New ATI Tuner Card.

[Myrdhinn]

SHSPVR, 3.52 ... just doesn't like me I guess. It's annoying 'cause I dual boot and my c: drive is a 500meg scsi. So to record with PowerEnema means I have to wipe out everything and start from scratch. Uh nope, no way I'm gonna do that when the problem is not my fault.

[bubbaganoush]

wth is this PowerEnema people keep talking about...

[MrFr33z3]

CyberLink PowerCinema:

http://www.powercinema.com/multi/pro...Id=48&lang=enu

This is the application that currently supports this card completely and is shipping with the cards available with this chipset.

[satnav4]

What would be usefull to, is what dont you like about Power Cinema? and what are your fav parts of MMC.

Hello Michael and welcome to the forum.

Great questions--you really don't mess around. Let me respond:

Cyberlink Don't Likes:
1) No fine bitrate control, i.e. average, maximum and motion estimation;
2) No sharpness control;
3) No variable or constant bitrate choice;
4) No interlace, deinterlace, 3/2 pulldown, Bob, etc. options;
5) No slave drive save location for recorded mpegs;
6) No auto naming of recorded shows by program name;
7) No EPG;
8) No GOP control;
9) Slow channel changing;
11) Encoding lag near the end of recordings (show is over for a minute or two, but it is still running on the computer on P4, 2.8 system);
12) No multiple tuner support.

MMC likes:
1) Fine bitrate control, i.e. average, maximum and motion estimation;
2) Variable and constant bitrate choice;
3) Interlace, deinterlace, 3/2 pulldown, Bob, etc. options;
4) Slave drive save location for recorded mpegs;
5) File naming option (could be better);
6) EPG;
7) GOP control.

MMC needs:
1) Sharpness control;
2) Mute option that works for instant, scheduled and EPG recordings (I select "mute for scheduled recordings", but this has no effect on recordings set through Guide Plus EPG or on instant recordings);
3) Multiple tuner support (only if 550 is supported. I have an AIW 9800 Pro and a 550 in the same box).

I may have missed one or two, but I can add them later. Perhaps it might also help if you can tell us where Intervideo stands on these features, i.e. is it ahead of Cyberlink, and in what respects?

I am more interested in the direct issues raised by your questions.

Thanks for the input.

S.

[bubbaganoush]

I thought so but, its "PowerCinema"
But PowerEnema

[myth]

I just registered on this forum to say that this card works fine on my neo 2 platinum. I had no problems installing the card or installing the drivers for it. The thing that frustrates me is the lack of third party software support for this card. A lot of the software that I've found can only capture the video and not the audio.

My system is.
MSI K8N Neo 2 Platinum
Athlon 64 3200+
ATI Radeon 9600 XT
Theatrix capture card
Windows XP Pro SP2

All my drivers are up to date too.

I'm waiting for MMC 9.06 to be available so I can move away from PowerCinema

Could you tell me the following..

Bios version
What irq is it using
What memory range

If you can give me this info Specificly the memory range I should be able to get this to work... oh, and what Hal is your PC using?

[grog]

As long as ATI addresses the needs of long time MMC users I expect the "CyberLink PowerCinema" will become a product that everyone will be more than happy with.

This will however take some time. There are some "critical issues" that some how need to be addressed more quickly.

While I do not own the Elite version of the card I have read several posts where use of S-VIDEO and Composite for playback and capture do not appear to be supported. I downloaded the user manual from CyberLink and I was unable to find anything that would help users to configure their system to use either S-VIDEO or Composite connections. I am one who uses S-VIDEO to watch dish satellite so I do know how I would feel not having support for what I needed.

I do know that several 3rdParty products including MediaPortal are planning or have already included some support for the 550. For those who need a quick fix for a "critical issue" they may be able to use one of the 3rdParty programs while ATI and CyberLink are able to addresss the needs of the user base.

The Elite card is a great piece of heardware. I just hope those who plan to stick with WindowsXP are able to find a way to bear with the results of a new card release.

Greg <= yes I am the same one.

[farmkid]

I have been lurking around this forum for a while now but have never posted. I figured it was about time I said "hi".

As I noted in a previous post, I was having some major issues earlier with rather old drivers available on Sapphire's site. I am happy to share with you all that those problems have vanished since installing the latest drivers that Michael has so graciously taken his personal time to share with us. If you have the Sapphire card, and are experiencing issues, grab these new drivers, you won't be disappointed.

http://www.ati.com/online/customerca...ter550pro.html

Should ATI have posting some large ad on their home page to the effect of "Hey, for those of you with issues relating to the 550, grab these files now!".... Of course not. This is a brand-spanking-new product we're talking about. Hell, this is ATI we're talking about. They're one of the most prominent chip makers around today. I was frustrated by the fact that there were issues with the drivers, as well as the software that most of you have come to know as "PowerEnima", but let's face it... Most new offerings have at least "some" issues, and there will be several apps that will support this chipset sometime in near future.

...

Like most of you, I bought this card hoping to get a great tuner/capture card. I have been using an old TV Wonder PCI for several years and decided it was high time to upgrade. Well, needless to say, I was less than impressed at first. PowerCinema (when I finally got it from Sapphire) barely worked. Most of the time, it had terrible a terrible stuttering problem that only a reboot would fix, and then only part of the time. It was not even close to watchable. Beyond TV worked fine for me, but I can hardly afford to shell out the $70 it costs. I even found that I could capture with Nero Vision Express 3. I was eagerly awaiting the next release of MMC to solve all my problems so you can imagine my disappointment when the news came it would never support the 550 Pro.

Anyway, I just downloaded and installed the new drivers and I must agree with MrFr33z3. It's like a new card. It works great. Powercinema actually works now, though of course I would love to see some of the functionality of MMC.

Now for some more exciting news...
I still have the TV Wonder PCI in my system and hence, MMC 9.03 installed. After installing the new drivers, MMC WORKS WITH THE 550 PRO!!! (for me at least) There seems to be some interlacing issues, but I get audio and video. I can post screenshots if anyone is interested.

P.S. I do have a small problem with the card. The audio on channel 3 is plagued by a lot of static. It is only channel 3 and it occurs with every program I have tried. Also, if I go straight to channel 3 after starting a TV program when the card is cold, it is fine for 20-30 seconds, then the static starts as the card warms up. Could this be interference from something else in my computer, or could the card be defective? Has anyone else noticed anything like this?

P.P.S. Several people have complained that Powercinema can't capture from composite or S-Video. You can, but the setting is not where you might expect to find it. Go to "Videos" from the main page, then "Capture video". there, you can choose composite or S-video, and you can even tell it where to save the file.

[Myrdhinn]

I can confirm... as a giggle I install mcc 9.03, just the tv, and I to got video and sound although the video does have some ugly interlacing as Farmkid noted. Hmmmm.... video and audio on something ATI says won't work or be supported. Makes one wonder.......

[thatdude90210]

Now for some more exciting news...
I still have the TV Wonder PCI in my system and hence, MMC 9.03 installed. After installing the new drivers, MMC WORKS WITH THE 550 PRO!!! (for me at least) There seems to be some interlacing issues, but I get audio and video. I can post screenshots if anyone is interested.

P.S. I do have a small problem with the card. The audio on channel 3 is plagued by a lot of static. It is only channel 3 and it occurs with every program I have tried. Also, if I go straight to channel 3 after starting a TV program when the card is cold, it is fine for 20-30 seconds, then the static starts as the card warms up. Could this be interference from something else in my computer, or could the card be defective? Has anyone else noticed anything like this?

Heh, it does work with the new driver, I had 9.03 installed already. It was only sound before the new driver, now I get video and audio with MMC (no recording as far as I can see). And same as you are getting, interlacing issues, though I don't have problem with audio on channel 3.

C'mon ATI, it's almost there, just a little more and we have full MMC support.

[blakev]

C'mon ATI, it's almost there, just a little more and we have full MMC support.

Hey, they've said a million times they aren't going to do it. Much as we can keep dreaming, it's best to address directly what Michael has asked.
Since I haven't bought the card, as it's not available in france, yet, I am pleased to hear that the new drivers are starting to wake the card up. Maybe I don't have to change my mind after all...

For "whatever" commercial reasons, ATi has decided to risk leaving this card in the hands of its 3rd party partners. With Cyberlink this is a catastrophe: these folks don't make good software, and haven't for years. How does this Cyberlink stuff get bundled with so many packages? Mystery to me. they must have a sexy marketing broad.

Michael, you will not find a more succinct summary of the complaints generally shared by us all than the post 571 by satnav4. It's about his 4th iteration of his "likes/dislikes" list.

Just print it up and stick it under the nose of Cyberlink folks and challange them to produce the feature set within 2 man months of work.

Is it possible for you to send satnav4's list over to Intervideo as well? There we stand a chance, in fact I'll bet they've already implemented most of it. It would be lovely to have a glimpse of what they are doing.

And in your meetings with ATi colleagues, do please be vocal about how quite a few loyal customers think this 3rd party road on the theatre product is, well, shambolic, and that everyone, I mean EVERYONE, finds the lack of MMC support for your powerhouse chip INCOMPREHENSIBLE. It's not your fault, we know. But somebody somewhere put some spin on the ball to get MMC dropped on this chip. Cripes, what a bad move.

Wanna bet that some of your ATi engineers have bought this board and done some at-home custom dev so they can run MMC on it? Ask about when you're over there in canada, I guarantee it...no self-respecting ATi engineer would run CyberRubbish on the theatre board...

Last point. Lots of folks I know run W2K because they like the stability and they like working on a box where 95% of device drivers are mature by now. Cyberlink pushes them onto XP. MMC would not have.
In other words, former loyal customers find themselves left out in ATi's rush to grab the new MCE market. Couldn't we have seen something more graceful?

I'm curious to find out if Intervideo's offer runs on W2K...

[islasian]

I can confirm... as a giggle I install mcc 9.03, just the tv, and I to got video and sound although the video does have some ugly interlacing as Farmkid noted. Hmmmm.... video and audio on something ATI says won't work or be supported. Makes one wonder.......

LOL... that's just too funny... I installed my original MMC 8.1, then upgraded to MMC9.03, and what do you know, I'm using MMC to watch TV!!! The only thing is, I have to grab an ATI card from work so I can install the DVD codec, it wouldn't let me cus I have a 6600GT installed . Yeah, the interlaceing is not that noticable, but it works!!! I was going to take a screen print, but paint was just showing a black TV output(no actual show). Anyways, I'm going to mess around with it somemore and see how the recording goes after installing the DVD codec

So much for no MMC on 550Pro, now, if only ATI will get the message and just write a couple lines of code to fix the minor details. Makes you wonder what kind of R&D that they did on the card to not qualify it for MMC support, from what I could see with MMC 9.03 working, it only has minor bugs, which I know can be fixed...

Come on ATI, save face and fix the minor issues with MMC 9.03 so it can run great with this card, and maybe we can actually do what Michael B

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..

... (Probably shouldn't hold my breath on this one)

Hope people will be somewhat happy now that you can get MMC to work on this card...

And to farmkid ===>

[satnav4]

While I do not own the Elite version of the card I have read several posts where use of S-VIDEO and Composite for playback and capture do not appear to be supported. I downloaded the user manual from CyberLink and I was unable to find anything that would help users to configure their system to use either S-VIDEO or Composite connections. I am one who uses S-VIDEO to watch dish satellite so I do know how I would feel not having support for what I needed.

I found the s-video option. Interestingly, it is found under TV, then Video. You will find the input options there. It is not very intuitive. You will still have only "good, better, best" options, with no filter or vbr options.

S.

[satnav4]

Michael, you will not find a more succinct summary of the complaints generally shared by us all than the post 571 by satnav4. It's about his 4th iteration of his "likes/dislikes" list.

Just print it up and stick it under the nose of Cyberlink folks and challange them to produce the feature set within 2 man months of work.

Is it possible for you to send satnav4's list over to Intervideo as well? There we stand a chance, in fact I'll bet they've already implemented most of it. It would be lovely to have a glimpse of what they are doing.

blakev

They're teaching English in France better than in the U.S., unless you are an expat. It probably is my fourth iteration.

Michael was kind enough to tell me he has seen the list and will post a reply when he gets some answers.

S.

[satnav4]

Do I understand some of you can watch TV on MMC with the new drivers, but you can't record?

S.

[ron329]

Michael,

Great to see you in this forum and at least I appreciate all of your efforts. I am an avid MCE 2005 users for the last 4-5 months now. I have installed the 550 Pro in my system about 3 weeks ago and have a couple of questions/issues.

1. Since installing the 550 Pro all channels that I record with this card are copy protected including local channels whereas in the past with my other tuner card only the channels that I know are copy protected (i.e. HBO,etc.) are recorded with copy protection. This is a major problem as I am unable to burn any recorded TV shows to DVD if I need to. Is this a known issue and if not could you bring it to the attention to the folks that need to know so it can be corrected.

2. Adding some tweaks such as brightness, sharpness, etc. that would be accessible either through the MCE interface or any other method would be a step in the right direction. Are there any plans to offer this?

3. Can you provide any details as to what was fixed or changed in the latest driver update?

Once again, welcome to the forum and I appreciate your feedback on the above.