ATI Theater 550 Chip, Where's The Beef?

[ciregnol]

Amen, Satnav. I researched for a year before deciding on the Theater 550 Pro chip (OK, I did try PVR-250, and Aver M-150 cards first before I heard about the above chip).

I never buy computer equipment without searching for reviews and impressions.

No doubt there have been at least dozens of prospective buyers if not hundreds that have found our sister forum and read up prior to purchasing. Who knows how many have been persuaded one way or another?

[Smahatma]

No doubt there have been at least dozens of prospective buyers if not hundreds that have found our sister forum and read up prior to purchasing. Who knows how many have been persuaded one way or another?

Atleast one.

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[satnav4]

Well to report some good news, I authored a DVD from an S-Video feed, and it looks great. It was captured using BTV. I used TMPG Author to create the DVD folders, and all was in perfect sync. I tested both AC3 audio and MP1,L2 audio, and both worked well. It was nice to go straight from raw mpeg to DVD, without correcting the program stream with PVAStrumento (a great free program).

S.

[satnav4]

I can confirm GBPVR works, and the 550 records with perfect sync. I ran into a problem last night running my 150's at the same time. It may be an error in my setup. If anyone else experiences this problem, please note it is under investigation.

Now that GBPVR runs the 550, you can throw the Cyberlink software away. I can now recommend the 550 to anyone who wants to run a TiVo like setup. You can also record through S-Video.

Thanks sub for the software support.

S.

PS This is also posted on the long ATI thread; it is here for ease of reference.

[phil120]

This message is to Satnav4 or anyone else that can shed some light into my problem...

I was seriously considering purchasing the ati 550 chip, I still am because I dont think I am very concerned with using MMC as long as I can use 3rd party software such as SageTV, BeyonTV, etc, and I think using the 550 will allow using 3rd party Software.

What i am looking for is the utmost best image quality and a hardware mpeg encoder.. I will not settle for anycard that uses software encoding. What i did come across is cards that do mpeg4 encoding.

Based on what I read from Satnav on Tv-Cards.com http://www.tv-cards.com/messageboard...extor+convertx
most dvd players will not support mpeg4 encoding. This is bad news but I am sure it will eventually change in the future. But then again mpeg4 players won't be mainstream for a while. yet this is also good if i am just saving my recording on HD. So its a "catch-22" So yes i would sacrifice mpeg4 for quality but if the image quality is the same I would rather go to a card that does both mpeg2/4

But Right before I was about to make the purchase I came across the following:

1) Compro VideoMate Action TV tuner box (U800/U700):
I am intrigued by this card because it has mpeg4 but not sure if its hardware or software, and it has a 3d Comb y/c seperation.

2) Plextor ConvertX PVR
I dont have much info on this one.

3) I was considering the lifeview 3000 but after reading that "encodes mpeg2 only up to 6mbps. A dvd player can read up to 9+mbps. More bits = more image quality. You can get decent quality at that rate."

4) The ati 550 Chip is very intriguing to me because of the outstanding reviews of the image quality.

5) Hauppauge 150/250 Although this was my initial 1st choice, my reservations against them is that it does not have the 3D Comb filer or the y/c Seperation and if i recall it only uses 9 or 10 bit chip, dont recall on top of my head.

Thanks