is this "final SW"?

[Michael B]

The SW that comes after Beta testing!, released SW you know the type...

[MrFr33z3]

Hi

first thanks to PD and Ryhs for setting me up here,

The Theater 550 pro driver for Europe ( PAL ) has not been released yet, or in fact is due to be released today. it was certified last week, and has been in Final testing with ATI in Toronto. I am confident that your problems are down to not having the final driver and SW yet. I take it you are in Europe?

There is a released NTSC North America only driver released, but this will not work well for you in Europe, it had early PAL support, but nothing to make you feel warm inside,

Its early in Canada still, Iwill check the status of a dload area for the final driver and get back to you today. i am sure you will be well happy with it, it really does rock, provided you have final SW to make it go.

M

Thank you for the reply.

I am in the US, so I *can* grab the latest drivers and give them a go. Please let me know where to get them from and I will gladly try them. I will install the latest drivers for the X800 Pro, but they're pretty recent (last month or so). The mobo has the latest nForce platform drivers already.

Thanks in advance.

[Michael B]

Hi ,

I have just spent the last hour reading this whole thread, and have had a kind word from one of the members here. So here is the score from the horses mouth as it were.

Up untill today, any experience anyone has had with Theater outside of North America is based on beta drivers ( WDM drivers) and beta application software. ATI Multimedia has been testing for several months (as you know) to make sure the European drivers give the same quality as we have seen in North America. These Drivers will support (and have been tested with)Windows MCE 2005 and Cyberlink Power Cinema ATI edition. Later Intervideo will release application support, they (Intervideo) are not quite ready at this stage. I will keep you informed.

Theater 550 Pro will NOT be supported by MMC. We are working to make sure any last remanants of printed or other material reflects this, as we do not want to mislead (it was our intention before Xmas to offer MMC) however with a brand new Video ASIC such as Theater 550 Pro we decided it was the perfect oppertunity to shift up a gear and offer multiple 3rd party applications. Starting today with MCE 2005 and Cyberlink SW, and others being added as we move ahead. We feel we can better support a wide range of needs/users by using our resources to support these many different applications rather than a single offering such as MMC. This is something everyone in Europe has asked from us for some time.

Theater 550 Pro for PAL, as of today, is " released" by that I mean that the Quality testing of the driver, with MCE and Power cinema is complete, and at a stage that ATI says it is ready to ship. Up unitll today this has not been the case.

The ATI Theater driver you need to use today (and this is for use with Cyberlink Powercinema ATI edition or Windows MCE 2005) is version 5.0.1.1 . This is a fully certified driver and has been extensively tested all over Europe. I will post a download as soon as I can. I am in Berlin at the moment, so have the same time delays contacting Toronto as everyone else.. damn it.

here it is: For PAL and North America NTSC
http://www.ati.com/online/customerca...ter550pro.html


I am sorry that some of you have had a bad experience. I am sure we can fix it.

Mail me here or direclty if I can give you any other information, I want to make sure we start talking about how cool Theater is, not how crap it is..

Michael

[Myrdhinn]

It's bad enough Andrzej is saying one thing, Stephen Orr another, my burning question is when will drivers be actually posted on ATI's site. The drivers currently shipped on the CDs are 3 months old and buggy since PowerEnema (also buggy I think they just slapped support for the 550 pro together and we'll see no more support from Cyberlink) barely works for me, beyond tv or intervideo home theater don't work at all. When it does work, it looks much better than my winfast. Also a rant against powerenema, why does it only record to drive C:? lol My C: drive is a 500meg boot drive so I can't even use this lame software.

[myth]

Michael B


ok, I have a odd question for you... I have the ati tuner and am in the USA, I have a msi neo plat 2 mobo with nothing instaled except a video card and sound card... No mater what slot I put the tuner in the thing keeps trying to use the same memory resources.. Even though it will use a diferent IRQ... The memory range it is trying to use is used by a mobo feature (firewire) and when I disable it the memory range disapewars and tuner still wont work... So it is obvious that the 550 pro wont work with the MSI Neo Plat. 2!

So my question is, what determins the memory range the card is trying to use? Is it the drivers? Or windows XP Pro?

Many thanks,


myth

Edit: and if you actualy read this entire thread all I can sayt is OMG! You obviously must understand why we are finding this tuner to be some what disapointing... Affterall powerEnama (as they call it) Is uter junk and I cant even get MCE to except my drivers on my intel rig...