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ATi's New All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500 128MB
KillaBee writes "ATi has taken the wraps off their latest addition to their 'All In Wonder' product line of graphics cards with TV and video editing functionality. The All In Wonder Radeon 8500 128MB card, reviewed here, has ATi's fastest Radeon 8500 core along with a full 128MB of 300MHz DDR SDRAM (600MHz DDR). This is ATi's 'Swiss Army Knife' card that brings with it very competitive 3D graphics performance as well."
As an All-In-Wonder Radeon owner, just want to clear up the things the article glosses over. You can't set it to record the same show no matter what time it comes on, you can't view listings more than 7 days in advance, and unlike a Tivo, it won't record similar shows for you. This is not set-it-and-forget-it software, and people need to stop comparing it to Tivo. It's much closer to a VCR than to Tivo: you have to manually program it, and it's just not that smart. (The quality's outstanding, though.)
What's your damage, Heather?
- It's available to US & Cdn. end users only
- You get more if you supply them with old ATI cards, I believe (about $50 US/Cdn, depending on where you are).
The FAQ is available here and applies to both PC and Mac architectures.========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
hear hear. Just like Matrox, I thought they had some inovative technology that other companies weren't really interested in (the Rainbow Runner G, Dualhead, etc. for example). But the simple fact remains that just like Matrox, ATI has awful customer support, and terrible drivers. Then, once you figure "okay, this technology has had time to mature, i can expect some solid drivers", tada, they discontinue the product.
So what do you do? Get a video card that has all these snazzy new features, but you bring it home and the drivers don't even suppor it yet? (my Ati Radeon VE refused to do both monitors at acceptable resolutions, and it took them a long time to even acknowledge the issue). I've figured I'll go with a company that at least appears to support their cards properly, Nvidia. I'm looking forward to my next upgrade.
I am the "proud" owner of a Radeon All In Wonder. I dropped close to $300 on the card. I bought it hoping to set up a home theatre PC. I was looking forward to experimenting with broadcasting the video via 802.11 to the downstairs office so that my GF could watch while working.. etc.
ATI totally caved to Microsoft and only supports their "latest" video capture API (DirectShow). Well guess what even though DirectShow has been out for a long time, there doesn't seem to be a lot of support for it -- even from Microsoft. So if you want to use NetMeeting or Windows Media Server or Real Server -- you can go suck an egg.
The video capture software they bundle it seems to capture into a proprietary MPEG2 format that doesn't play on other computers. If you want to share something you captured, you need to re-encode it.
There are third party applicaitons available -- I think that FlashMPEG can do capture for it now.
All in all, I am *REALLY* disappointed with the card. The hardware seems fine, but the software & support just blow.
Evolution: love it or leave it
Aside from it taking me 3 months to get my ATI card working as it SHOULD...
(All-in-Wonder Rage 128) I finally can get the TV-tuner working and watch TV while I use dual monitors.
Never did figure out HOW I GOT IT WORKING.
(This under Win2K)
ATI drivers *SUCK*. Their DVD support SUCKS (I have a standalone MPEG2 decoder card, I've had it since I was using a Pentium 166, it has always played DVDs flawlessly.) On my Pentium III ATI's DVD support glitches now and then.
I was better off under W95 with my Pentium 166, & creative Labs decoder.
I will not consider an ATI card again until they improve their driver support and pull their head out of their ass. (Mpeg2 encoding should be done in hardware, it takes a Pentium III to do it in software, and you can't do much else...)