New ATI Tuner Card.

[hrlslcbr]

Well, here is a list of some things posted by many members here:

1) Fine bitrate control;
2) Vbr/cbr control;
3) Saving option to non-system drives;
4) Filter control;
5) EPG;
6) Sharpness control;
7) Record volume control;
8) Dolby AC3 audio;
9) Record to avi with working filters (and with the same colours than in the mpeg- 2 encoding);
10) 3D comb filter for composite connection

Although I don't find the volume to be low, for some people it might be useful to adjust it.

And I ask you again Andrzej: Can the NTSC version capture PAL through s-video or composite?

Cheers.

[TECHsan]

Ive got a few questions, I purchased this card to replace my old conexant based tv tuner card with the hopes of better fast action picture quality. During certain sporting events like the NCAA tourney(Go TxTech Mens and Womens BB), I have the game on both my TV and my computer, sometimes recording. I dont care about time shifting, I just care about having the audio and video synced with my television with the live analog cable feed. I understand by using a PVR card the MPEG encoding generates lag. Using Power Cinema there is some lag, but if there is software out there that I can use for this? Should I be looking for a Non PVR Card? I also looked at this card becuase it does not use a loopback cable, I connect my speakers using a SPDIF cable most of the time, but I have to switch from digital to analog mode on my speakers to even listen to the TV with the old card. This card keeps everything digital which I like. Is there a different card out there that I should be looking at that does the things I am looking for?

[blakev]

It's a good idea

Hi All,
1) We compile a list of outstanding issues that have not already been addresses
2) I will kick of a new thread shortly for technical queries/support/suggestions going forward for people who have bought the product or are thinking about buying it

The idea here is to create 2 threads

One for the kind of questions that were being asked before the product reached the PAL markets etc with new drivers...

...and the second as a resource for new customers either coming in - or about to come in

I will wait until we get the 61-page summary up and (as far as possible) responded to before kicking off thread 2 so that no one thinks there is a 'switch' taking place to ignore the serious questions that have been posed

Let's get those together - answer them - then create a (we hope !) more wieldly

Thoughts ?

But don't worry about folks who think you've changed horses/threads in midstream: what counts is the proper info in a timely manner, in this thread or any other.

So the long pauses waiting to hear from Michael or yourself is unnerving. We know you're busy folks.

Why don't you create a temporary pseudonym that people can PM (Andrzej_PM-able1) with their lists? That way you don't clog this thread, and you can post a recapitulation/answers. It's answers that'll make this thread stop growing

Andrzej, we're an independent bunch. Those that have spent just want to recover their investment. Especially since ATi has baited and switched regarding MMC (we know that's not your fault).

So all I really want to know is if ATi is actually helping the partners and other third parties with a software implementation to get this card rocking?

Which becomes four things really:

-Which 3rd party software, if any, gets a leg up?
-ATi is Doing What and for Which Partners (particularly what is ATi doing about the Cyberlink embarrassment?)
-ATi and Intervideo: will Intervideo implement all hardware features/filters in their software or will they present us unfinished soft like Cyberlink did? (it would be wonderful if you can dig up some "horse's mouth" info on that for us)
-And of course what is the timeline for each action?

You mention PAL: are you sure PAL cards are shipping? I can't find any in Britain or France, the suppliers in Norway and Sweden have sold their measly 35 units...

You had also told me Michael would have the dope on SECAM: I'm still waiting for a timeline on that.
Did we scare Michael away?

[digitalravi]

Hi there,...spent some three hours to read each and every message of this 62 page thread....is there any one who can answer my question which has already been put by many members over here

1)) IS THERE ANY PAL VERSION OF THE THEATRE 550 CHIP BASED TUNER CARD.....?
2)) DOES ANYBODY HERE HAS A "REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE" OF A TUNER CARD WHICH USES THEATRE 550 CHIP......?

Basically all my confusion started like this:

See the Sapphire web page:

http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/theatrix.asp

in the list of features, it is given as "NTSC/PAL",

see the GECUBE web page:

http://www.gecube.com/mbu/productCategory.php?proID=64

in the list of GECUBE features, it is given as "NTSC & PAL"

So what is the difference between "NTSC/PAL" and "NTSC & PAL"....????

If "/" is interpreted for "or" and "&" for "and", then the Sapphire ships separate
cards for PAL and NTSC and the GECUBE ships only one card which works for both
PAL and NTSC.

I live in Tokyo and went to a retail store to buy Sapphire Theatrix. The box of the
Theatrix card has features written in German, Dutch and other European languages, but the
card inside works only for NTSC....!!! I discovered this by spotting the card code
number of the Sapphire Theatrix: 25001-00-40. This is the code for Sapphire NTSC
card. The PAL version of the Sapphire Theatrix has a code of 25001-01-40....!!!!
But the retailer was confident that it works for both NTSC and PAL. I asked him
to open the Sapphire website and asked him to see the XLS sheet which lists all Sapphire
products. The retailer was shocked and speechless...!!!!!

Except a small sticker on a corner of the box, it is nowhere written that the card inside
supports only NTSC. Why does Sapphire confuse its customers like this..??

SO BEWARE ALL EUROPEAN CUSTOMERS.....See the card code before you buy the Theatrix card....!!!!!!!!!

In the wake of all this confusion, is there any reason for me to buy a Theatre 550
based card,...??? All those enthusiasts in this forum, namely the man who started
this thread, Myth, others like e.lectronika, satnav4 are all dissapointed with this
card....???

((By the way, inspite of all what is going on in this thread, and clarifications by
ATI personnel themselves that Theatre550 does not support MMC, the GECUBE webpage
still says that their version of the card supports the MMC,....what can anybody say...???)).

What is finally the gut feeling for buying a theatre 550 card, if any...????

But please answer this: did anybody see a PAL version of a theatre550 in real life..?????

Thanks in advance,
Digitalravi.

[e.lectronick]

1)) IS THERE ANY PAL VERSION OF THE THEATRE 550 CHIP BASED TUNER CARD.....?

>>>>>Not yet as I understand it. It has all along been slated for release some months after the NTSC version.

2)) DOES ANYBODY HERE HAS A "REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE" OF A TUNER CARD WHICH USES THEATRE 550 CHIP......?

>>>>>Many do own the 550 pro based cards. I'm sure several will respond and you may want to go back and look at their posts again. Much of their hands on experience has fueled this thread.

3))So what is the difference between "NTSC/PAL" and "NTSC & PAL"....????

>>>>>I will defer to a wonderful website. Just remember that the origin of these video standards is the frequency of your standard electrical wall outlet current. In Europe, most wall outlet current "hums" at 50 Herz, while in America, our wall outlet current "hums" at 60 Herz. Read on here:

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/cap...gue_video.html

and for convenience, I quote it here:

"9.2 The 625/50 (PAL) and 525/60 (NTSC) timings
Depending on the frequency of the electricity mains in a country, two scan line timings have been developed: 625 lines/frame, 50 fields per second and 525 lines/frame, 60 fields per second. These are often (incorrectly) referred to as PAL and NTSC timing respectively, referring to the TV systems adopted by Germany and America. (Actually PAL and NTSC refer to the system used for color encoding, and nations with PAL 525/60 and NTSC 625/50 systems DO exist. But in this guide we will follow this incorrect habit too.)

PAL numbers:

It takes 1 second to draw 25 frames.
One frame contains 625 lines.
One line takes 1 second / (25 x 625) = 0.000064 seconds or 64 µs (= microseconds) to draw.
One field contains 288 active lines. The first line of field 1 and the last line of field 2 may contain a whole picture line, only half a picture line or even be completely black. For capping purposes and aspect ratio calculations, the PAL frame is assumed to be 576 lines high. If it turns out it wasn’t, you just end up with some black lines at the top and the bottom of the picture.
While a single scan line takes 64 µs to process, only 52 µs is actually spent drawing a picture line. This is the ‘official’ ITU-R BT.470-6 number. (Many analogue sources will not completely adhere to this, mostly resulting in capping some extra black pixels at the sides.)
The Chrominance subcarrier frequency is 4,433.618.75 MHz

NTSC numbers:

It takes 1 second to draw 29.97 frames.
One frame contains 525 lines.
One line takes 1 second / (29.97 x 525) = 0.000063556 seconds or 63.556 µs to draw.
One field contains 243 active lines. The first line of field 1 and the last line of field 2 may contain a whole picture line, only half a picture line or even be completely black. Most often, these two lines will contain only half picture information. For some reasons this has caused a lot of confusion about the active area of the NTSC frame, while this did not happen for PAL. The NTSC frame consists of 486 lines. It contains at most 2x242.5 = 485 lines of picture info. However, often only 484 lines are complete. Virtually all capture devices capture only 480 lines. Presumably that is because by capping 480, you can avoid both the first line of field 1 and the last line of field 2.
For capping purposes always use 480 lines. For some aspect ratio calculations use 486 lines, and regard 480 as cropped from that. Forget the about the other numbers.
While a single scan line takes 63.556 µs to process by a TV, only 52.6555 µs is actually spent drawing a picture line. This is the ‘official’ ITU-R BT.470-6 number, which is often used by people dealing with digital video. There are many standards for NTSC/M, all giving a slightly different number for the active part of a scan line.
Assume 52.6555 µs if you need a number for calculations. If the analogue source used a different number, again this will result in capping some extra black pixels at the sides or cropping a bit off.
The Chrominance subcarrier frequency is 3,579.545 MHz"

Hope this helps.
-Erik

[farmkid]

In the wake of all this confusion, is there any reason for me to buy a Theatre 550
based card,...??? All those enthusiasts in this forum, namely the man who started
this thread, Myth, others like e.lectronika, satnav4 are all dissapointed with this
card....???

I don't think it's entirely accurate to say that the enthusiasts are all dissapointed with the card. The consensus seems to be that the card itself is very good and does a great job. The problem is software support. Few programs will work with the card, and those that do don't offer the fine control and options enthusiasts are used to. Speaking for myself, I am happy with the card, but I REALLY wish MMC would work properly with the card. Powercinema works okay for basic stuff, but I have been using MMC since the version 6.x days and have gotten used to what it can do. With the 550 Pro and the new drivers, MMC 9.03 works, but the picture has interlacing issues and is otherwise somewhat buggy.

The reason I haven't returned the card is because I am satisfied with the card itself and I expect that as the drivers and software matures, it can get only better. We just need to be patient and wait for the bugs to be worked out of the software. This may turn out to be something like the Pentium 4 in that when it was first released, the performance was horrible compared to the Pentium 3 and Athlon because software was optimized for the architecture of the older processors. In the following months, however, software developers optimized their software for the longer pipeline of the P4 and it now runs like a champ in most applications. I expect that we will see something similar with the 550 Pro. As time goes on, software developers will add 550 Pro support to their products and ATI will improve the drivers to add sharpness control and get the 3D comb filter working, etc. and if we are lucky even MMC may eventually support the 550 Pro contrary to what ATI saying now (when the chip is used in the AIW series, perhaps). It's a bit of a gamble, because if this doesn't happen then we will all be stuck with a dissapointing computer case heater that doesn't live up to its potential.

The long and short of it is this: If you get one now, just know that you will get basic functionality of a great card and will have to wait for its full potential to be unleashed.

[ciregnol]

I for one, just bought a second NTSC version of the Sapphire Theatrix card. I use Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

In general, I love the card, but it is not perfect. Best that I've seen, though.

In general, the image is quite good (although it could be a bit sharper), and motion is great. I have seen differences in live viewing and recordings when using differend DVD decoders. With PowerDVD 6 I experience some mosaic/pixelation effects during scene changes and action sequences. Nvidia seems to be pretty good. I haven't noticed anything yet, but haven't had that much time to watch with it on.

Another issue I see is that the TV volume is only about 30-50% of other TV tuners. When I tested both a 550 and PVR 150, I could definitely tell which card I was using by the level of the volume. It was a constant volume up and down juggle.

Now, to play music, I have to turn volume way down, then up again to watch TV. I would love to see this issue fixed.

Once I get my second card in the mail this week, I will work on trying Media Portal, GBPVR, and maybe one or two others that have support for the card and see how image quality, volume, and experience differ from Windows MCE.

I have not, nor do I plan to install CyberLink software. I have never owned an ATI capture card so have never used MMC, and thus don't miss it. That being said, I do find it ridiculous that ATI announced MMC compatibility in the product release event, documented it on their website, told 3rd party manufacturers (who subsequently printed it in their manuals), then changed their mind and backpedals to undo that decision.

I would like to see ATI improve the drivers to offer the changes that many have requested, such as hrlslcbr lists out.

[neutron]

So what is the difference between "NTSC/PAL" and "NTSC & PAL"....????

The pal version reflects to the PAL TV tuner
both versions (PAL and NTSC TV tuners) can capture video (Composite, SVHS) in PAL AND NTSC.

[satnav4]

2)) DOES ANYBODY HERE HAS A "REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE" OF A TUNER CARD WHICH USES THEATRE 550 CHIP......?

In the wake of all this confusion, is there any reason for me to buy a Theatre 550
based card,...??? All those enthusiasts in this forum, namely the man who started
this thread, Myth, others like e.lectronika, satnav4 are all dissapointed with this
card....???

Real life user here--well not really. I mean I own it, but it sits idle in my box. The Cyberlink software is so worthless, I took it off my computer. It corrupted my computer in the process, probably because I tried to make the software something it was not in the registry. I now have a clean install of XP, without the Power Cinema. I don't plan to give it another go until they add useful features, the most basic of which should be:

1) EPG;
2) Slave drive save location;
3) Fine bitrate control.

I have no other software with which to test it. When I had the Cyberlink installed, it gave a good picture--until I realized I was recording at a whopping 8000 kbs. Hell, almost anything will look decent at that rate--but at the serious expense of hard drive space. When I used the lower bitrate settings, it was not any better than my Hauppauge 150's run at similar settings. The 150's were a bit sharper, although whites can be fairly white, and darks can be fairly dark. The 150 sounded richer, but perhaps because it was louder.

GBPVR is pretty close to running the card. When it does, I can do an "Apple to Apple" comparison. Audio support seems to be the issue. If I had to do it all over again, I would buy another 150. They are like "Energizer Bunnies" pumping out excellent mpegs. My recordings at 4500 ave, 6200 max are indistinguishable from live TV when viewed on my 32" TV set through a Media MVP. I bought the 550 to improve on "keeper" recordings to burn to DVD. Without proper software, I simply cannot access the card's features which are supposed to make it better than other products. It's kind of like having a Ferrari with a low gas tank and a lawnmower governor--you will never know it's true potential.

I have been hopeful that ATI would come to the rescue, directly or indirectly, to address the serious software problems. I have seen signs of hope, but this does not change the fact that the 550 remains idle while the 150's continue to do all the heavy lifting.

S.

[SHSPVR]

Conventional vs Silicon tuners
Silicon tuners are capable of supporting many different signal and video standards than their conventional counterparts (think of manufacturers only needing to sell ONE product worldwide rather than an NTSC version, a PAL version, a SECAM version etc etc like do now with bulk conventional tuners), one other advantage with silicon tuner that they made much smaller than conventional tuners and it's therefore possible to make a smaller TV card with a silicon tuner like the ATI 550 pro.
Why they say NTSC/PAL or etc, etc that I never know when should be really call Multisystem Tuner or Worldwide Tuner but now real Q that come to mind is why would there be two diff 550 model card when come with Microtune MT2050 or is that the Microtune product dosen't not have a Fully Worldwide compatible like they say.

[hrlslcbr]

The pal version reflects to the PAL TV tuner
both versions (PAL and NTSC TV tuners) can capture video (Composite, SVHS) in PAL AND NTSC.

Are you SURE? I mean, have you tried it? I don't want to try and break something in my card if it's not true...

[richard-wong]

where can i get this? please tell me!!!

[satnav4]

Do you really want this--and what is this?

[Myrdhinn]

I think he's mistaken us for hussies.net

[hrlslcbr]

'this'......
Is it the card???

If so...
google is your friend

[dutchfudge]

Well you do have an another option buy a rival product and see if its better. If you cant get better elsewhere and you dont want a refund or arent going to sue,then why keep going on about it?

we will keep going on about it until the statute of limitations for this particular fraud expires, or ATI hooks us up. The squeeky wheel gets the grease!