HDTV On Your PC - ATi's HDTV Wonder

Spinnerbait writes "ATi is getting their new High Def capable HDTV Wonder ready for release soon and there is a preview of the card over at HotHardware. It will be an add-in PCI card that will be bundled with their All In Wonder cards initially and eventually be sold as a stand alone product. High Def on a nice 23" Flat Panel... time to drool."

Comments

Pixel for Pixel

[MrHatken]

Will you be able to see pixel for pixel high res?

Re:Pixel for Pixel

[dnoyeb]

If I'm not mistaken, TV broadcases are not in the typical monitor proportions. That means no. But perhaps ATi understands this and has a nice interpolator on board.

In any event, contraty to the OPs position, I do not drool over 23" of TV viewing pleasure...

Re:Pixel for Pixel

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and no:

1920x1080 interlaced is what you get. But due to nature of the MPEG-2 encoding they probably use 4:2:2 which means only the luminance channel has full resolution.

Re:Pixel for Pixel

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to drool alright, like an idiot. You just keep on watching the stupidator, I got rid of mine to do somethig worthwhile.

Re:Pixel for Pixel

[nvrrobx]

I prefer my 56" of DLP viewing pleasure. :)

Anyhow, if you're in 1600x1200, you CAN see a 1080i broadcast pixel-for-pixel on your monitor.

Some regular monitors will do native HDTV resolutions too, so that would work.

Re:Pixel for Pixel

[cfuse]

If I'm not mistaken, TV broadcases are not in the typical monitor proportions. That means no. But perhaps ATi understands this and has a nice interpolator on board.

Time to change the TV broadcast res.

Re:Pixel for Pixel

[Anonymous Coward]

and just how does 1600x1200 display 1920x1080 pixel for pixel?

You have your mission men...

[Anonymous Coward]

...bring that server to it's knees!

It seems to me...

[SisyphusShrugged]

It seems to me that this shouldnt be to difficult, technically speaking, considering the 1080 pixel resolution is well within that normally supported on a PC monitor.

I cant wait to get Hi-Def on my TV, have seen it before and it is the ultimate in geek-drool fest! ....mmmmm...Hi-Def TV....yummy!

Component inputs?

[PhotoBoy]

From this article it looks like the HDTV All-In-Wonder card won't have any useful video input sockets on the card and there's no mention of any external connector box.

I really want a decent means for connecting things like games consoles to my PC monitor. All the VGA boxes out there just give horrid blurry pictures because they double the scanlines of the picture. I wish someone would do a card with component or SCART inputs. :(

Re:Component inputs?

[Albanach]

You really don't want to try and run a PS2 or similar through a PC TV Card. There's a nasty lag in getting the signal processed and on to your computer screen. It doesn't matter if TV is running half a second behind the broadcast, but if you use your controller and you don't see your character move for half a second.

You need a monitor with a scart input or a games console with a monitor output. Don't try putting a PC in the middle.

Re:Component inputs?

[corebreech]

Yeah, there's very little info. For instance, I want to be able to pick up HDTV over satellite (either DirecTV or DishNetwork) and watch it on my PC. Will this card let me do that? It doesn't say.

If it does--and if I can get it to work with my nVidia GPU--then I buy both the card and a satellite subscription right away.

If not, I stick with Netflix.

Re:Component inputs?

[dirty]

No there isn't. There might be some delay that can be measured in milliseconds, but it's nothing a human can detect. I've been doing this for years. Up until about 6 months ago I didn't own a TV and used my computer for TV and my PS2.

Re:Component inputs?

[dirty]

My guess is this card will only work with newer AiW cards. IIRC the ATI video cards contain all of the hardware necisary to decode and display HDTV, they just haven't had any way of tuning it. It really wouldn't surprise me if this card is nothing more than a tuner that sends the encoded MPEG2 stream over to an ATI video card for processing. I doubt it's even possible to send decoded HDTV over the PCI bus. A raw 16bit per pixel 1080i stream would take just under 120MB/s (that's megabytes, not bits). IIRC the max bandwith for 33Mhz PCI is 133MB/s. That doesn't leave much bandwith for doing anything else while watching tv.

Re:Component inputs?

[AIX-Hood]

This user is unfortunately thinking of using an mpeg-2 encoding board like a Hauppauge PVR-250 where there is indeed a lag. Boards like the ATI HDTV however just have direct analog and digital stream recording without any realtime encoding, so there's no lag here.

Re:Component inputs?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I suspect that if you require ATI to do the deinterlacing, you'll be disappointed, because it will probably look the same way.

Graphics chips are still horrible at deinterlacing, just the same way that DVD player software is horrible at deinterlacing.

Even if you wanted HD component inputs, that is so close to the PCI's bandwidth (the 33 MHz / 32bits that few care to exceed) that it isn't practical for many systems.

There are standard definition component input boards, but one I've seen (but can't find the name for) costs $250, another, the Holo3DGraph, is $400 if you are lucky to find a used or refurbed original model, or $900 for a second generation model. H3D I doesn't do HD at all, H3D II can do HD with an add-on board (another $300), but I'm not sure it does analog component input.

Re:Component inputs?

[CityZen]

What's all this yapping about component inputs?

Don't you understand that component TV is something completely different than digital HDTV? This card is designed to do the latter. If you look at ALL the HDTV cards for PCs, you'll find that this is true.

If you want component inputs, then you should be shopping for a monitor, or else a transcoder (component to VGA).

If what you want is to record your satellite box's HDTV signal, then you need a firewire interface, along with a satellite box that has a properly-working firewire port. That way, you get the DIGITAL HDTV signal, not the analog crap.

If you truly want a component TV analog-to-digital converter card, then you can find them if you shop around enough. They will not be cheap, and they will require a RAID array in order to store a 1080i analog-converted datastream.

Re:Component inputs?

[enrico_suave]

Is it possible that you are actually seeing the image clearly on the PC monitor, but it actually just looks "better" on the lower image quality TV screen?

A lot of console game developers displays/gui's/textures are made to be optimally viewed on a TV (i.e. taking into account the interlacing in fact taking advantage of the blurring)

*shrug*

e.

HOWTO?

[anish1411]

With all these stories about HDTV and big screens and wotnot, I felt inspired to hook up my TV to my computer. I have a 50-inch plasma tv, and surround sound with a hefty woofer, and - apart from the movie experience - how cool would UT2004 be on that!

Well anyway This site [ramelectronics.net] has some useful information about wot the holes at the back of ure TV do, and various other stuff.

Re:HOWTO?

[Zakabog]

how cool would UT2004 be on that!

Speaking from experience, very cool.

Except for the fact that it's VERY hard to find a comfortable gaming position in this type of setup (unless you move your desk and stuff.) I had my PC hooked up to my 56" HDTV, and my Live drive's optical output hooked up to my surround sound system, it was very very sweet. The only issue I had was trying to sit on the couch and play. No place for a wrist rest, no place for my keyboard (except my lap) it became really annoying. I eventually used my coffee table as a desk and built a chair with seat cushions, it was decent but not as nice as a chair/desk setup. It would have been much nicer if I setup the TV for a good viewing position too, it's nice sitting in front of a 21" computer monitor cause you can see everything easily. But when you sit right in front of a 56" HDTV things become very hard to see. If you're too close a lot of stuff is out of sight since it's such a huge viewing area and if you're too far you can't see things like that sniper off in the distance.

Re:HOWTO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't do it. You will probably ruin your expensive plama through burn-in. The static parts of your PC display will become permently burned-in to you plama rendering it useless.

Do you homework before attemping this.

Re:HOWTO?

[bigman2003]

I did something similar (xbox through a projector) and on any game that was reasonable fast moving, I would get dizzy.

If the image fills most of your field of vision, the movement on screen will trick your brain into thinking it is actually happening. Without the corresponding movement in your body, things can get very weird.

I ended up having to shrink the image, and moving back. The cinematic Halo experience was not for me.

It ended up being a lot like seeing the 'rollercoaster' IMAX. That made me sick too...

Re:HOWTO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Plasma is a flourocent lamp (like tube/strip light). Never heard a Plasma TV "burn in"... The principle with the flourocent light and the plasma tv is the same.

Re:HOWTO?

[Rew190]

Just be really, really careful about burn-in. i'm sure you know it exists on plasma TVs, just make sure you don't leave anything on your plasma for more than a few hours at a time like the Max Payne health bar.

Re:HOWTO?

[Anonymous Coward]

But since you posted as an AC, it's clear that you already knew that you were an idiot who doesn't know how to Google for the relevant information. Too bad there isn't a mod category "-1, Stupid Ignoramus".

Since you posted AC, I will too!

Re:HOWTO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummmm.... if you have a 50 inch plasma then it's just a matter of connecting vga to vga, or dvi to dvi.

Playing FPSers from a couch wouldn't be much fun, I have played FZeroX though :)

Re:HOWTO?

[PoisonousPhat]

Ah, a fellow "simulator sickness" sufferer. At least you don't get nauseous from FPS games like CounterStrike, like I do.

If the image fills most of your field of vision, the movement on screen will trick your brain into thinking it is actually happening. Without the corresponding movement in your body, things can get very weird.

This could be why the more expensive simulators, like flight training simulators or entertainment simulators like "Star Tours" are equipped with all those hydraulics to make the physical motion sync with the visual motion. Well, that, and to make it really "realistic". Read more about simulator sickness: Simulator Sickness

Misconception?

[fnj]

It sounds like you likely have a misconception as to what 1080i is exactly.

1080i is 1920x1080, 30 frames/sec, 60 fields/sec interlaced.

Methinks this is still quite high for a PC monitor. Not to feel bad, though, because very few HDTVs can resolve every pixel of 1080i either.

720p (1280x720, 60 fps non-interlaced) is a better match for 95+% of PC monitors, and is still very pleasing.

Re:Misconception?

[corebreech]

My monitor (a Sony 21" GDM-F520) can do 2048x1536 @ 85Hz, and has a .22mm aperture grill no less.

If anything, it's the graphics card that are holding things up. My GeForce 4 Ti4800SE can only do 2048x1536 @ 60Hz in 8-bit mode.

It can however handle 1920x1080 @ 85Hz in 32-bit mode, so for 1080i viewing I should be OK.

Re:Misconception?

[Anonymous Coward]

yes but that's a pretty crap graphics card these days.

Re:Misconception?

[Anonymous Coward]

1080i may not be within the capabilities of most monitors, but it certainly is no big deal for most graphics cards. I can decode and output 1080i via an ATI Radeon 9000, which is so low end that you can't even buy one anymore. My 21" monitor displays this resolution quite nicely, btw. I think HDTV is mostly a marketing ploy now, especially when it comes from ATI, because ATI's whole Radeon family was/is famous for having iDCT support way before it became "HDTV support". Don't throw out your working graphics card to get a HDTV enabled card. A cheap DVB card, a low end Radeon (no SE though) and a 1GHz (1.4GHz to be on the safe side) processor is enough to enjoy HDTV. The most expensive part is the display (Apple Cinema 23" *drool*)

Re:Misconception?

[XavierItzmann]

1080i is 1920x1080... Methinks this is still quite high for a PC monitor

The Apple Cinema Display HD, available since May 2002, is a 2.3 megapixel LCD display at 1920 by 1200.

http://www.apple.com/displays/acd23/

I happen to have one. ;-)

Re:Misconception?

[ed333]

ATI Radeon 9000, which is so low end that you can't even buy one anymore

Dude, I just bought an All-in-wonder Radeon 9000 last week at CompUSA for $100. :P

Re:Misconception?

[Anonymous Coward]

> My monitor (a Sony 21" GDM-F520) can do 2048x1536 @ 85Hz, and has a .22mm aperture grill no less.

That's very nice for you, but most typical PC monitors (and PCs for that matter) will not play 1080i at full res.

Re:Misconception?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The point was not many displays sold even now can show all of 1080i or 1080p.

You can buy them, but it is still at the very high end.

Re:Misconception?

[mmortal03]

Whether or not your monitor supports the resolution or not, this still does not mean that it can fully support 720p. It has to do with the length of the electron guns in your display. I cannot find the best source for this information anymore, but there used to be a page that explained the issue. Basically very few HDTV displays currently can display 720p correctly. 720p is MORE DIFFICULT to display fully than 1080i. This is the best I could do here:

"And if I can go completely geek on you for a second, there are very few HDTV's out there that can support 720p properly. Most HDTV sets have 7" electron guns, and they are too short to give a full 720p picture. So even if a TV says it supports 720p, if it only has 7" guns, you're missing some of the picture. Not a lot, but enough to shortchange you on what you're supposed to be getting. If you want a real 720p picture, make sure that your set has 9" guns. Most other sets will "downsample" a 720p picture into 1080i."

from http://www.planetgamecube.com/mailbag.cfm?action=p rofile&id=88

Re:Misconception?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 7" vs. 9" refers to the diagonal measure of the CRTs used in projectors (rear or front), not to the "length of the electron guns".
Every CRT has a "sweet spot", where the size of the spot drawn by the beam is very close to the size of the desired pixels. At the sweet spot there are no gaps between pixels, nor do the pixels overlap.
For 7" CRTs the size of the sweet spot is large enough (compared to the overall size of the CRT) that when you try to display 1920 pixels across the screen they overlap, effectively reducing your resolution. Sync'ing to a signal is not the same thing as resolving all the detail! (I don't mean to imply that you said it did).
In general, Projectors that use 9" CRTs stand a better chance of resolving all 1920 individual pixels.
Terms like "downsampling" are better reserved for LCD/DLP/LCOS based projectors. These have a fixed number of pixels (often 1280 by 720), and so have to downsample a 1920 by 1080 signal to display it.
Finally, the biggest reason that 720p CRT-based TVs are usually more expensive is that the horizontal scan rate has to be higher than for 1080i. Computer geeks aren't accustomed to paying more for fast scanning monitors any more, but 10 years ago fast monitors were significantly more expensive, and today fast scanning HDTVs cost more. Something to do with the power supplies and such costing more.

Re:Misconception?

[Anonymous Coward]

Downsample this.

Just for reference, a 1080i signal would appear slightly letterboxed in native resolution on that monitor, due to the 1200 pixel height. And I'm sure it's quite capable of something like 1080p if and when someone decides to throw that at it.

Re:Misconception?

[Phreakiture]

I can get my 15" no-name monitor to do 1920x1080x60 interlaced very readily. XFree86 users can use this modeline to get it:

Modeline "1080i" 74.250 1920 2008 2048 2200 1080 1084 1094 1125 interlace +hsync +vsync

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

Note that the dot clock is only 74.25 MHz, the hsync is only 33.75kHz and the vrefresh is 60Hz. That is easily within reach of most monitors these days.

On the other hand, you should keep in mind that this is an interlaced mode, and, as such, is as good at rendering headaches as it is at rendering graphics.

I agree that 720p mode is probably nicer for a computer monitor, but I have not been able to make it work with mine.... yet.

What are the capabilities of the card?

[mocm]

Unfortunately there is not much information of what the card can do.
Does it have an MPEG hardware decoder for HDTV, or is it only a tuner and demodulator?
Does it have TV out or can it only display on the monitor?
If the card is only a tuner and demodulator with PCI bridge then it's no big deal. The CPU will have to do all the decoding, maybe with a little help from the graphics card. You can do that with a lot of DVB-S,C,T cards already. With a 60Euro card you could already watch the Superbowl in HDTV, of course you needed a fast CPU.

Re:What are the capabilities of the card?

[hazman]

Does it have an MPEG hardware decoder for HDTV, or is it only a tuner and demodulator?

It appears that this card is a ATSC tuner/demod (U.S. HDTV transmission standard). It likely passes the digital stream over the PCI bus to the video card (minimum 9600) for decoding and displaying.

Does it have TV out or can it only display on the monitor?

It likely does not have TV out of the card itself but you can probably use an ATI video card that has composite/svid out to display on a SDTV. The quality of the scaling is yet to be seen. Likewise, SDTV streams (tt has a standard NTSC tuner also) will likely be scaled to HDTV resolutions. Again, quality of the scaling is yet to be seen.

The real question is how good is the ATSC tuner/demod. This has been the biggest stumbling block to comprehensive and consistent reception. The digital cliff can be very steep.

Re:What are the capabilities of the card?

[dirty]

The older AiW cards 8500 and up, have a very good deinterlacer and scaler built in to them already. The card will definately be able to scale to HDTV resolution, as any bt8x8 tv capture card can do that with any video card made in the last 10 years.

Just a guess, but this will look absolutely great, especially if you have a monitor which can display 1920x1080.

Re:What are the capabilities of the card?

[Anonymous Coward]

ATI cards don't allow you to move the TV windows ONTO TV screens from the monitor. Whenever I try and move hte media centre from my mon over to my 27", I get the window, but it's black and reads in yellow something about not supporting that feature. It tells me to connect the console directly to the TV...

Re:What are the capabilities of the card?

[radixvir]

PCI bus to the video card (minimum 9600) for decoding and displaying.

I think the article said you need a minimum aiw 9600 to get pip not just for regular use. However i might have interpreted it wrong.

Re:What are the capabilities of the card?

[Valdrax]

I answered all of these questions (except the first) when I submitted an article on this the day the press release came out:

2004-02-17 19:04:50 ATI to Ship HDTV Tuner Card (articles,tv) (rejected)
(Not that I'm bitter or anything.)

No, it doesn't have an MPEG-2 decoder. Who needs one nowdays when software decoding is so easy?
No, it doesn't have TV-out. It's meant to be a card used side-by-side with an All-in-Wonder which has the TV-out components.
The big deal is that it's cheap and handles American OTA standards.

Video Input and Output

[tronicum]

As long as there is not enough input (broadcasters) that provide HDTV stuff and suitable devices (HDTV TVs or video projectors) I would not invest a dime in HDTV.

As with DVD they will probably change the standard or remove and add some crappy copy protection. So if you buy stuff now you will regret within a short while...

Re:Video Input and Output

[paxcirca]

In my area (Lawrence, KS), CBS, NBC, and PBS all broadcast (over-the-air) HDTV programming. PBS (and perhaps the others) have more than one HDTV channel running simultaneously - in other words, they can broadcast more than one program in HDTV at the same time. In addition, the HDTV tier of my cable provider offers HDTV flavours of ABC, CBS, Discovery, ESPN, HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax. Also included are a generic HDTV programming channel and HDTV movie channel. At least in this huge metropolis of 90,000, the programming is here.

Re:Video Input and Output

[the eric conspiracy]

You are living a couple of years in the past. There are satellite TV services (Voom.com) that broadcast 30+ HDTV channels, and HDTVs aplenty in the stores. Copy protection has also been standardized.

About the only reason to delay purchasing now is that prices are dropping fairly rapidly. Intel has entered the HDTV silicon market and is expected to drive costs of LCOS sets down by $1000 over the next year.

Re:Video Input and Output

[Anonymous Coward]

You are living a couple of years in the past

Uhh welcome to 70% of the united states??

Re:Video Input and Output

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's not forget that a single broadcaster can send as many as 6 "subchannels". Most are not up to this number yet, but with 8 broadcasters near my home, I can get a total of about 20 total channels on HDTV - as soon as I get my stuff all set up :-( It's here, it good, and it's free. Why you want to pay for TV is beyond me.

Re:Video Input and Output

[Anonymous Coward]

..where about 10% of the population lives...

Re:Video Input and Output

[steve_bryan]

You are wrong in multiple dimensions. First there is a huge selection of HD content on the major networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and additional HD content on WBand UPN. Starting in the fall FOX will be upgrading from 480p widescreen to true HD. These HD programs are not available in every single market but they are no longer rare.

On the issue of copy protection the FCC has decreed support for the Broadcast Flag but no encryption of over the air (OTA) signals. Part of the directive demands backward compatibility. So although you may not have many or possibly any computer HD receivers, any that you already own should continue to work. Putting off the purchase will force you to the used market (eBay).

Re:Video Input and Output

[mlrtime]

Cool thanks for the update, I didn't know sunflower was pushing HDTV... (I don't live there anymore). They were always good at getting the latest technology. IIRC They had cable modem before a lot of other markets.

How is this news?

[eggsome]

Both of my flatmates allready have HDTV cards for watching TV. One of them is even running it with Linux (Nebula Digi-TV).

Re:How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because this is for the united states markets.

In europe you have good broadcasting standards. you have DVB-t, DVB-c, DVB-s. For satalite, terrestrial broadcasing and cable connections.

In the united states all we have is a hodgepodge of slightly differing mpeg encoding scemes used by different digital tv providers.

Why?

Because each and every company knows that it can make more money off of a ignorant public by MAKING SURE THAT ONLY THEIR HARDWARE WORKS WITH THEIR BROADCASTS.

Bunch of FUCKING ASSHOLES WHO SHOULD DIE.

No way or no how is my money EVER going to a digital cable provider. Analog all the way. I don't give a shit if I can only get 75 channels.

HDTV standard is only picking up steam nowaday because in a few years everybody who broadcasts via air waves will be required to use the same HDTV standard set out by the FCC.

Anyways, I wish I lived in the country. If you want best quality possible anywere in the world you need those big 8 foot hillbilly satalite dishes.

Pure analog signal with some digital stuff you have to subscribe to and use special equipment. But this way your using the same signals that your cable company uses.

Think about it. Take it from a satalite, get best quality possible, completely free, or damn cheap (except for the hardware).

Take it from a cable provider or those small digital satalite provider, you get second rate re-broadcasts of the original signal with mpeg compression on it even.

Now if you don't pay for the inferior quality signal your doing something illegal. Don't pay for the superior original broadcast signal you are perfectly legal (as long as you don't descramble encoded channels without a subscription (like HBO and such)).

Remember people threatened with lawsuites for buying card readers that COULD be used for pirating digital subscriber satalite signals, when the original signals DTS uses' are perfectly FREE to use. (or again with subscription to descramble scambled stations, which for the most part is still cheaper then paying for it thru cable companies or DTS-like companies. With a 3000-4000 dollar initial hardware investment.)

There is something seriously fucked up with american broadcast medium and this situation only exists because people are kept ignorant of the technology.

Video on PC - Re:Component inputs?

[SendBot]

I really want a decent means for connecting things like games consoles to my PC monitor. All the VGA boxes out there just give horrid blurry pictures because they double the scanlines of the picture.

With an inexpensive BT8xxx card and a decent linux box, you can use tvtime to watch beautifully scaled and deinterlaced video in realtime. I use it with my gamecube and it's absolutely fantastic!

What about Linux?

[fldvm]

High Def on a nice 23" Flat Panel...

Sure if you want to run windows...

I want My HD MythTV...

Re:What about Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Me Too!!!

Re:What about Linux?

[LazyBoy]

I want it too. But OTA and non-scrambled cable isn't good enough. I want something that can control my (next) HD cable box.

We need HD firewire support for MythTV. Supposedly, firewire output from cable boxes has been mandated for 4/1/04.

Re:What about Linux?

[hawkstone]

I have not tried it myself, but you should be able to use the pcHDTV card. It's an HDTV card designed specifically for linux. It won't solve the cable-box problem, but it does support the OTA broadcasts.

It has been supported to some degree in MythTV since October (v0.12), and with continued updates since then (v0.13, v0.14).

Re:What about Linux?

[fldvm]

To answer my own post: Linux for $200 http://pchdtv.com/hd_2000_right_down.html

Re:What about Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

yes and no encrypted firewire (5c)has - that may not be much use to you .... unless you can purloin some 5c keys from somewhere

Linux w/o New ATI card Windows with it.

[Anonymous Coward]

If it doesn't work with linux, then I don't give a shit one way or the other.

And like most of the All-in-Wonder cards, I doubt half the features will work correctly if at all.

Otherwise I would give up my ancient geforce2 card in a second, but for right now I have no reason to. My 19 inch monitor with my ATI wonder VE tv capture card works great for me right now.

Oh, BTW I use the Nintendo Game cube via the composite input on my ATI card. If you want to play games and get a useable picture get a decent program, like TVTIME. Most tv capture programs for windows that I've seen in stores looks like crap on a monitor, get something that does anti-aliasing properly. Thank god for Free software.

What we really need

[nonmaskable]

isn't this...it's a hdtv input card that can take component inputs.

Most HDTV uptake will come from HDTV over cable, with the decoding/descrambling done by the cable company box, which produces component outputs.

Then our MythTV boxes will be able to record HDTV!

Re:What we really need

[AGTiny]

You already can... it's called the Linux pcHDTV card. And no one will ever be able to make a card or other recording device with component inputs due to the copyright issues.

Re:What we really need

[Anonymous Coward]

You wish. As someone already noted, 1080i equals 120MB/s raw. No consumer computer can even accept this kind of stream into the system, let alone do any processing on it in real time. 720p is half that, so unless you have a really powerful machine, that too means no go.

Re:What we really need

[Anonymous Coward]

1280*720*60*16bits/(8bits/byte)=110MB. Forgot to multiply by 2 for bytes/pixel.

Re:What we really need

[dirty]

No they won't. No consumer pc on the market can handle recording an HDTV stream. Assuming a 4:2:2 image (12 bits per pixel) you're looking at almost 90MB/s of data. No hard drive can handle a datarate of anything near that. And the only hardware MPEG2 encoders that can handle HDTV are still way above what any consumer can afford. Honestly, I doubt you could even send that stream to your video card over the PCI bus. I think you'd either need the inputs to be right on the video card, or use a special, dedicated high bandwith bus from the capture card to your video card. And even then you would have no chance to process the signal at all, so all of your deinterlacing would have to be done on the video card.

I'm sure someday we'll be able to, but just look how long it took before we could digitally record SDTV. We need a lot more than a capture hard with HDTV capable component inputs.

Re:What we really need

[dirty]

Sorry about that 4:2:2 is 16 bits per pixel I believe, not 12, 4:2:0 (IIRC) is 12. So my earlier figure of just under 120MB/s would be right.

Re:What we really need

[nonmaskable]

My understanding is that TiVO has been showing a HDTV version of the TiVo around. I'm not into the scene enough to know what compromises went into it, but...

In addition, I think there are some folks who have the other OTA HDTV card working under Myth.

Re:What we really need

[LazyBoy]

As others have noted it's too much data for a PC & consumer affordable, real-time, HD-resolution MPEG encoding is a long way off.

What you need is a souce with firewire output. Firewire output has been "mandated" for cable boxes soon. The firewire stream is already mpeg compressed.

Re:What we really need

[LazyBoy]

There is a HD DirectTivo -- it works with an already-mpeg-compressed stream. There is a "standalone" HD Tivo that has been shown, but I don't think is planned for sale. It can handle OTA ATSC (also an already-mpeg-compressed stream).

There is no "standalone" HD Tivo with component inputs for the technical reasons described in the grandparent post.

Yes, OTA HDTV cards work under Myth. Again the key is working with the compressed data.

Re:What we really need

[Anonymous Coward]

Or better than component capture, a DVI capture card. Most of the set-tops have DVI outputs that show both the SDTV and HDTV channels from the single DVI.

Re:What we really need

[JKR]

A studio quality uncompressed HDTV stream (at least as per BBC R&D Kingswood Warren 10 years ago) was about 1.2 Gbit/s (I believe that's 1250 line 50 Hz interlaced). We used to fit two of them into an STM-16 over fibre for the studio optical routing project I was fortunate enough to work on, back in 1993. MPEG-2 was still being worked on back then, but wouldn't have been used for studio quality signalling anyway.

So, probably more like 150 MB/s (less for the US / Japan since they use 1080 lines). Now, MPEG-2 might get you 10-fold compression or better, but that requires a hardware codec.

Jon.

Re:What we really need

[WiKKeSH]

> No consumer pc on the market can handle recording an HDTV stream.

Well, how about the MyHD player? along with the many others that are based on the same chip?

> Assuming a 4:2:2 image (12 bits per pixel) you're looking at almost 90MB/s of data. No hard drive can handle a datarate of anything near that.

The compressed mpeg2 stream is saves as-is. the stream is somewhere along the lines of 15-20mbit.

Our current pcs can (and do) handle this perfectly fine.

Re:What we really need

[Anonymous Coward]

Most HDTV uptake will come from HDTV over cable, with the decoding/descrambling done by the cable company box, which produces component outputs.

This is changing. With the battles over copy protection, component interconnects may go away because it can't be protected. Copy protection pundits are pushing for digital so copy protection can be embedded in the carrier stream. Obviously this has reprocussions for older devices and why the battle still rages.

Re:What we really need

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you know there are allready cards out that will record HDTV. It's COMPRESSED you
dipshit. Your 90mb/sec figure goes nicely across the PC's bus. Compressed HDTV gets
up to about two megabytes/sec. Easy.

Re:What we really need

[Chris Pimlott]

Erm, that's assuming no compression. HDTV is broadcast using MPEG-2 compression (specifically designed with broadcast media in mind), and the US ATSC standard specifies two data rates of 19.4 for broadcast and 38.8 for cable applications. The more often used broadcast rate is well within the capability of modern hard drives and the higher cable rate should be doable by high end drives as well.

Re:What we really need

[Anonymous Coward]

Uncompressed video is what comes out of component outputs. Funneling the signal from component outputs into a PC is what the parent was fantasizing about. The digitized version of an analog high definition component signal would overwhelm all current consumer hardware.

Re:What we really need

[nvrrobx]

No, that still isn't the best thing to do.

If you could get an HDTV card with a QAM tuner, you can view HDTV broadcasts over cable. ATSC is used for over-the-air, QAM is the cable standard.

Most cable operators here in the US (including Comcast and TimeWarner) have promised NOT to re-encode the HD locals, so if you have a QAM tuner you can pull them right off your coax.

THEN you can just record the actual QAM stream! Basically do exactly what a DirecTiVo does. That wuold be the most efficient way to do it. Your PC just isn't fast enough to encode the video and audio in realtime.

Re:What we really need

[toastyman]

Oh, I guess this doesn't exist then. :)

I have one and it records a pretty decent picture from the component inputs. The included software doesn't work like a PVR, it looks to the system like a DV video camera. But any open PVR software could probably be adapted to take DV input if they don't already.

Re:What we really need

[dirty]

The original post was talking about component input for HD signals from a cable box. Component HD is uncompressed analog. You'd need a chip to recompress it to do anything useful with it. You probably could display it, but your system would be useless for just about anything else.

Re:What we really need

[Catbeller]

Maybe this, from the Register article "Maxtor champions 6 stream DVRs", will give you the data rate we need. It's designed to do so.

exerpt:

Dramatic crush
Existing TV formats require a stream of about 270 megabits per second or 34 megabytes per second, in raw video. MPEG or other compression crushes this down dramatically to around 675 kilobits per second or even less with the new H.264 codecs. Six such streams would require a disk-reading speed of only 4 megabits per second.

But if we consider HDTV, then suddenly the streams could be far larger: possibly 22 megabits a second for each stream after compression. Furthermore, roughly four times the speed would be required, because there are so many more bits to convey due to the 1080 by 1280 maximum pixel numbers per frame.

Six of these would add up to 132 megabits per second - child's play to a disk drive, as long as doesn't have to spend all of its time moving from one stream to another and ragging its heels with seek times and latency. Latency, btw, is the time spent looking up where the data is and waiting for the part of the disk it needs to come round to the actuator.

Actuate this
Maxtor this week completed tests on a device which had two separate ports. It's unclear if these were two actuators, but it sounds like it. These combined to yield I/O transfers of 3 gigabits per second. A hard drive delivering multiple video streams would need multiple reading heads (actuators) to optimize delivery and lower seek times and latency.

(C) Copyright 2004 Faultline

Re:What we really need

[HTH NE1]

From what I've read, the HD DirecTiVo has two tuners for DirecTV and two tuners for terrestrial HD signals. It is able to record broadcast HD digitally from the air.

But true, it has no raw HD input ports.

Re:What we really need

[dirty]

What you posted was in reference to compressed HDTV. The original post was talking about uncompressed HDTV, which is a much higher bitrate.

Re:What we really need

[Catbeller]

I posted the article to suggest that the hard drive throughput bottleneck might be on the verge of disappearing. 2 gigabits per second is getting there. With a bit more work, they can get full uncompressed hidef video pouring in and out of a harddrive array. As a matter of fact, video is the main reason they are creating drives with multiple R/W heads. The drives will exist soon that can deal with uncompressed video. And it occurs to me just now that a RAID array of these fat-pipe hard drives can meet the enormous needs of HDTV even faster than waiting for a single-drive multihead solution. 4 drives at 2Gb/s = 8Gb/s if you stripe the data; that could do it.

ATi TV cards are soon to become useless

[Anonymous Coward]

The messages are pouring out of web forums, broadcasters have discovered the "copyright" tag they can send out with their programs when they're delivered... and ATi very happily kow-tows to the signal and says "sorry, this program is copyrighted and cannot be recorded" (witness last week's Enterprise).

Pretty soon all this hardware will be worthless, since nothing will be recordable except your home movies.

Re:ATi TV cards are soon to become useless

[wibs]

Give it a week. I'm sure the same people who let you play your video games with some number found online will provide a way for you to watch Star Trek in the afternoon.

Re:ATi TV cards are soon to become useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Nadda,

MY mpeg encoder for our HD Transmitter is set to filter the broadcast flag. We don't retransmit that garbage!

Fair use in full effect.

Re:ATi TV cards are soon to become useless

[Darkangael]

What about those of us who just want to watch a little TV on our computers? My monitor is actually larger than my TV at the moment (and it's only 15", sad huh?).

HDTV's main expense is the screen last I heard, so if you can watch it on your computer screen you have saved a significant amount of money no?

Re:ATi TV cards are soon to become useless

[patternjuggler]

Pretty soon all this hardware will be worthless, since nothing will be recordable except your home movies.

No, you won't be able to make copies of your home movies for fear that you just pointed your camera at something that was copyrighted. You'll have to submit the video to a huge signal analysis farm that'll will check it against its database of registered copyrighted materials, and get back an approved copyable copy a few months after you shoot it.

Re:ATi TV cards are soon to become useless

[Anonymous Coward]

I downloaded last weeks enterprise--it was taken from a pvr based on the file size and qual...and it was full of commercials. What are you talking about?

Re:ATi TV cards are soon to become useless

[rsmith-mac]

Just out of curiosity, what feed was this? A normal OTA analog feed, a cable analog feed, a cable/DSS digital feed, or the HDTV feed?

VisionDTV HD

[Archon-X]

..got one of these the other day, looks sweet on my dual 19" LCD's :D

Lag? What lag?

[ClassicG]

I've been hooking up my game consoles to my monitor through my PC for years, and I've NEVER seen any kind of lag like you're describing. I'm not using anything fancy either - just an old PCI WinTV card and xawtv and now the awesome tvtime.

Probably won't launch in the UK...

[Space cowboy]

There's little-to-no HDTV over here. The only place I've seen it in fact is in post-production studios, where they'll use it as a master-format.... Pity :-(

Simon

Re:Probably won't launch in the UK...

[FrostedWheat]

No kidding. Even now most channels still don't broadcast in 16:9. I can't imagine HDTV starting here for maybe two or three more years. And that's being optimistic.

Besides, would you really want higher-definition reality TV? *shudder*

Re:Probably won't launch in the UK...

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK does actually put out more 16:9 material than USA as it stands, some of the minor channels are still behind but most of note are capable of anamorphic.

Re:Probably won't launch in the UK...

[D. Book]

You don't need the ATI card anyway. There's a UK-based outfit called Nebula Electronics who've been making HD-capable digital TV cards since late 2002, so you're all set for when HDTV broadcasts finally begin. The software is of reasonable quality and the support miles ahead of ATI. Here in Australia, where there's at least some HDTV broadcasts, we've been reaping the benefits of these (and competing DVB cards) for for quite some time now.

The ATI card wouldn't even work in the UK anyway, since it's based on the American ATSC standard. I'm not actually sure what all the hubbub over this card is about--Hauppauge already beat them to it. I guess ATI's size means they get the publicity by default.

In the UK you use the DVB standard, which is what much of the rest of the world has also settled on. This is the standard on which the Nebula and other cards are based.

No support for cable htdv most likely.

[psoriac]

Notice that there is no slot for inserting a flash card; unless it supports an external flash drive connected to the PC via USB or similar (doubtful) this means you will not be able to watch the majority of cable hdtv channels, since they are usually scrambled and require a flash card with the decryption information in the cable box.

Re:No support for cable htdv most likely.

[Wesley Felter]

There will probably never be PCI OpenCable tuner cards, because the OpenCable copy protection restrictions are so onerous. And CableCards aren't really flash cards although they are the same size/shape as PCMCIA.

This company has cards that support it.

[psoriac]

Couldn't find it earlier, but see also this page: http://www.twinhan.com/visiontv.htm for existing TV tuner cards that support hdtv including support for cable, satellite, and scrambled sources.

Unfortunately, these don't do 3d like the ATI. =)

Why is this news?

[AGTiny]

There have been PCI HDTV cards for years that receive OTA HD. Even a cheap one that only works in Linux!

Re:Why is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does everyone believe slashdot editors have a clue?

ooo

[mr_tommy]

What makes me think that various recording associations might have a little conern with ati releasing this "moins" any form of DRM....

Re:Linux w/o New ATI card Windows with it.

[dirty]

As much as I hate to rain on your Linux zealot parade, you do realize that TVTime uses the *DLLS* from dScaler, a Windows program, to provide the deinterlacing, right? Just because it's for Windows doesn't mean it's awful.

specs vs reality

[h2odragon]

have you tried pushing your monitor that hard? Best i can make an (admitedly slightly older) G500 21" do is 2000x1500 @ 77Hz; any higher and the pixels distort. What your graphics card can drive it at, without strange effects, is a different question as well: with a matrox g400 i use 10px fonts and stare at this screen all day long; with a nvidia card 12px fonts and 1600x1200 made my eyes melt.

Re:specs vs reality

[chez69]

my mitsubishi diamond pro (trinitron tube) monitor will do 1920 X 1440@74 hz and looks great, even with a matrox g400.

i love all the screen space!

Re:specs vs reality

[Anonymous Coward]

The matrox line of cards is the best sort of thing to use at righ resolution, actually.

Nobody else bothers to produce a high quality signal like matrox has. nVidia's signal sucks, and ATI is only marginally better. Those cards WILL distort at 1900+x

Re:specs vs reality

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey I got the same one (19" DP930-SB)! I think I should buy a matrox card for it...my ATI gets kinda blurry. BTW it's a diamondtron tube not trin. Trin uses 3 guns and diamondtron uses just 1.

Though...I wish I had that sony one listed on the parent post :) Course it costs tons.

Re:specs vs reality

[Anonymous Coward]

All RGB monitors use three guns. The difference between Trinitron and Diamondtron tubes is the pattern of subpixels. Trinitron uses vertical threads as aperture grill, resulting in side-by-side RGB sub-pixels. Diamondtron subpixels are arranged triagonally and the beams are separated by a shadow mask with corresponding holes.

Re:specs vs reality

[Anonymous Coward]

what cables are you on?
using the component inputs with good cables can help a lot especially at high resolutions and refresh rates...

Subject?

[Anonymous Coward]

On a 23" panel? Pfbt.

I prefer to watch the 13 HD channels I get via Time Warner on a 64" Pioneer Elite.

And UT2k4 is pretty awesome on it too!

Re:Linux w/o New ATI card Windows with it.

[dirty]

In that case why bother mentioning the operating system at all? The oringal post was giving the impression that tvtime did something on linux that was not possible on windows. That is not true. dScaler was doing it on windows first, and a lot of other projects use dScaler to handle deinterlacing. And with good cause, dScaler is an amazing program, if you have the CPU power to throw at it.

What's so great about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this card better than something like Hauppauge's WinTV-HD? At least the Hauppauge has component outputs standard. I'm guessing it's the price as the Hauppauge isn't cheap. BTW, there's a few more HDTV cards available at places like The Digital Connection.

Re:What's so great about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

copperbox.com has been selling the Fusion3 for two weeks. digitalconnection.com just lists 2/27 as an ETA.

Re:What's so great about this?

[uncoveror]

I bought the MIT MyHD MDP-100 form them. It rocks! Since then, the MDP-120 has come out. I doubt that ATI would be able to top it, but they may be able to make enough of them that Best Buy and CompUSA will have them in stock. That would be a good thing.

Re:What's so great about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

ATI 9600(or better) All-In-Wonder Pro, with which the card is meant to be used, has every output you could ever need. I wouldn't buy this without one.

Re:Linux w/o New ATI card Windows with it.

[Anonymous Coward]

He does make a valid point about free software, though. DScaler being free software is the very reason for TVTime's quality, and I am not aware of a commercial/proprietary software solution which provides better results. After years of inacceptable interlaced and badly deinterlaced video on computer monitors it took a free software project to deliver high quality deinterlaced video.

Re:Linux w/o New ATI card Windows with it.

[dirty]

I agree 100% with that point. I just felt that he was giving the impression that TVTime had abilities which were not found on Windows.

Mirror for when site goes down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mirror for the site.

No component input ?

[dindi]

Come on ... They did not put a damn Component input on that thing ?

I mean who cares about TV ? But my xbox and playstation2 in the office .... and dvd player .... and other gizmos like a dish receiver ?

I dunno I like the idea, but no component input no money from my pocket wondering into ATI's pocket :(

IT WON'T DECODE

[Anonymous Coward]

IT WON'T DECODE the mpeg stream.

The simple reason is that it would yeald way to much data. the 1920x1080i@ would give about 177MIB/s raw data rate (without sound). A standard PCI bus handles maximim 133MiB/s.

The card seem to have 64bit PCI support though which should make it possible to use RAW video if the harddrives or CPU can handle it.

Re:Linux w/o New ATI card Windows with it.

[Anonymous Coward]

The point of the original post is that unless it doesn't work with Linux I am not interested.

The "AND BTW" section means that I have moved onto a different thought, that's all.

just some extra FYI. Sorry to cause any missunderstanding.

I am a free software Zealot, not a Linux zealat, however since Linux is free as windows is not.
Then I like Linux more then windows. :) However if you choose to use windows for whatever reason, it's not going to affect how I veiw you as a human being. But maybe question your taste in operating systems, that's all. :P

My original point was this:

If it doesn't work with Linux, I am not going to switch to Windows to make it work. Unless it has good linux support I could care less what it's capabilities or features are.

Boring...

[bayankaran]

What a boring post! Not even one funny comment.

Digital cable reception possible?

[mmmbeer]

There are already a number of cards available which can receive ATSC HDTV broadcasts (which require an additional antenna) in addition to analog cable and broadcast. The nice step up here is the use of their own NXT2004 chip, which provides a QAM demodulator.

I've been looking for years now for a tuner card which will allow me to watch Time Warner's Digital Cable here in Tampa. Step one is getting a demodulator which can sync to the QAM-256 signal. Tne next big hurdle is determining if my cable provider uses a proprietary mechanism on top of that to encapsulate their streams. There are no standards here as far as I can find, just commonly used implementations.

A cable comes into my apartment with 50+ digital channels, including the networks in HDTV. I've got a cable box that decodes it without having to put up an aerial... why can't I have a card in my computer that does the same thing? This card could end up being just another useless ATSC tuner card.

Re:Digital cable reception possible?

[papasui]

Digital cable boxes are authorized by the MSO. So even if you have one or manage to get a pc card that can work with it you still need to get them to enter it into their system. Pretty unlikely.

Re:Digital cable reception possible?

[Wesley Felter]

I've got a cable box that decodes it without having to put up an aerial... why can't I have a card in my computer that does the same thing?

Because your computer doesn't have enough DRM.

Why?

[holizz]

I have a little 13" TV and I get terrible reception half the time (the rest of the time I get okay reception) and it's great. Why anybody would want anything bigger is completely beyond me...

ATIMMC is a buggy piece of crap

[sam_handelman]

I have one of ATI's older graphics cards (the first or second generation of their "All in Wonder" line) - but the latest version of their software.

And it is buggy, still. Their drivers are much better now, but in the begining they were dreadful.

I'm still quite pleased with my setup - in a one room apartment the TV/computer combination saves a lot of space, and I can surf the net during commercials. In spite of the problems, I recommend buying one to anyone who asks. However, every three days or so ATIMMC (the process that actually plays the TV) forces me to do a hard reset.

A lot of the problem is with win32, of course, which enters a non-responsive state when I try to kill the ATIMMC process (I don't do any actual work in a windows environment so my technical knowledge is somewhat limited - but if it walks like a kernel panic, and if it quacks like a kernel panic...). If I were still running win16 I would hardly notice something that took three whole days to crash my computer.

Also - the early versions of their product hardly ever worked in beige boxen. It was wildly incomptabible with a large spectrum of commodity hardware (I've been told their newer cards have this problem to a lesser extent.) I mention this because I went through a lot of grief over it - but now adays building your own machine isn't worth the $50 you save anyway.

So - while I'm really pleased with their product in spite of the flaws - I wouldn't recommend being a beta tester for the HDTV card, especially given the slow rollout of HDTV. Give ATI a year or two to iron out the flaws, and let HDTV acquire a little penetration, before bothering to buy. That's what I plan to do.

Re:ATIMMC is a buggy piece of crap

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably have one of the first gen cards. I had one of these too. I also upgraded it to a "newer" one many years ago. I can assure you that they have improved. I have a tv-puter which simply acts as a TV/dvd player at the moment. It rarely crashes. It's pretty old too.

It doesn't like remote assitance (I was too lazy to use the keyboard) and a few other operations, but that's expected... :)

Re:ATIMMC is a buggy piece of crap

[UrGeek]

What? You have a Windows system and you only need to reboot every three days? Duuuude, count your LUCKY!!! I reboot at LEAST three times a DAY!

Re:ATIMMC is a buggy piece of crap

[Pantheraleo2k3]

What do you have installed? After being on for about 48 to 72 hours straight, my XP Pro box starts to slow down. For best results I reboot every 24 hours

Re:ATIMMC is a buggy piece of crap

[UrGeek]

A whole bunch of stuff! But you prove my point - Windows must be rebooted often - at least once a daily, for your XP. BTW, I am using W2K Pro. But troubleshooting is well beyond the scope of this thread.

Re:ATIMMC is a buggy piece of crap

[reve]

I'd like to take a moment here to second that emotion.

I borrowed a TV-Wonder PCI from work. I have an nVidia graphics card. Any time MMC is launched, it stops and tells me I don't have the latest raedon drivers installed, telling me to click OK to continue. Well no shit, considering I don't have a radeon. ATI's kb says this is a known issue that doesn't affect one's TV watching experience.

That is true. HOWEVER, any time the ATI scheduler goes to record a program, it launches MMC. But then the "you don't have the radeon drivers" message pops up, and because there's no one there to hit OK the program doesn't get recorded.

Making the tv wonder a useless POS.

ATI bastards.

for a notebook..

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.usbhdtv.com/ is a better choice.

No component in + No Linux support = why bother?

[otis wildflower]

I recognize that the entertainment industry is standing in the way of a component HD input card (and the cable/satellite companies are standing in the way of a direct-digital in, even if you put in an encryption smartcard handler), but that still doesn't mean that I care about getting HD over the air...

(Frankly, why else get HD except for sports which I don't watch, bowdlerized upconverted movies and Discovery HD which isn't OTA?)

Wake me when I can get HD digital satellite on a PCI capture card in Linux, and at least 768k DSL for less than $90/mo so I can tell Time Warner to eat ass.

(and yes, I'm prepared for a long nap :p)

pchdtv card

[sdibb]

Nobody's probably going to see this since I posted it so late, but this was brought up at our last LUG meeting -- it's a PCI HD TV card made especially for Linux. All the drivers are open-source, etc, etc. Check it out: http://www.pchdtv.com/

Waiting for a PC based HD recording system

[sdo1]

Although I was psyched about the pending release of High Definition TiVo, I must say that at a kilo-buck, it's a bit too expensive to be able to record the (limited) HD content that's out there. I already have a standard DirecTV/TiVo system along with a separate High Definition DirecTV/terresterial receiver.

I'm thinking the best solution for my "need to record HD" dilema might be to just get a HD capable PC. I know there are solutions out there now, but the ATI board might be a cost effective way to go. I realize that the only way I'm going to record DirecTV HD content is with the HD-TiVo, but to be honest the best content (save for Sunday Night Football) comes in over the air.

Plus, I like the idea of having a PC in my living room entertainment center. If I want to use the computer out there now, I have to drag out my laptop. The Gateway media center PC line has me interested. Not so much because of the media center aspect of it, but because they've designed it to look like the other components in a home theater rack. I've gone the DIY route before and the a) the thing still looked like a PC and b) the video recording technology wasn't quite there yet, and c) it was getting exceedingly expensive to make it quiet enough for the living room. A media center PC married up with an HD receiver card might get me where I want to go...

Though chances are I'll just cave and buy the HD-TiVo...

-S

Re:Waiting for a PC based HD recording system

[Pantheraleo2k3]

Try AccessDTV It pipes the HDTV stream right onto the VGA stream but you can record (1GB/hour) and take screenshots. It was reviewed by How Stuff Works

Flat Panel?

[SphericalCrusher]

Sorry if I sound like a flame bait, but why Flat Panel? Unless of course that does not mean LCD...

If you're going to go all out with a card like that for the reason it's used for, then you're going to need a more powerful monitor. Yes, you're going to need a CRT monitor. I'm sure a lot of Apple fans will flame me now for saying that, because of Apple's lovely LCD, but it's true. I love Apple though, but it would make me love them more if they started selling beautiful CRT monitors with their PowerPCs.

For this reason, CRT monitors have always had a higher refresh rate than that of the LCD monitor. Oh sure, 40 Frames per Second (FPS) higher than another monitor means nothing if you can save space, right? Wrong. Even the Macs I use at the studio seem to skip a little bit every now and then when I import and edit video, or do something that uses a lot of RAM. Yeah, it has a gig of RAM and an awesome video card, but it sucks that the monitor can only refresh with 60 frames per second with a $500 video card.

I still find it quite hilarious how all LCDs seem to lack behind when playing Quake 3 still.

Re:Flat Panel?

[Krojack]

I agree.. I think CRTs still have a much better picture. It seems that LCD's just don't have that small dot pitch yet like CRT's do.

Re:Linux w/o New ATI card Windows with it.

[AMystery]

Why are you using my computer? I have a Geforce 2 Pro, ATI TV Wonder VE and a 19 incher. However, my experience hasn't been as positive, I've had a horrible time getting the bttv chipset working nicely in linux. In fact only once have I gotten full screen video, normally it won't scale beyond a 4x6 box. I got the full screen when I went to a 2.6 kernel but when I recompiled to fix something else it was gone again. It was just taunting me.
I really want to upgrade all of those components, the geforce 2 to something newer, I haven't decided between nvidia and ati yet, the tv card to that great card I heardabout but can't remember right now, something 350, and the monitor to an LCD. I would finally be able to see my desk again, and have more places to pile papers!
However, linux support is a big issue. If it won't work in linux with a minimum of hacking then I'm not interested, except perhaps to write the company and inform them I will not be purchasing their product as it seems defective.
Ok, back to searching for food. cookies for breakfast just isn't doing it for me today.

Linux compatibility?

[pyite69]

I hope this isn't another one of those Windows-only stories.

Re:Linux w/o New ATI card Windows with it.

[Anonymous Coward]

"And like most of the All-in-Wonder cards, I doubt half the features will work correctly if at all."

Your quite right, I'd be happy if they'd just fix previous versions of All-in-Wonder. Lockups, blank screens, sound card interface problems etc. ATI-MMC is the only application I have installed on this Windows box that forces me to reboot about every 14 days if I want to use it because it locks up and refuses to run.

fraud

[treat]

It is fraudulent to advertise this thing as an HDTV card without a huge warning that it is only an HDTV tuner and requires a huge external antenna, and does not accept component or DVI inputs.

Only a small portion of people live in an area where HDTV signals can be received with an antenna. Even fewer people already have the antenna.

Why don't they just give us component inputs?

Re:fraud

[Krojack]

Maybe I'm reading this wrong.. But the website says:

Complete Multifunction Tuning:

* HDTV WONDER will function as both a HDTV tuner and an analog tuner

Re:fraud

[-tji]

Not exactly...

In most areas, the digital TV stations are on the less used UHF band of the spectrum. UHF antennas are relatively small.

One of the most popular HDTV antennas is the tiny Silver Sensor. It's resold by Zenith and Terk at Sears, Best Buy, etc.

The last estimate I saw for HD availability was that around 95% of US citizens were able to receive HDTV. I receive no less than 20 digital tv broadcasts where I live. Even my parents, out in the middle of nowhere, receive 6 - including all the majors.

Re:fraud

[steve_bryan]

You talk about DVI input and then call someone else fraudulent? Please line up and buy a clue. Almost the entire point of DVI is to prevent people from reading the digital signal. The only components with DVI in are monitors. They are adding HDCP in order to make it even more certain that only monitors ever see a signal from DVI.

On the issue of HDTV signals from an antenna you seem equally unacquainted with the facts. Around 99 % of the US population has the ability to receive digital TV signals with an antenna and some large fraction of those can receive HDTV. All the major networks and some of the minor ones are delivering HDTV content. With FOX upgrading to HDTV this fall the HD rollout will be complete. Then it is just a matter of time for the remaining lagards to catch up.

Many people seem to be at a loss to understand that they can view many (most) HD programs of interest using an antenna and not paying a cent to some company for the privilege. It is important for someone to point out that with the transition from NTSC to ATSC in the US the fact is that the absolutely best quality signal for video fidelity is now available for free using a receiver and antenna. Better than laserdisc, DVD, standard "digital cable", standard "digital satellite". If paying that absurd monthly bill makes you happy go ahead. But don't pretend there is anyting fraudulent about HDTV delivered for free by local stations.

Re:Linux w/o New ATI card Windows with it.

[Zzootnik]

Hey-- I feel compelled to respond as I have the exact same hardware setup you quoted and am in the same position...with one exception... I yoinked out that dang ATI card a long time ago. From what I know, those VE cards were basically castrated from the get-go by ati so they only support piddling little resolutions, and their quality control in hardware (Piss-poor) was only surpassed by their evilly inadequate Drivers and support software (MMC). I can't bring myself to use that card at all anymore, as I don't like hard-locking my computer that often. (Under several OSs I've tried)
And Yes- From what I've heard, most bttv cards are not that much of a PITA to set up in linux, and they run fairly stably... Just not Ati's stuff. SO- I basically decided not to touch any of their stuff again. Too much hassle.
(And what's wrong with cookies for breakfast???)

What this card needs is a firewire port

[doormat]

So it can receive HD over firewire.

No mention of copy protection on the recorded content...

ATi TV cards are soon to become useless-Binary.

[Anonymous Coward]

"and ATi very happily kow-tows to the signal and says "sorry, this program is copyrighted and cannot be recorded" (witness last week's Enterprise)."

Binary drivers make this easy. Nvidia's Window's drivers disable the composite out for DVD's like Disneys.

"Pretty soon all this hardware will be worthless, since nothing will be recordable except your home movies."

Porn will still be recordable in all it's HDTV glory.

Re:ATi TV cards are soon to become useless-Binary.

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to break out the debugger and fix this "bug" in their drivers.

Digital TV in Europe

[CMBologna]

What is the situation in Europe about digital TV transmission? I've heard in Italy there is a thing called 'digitale terrestre', is this card capable of receving such a signal?

Re:Digital TV in Europe

[jjj]

In Europe, mostly the DVB-Standard is used to transmit digital TV.

DVB-S over Satellite,
DVB-C over Cable,
DVB-T for terrestrial reception.

All three variations of the DVB-Standard can also transmit High Definition video, e.g. there is an HD channel broadcasting via the Astra satellite system on 19.2East called Euro1080 http://www.euro1080.tv.

Some cable networks use proprietary encryption, but the basic transmission usually occurs via DVB in MPEG.

In Australia, HDTV is available over DVB-T terrestrially.

I don't know about the exact situation in Italy, but DVB-T has been rolled out extensively in the UK and I heard also in Scandinavia. Rollout has started in Germany with Berlin, some trials exist in Austria.

Regarding this card:
No, it will not be able to receive European digital broadcasts, as it uses the American ATSC Standard that uses other modulation, even though also MPEG2 is broadcast.

But there are DVB-T PCI cards available, they cost just a bit more than the cheap DVB-S cards (starting at EUR 60) - around EUR 90, but they also do not have a hardware MPEG decoder chip on board but offload that to the CPU or graphics card like the card mentioned here.

Digital-TV in Europe is mostly driven by the Pay-TV companies in each country with the UK and France having the most successful adoption rate - no wonder as old analog terrestrial TV offered only 4-5 channels of stuff people did not want to see (not implying that the now 500 channels piping out lots of crap are better qualitywise ;-)

Best regards
jjj

Re:Digital TV in Europe

[CMBologna]

I made a quick search and it seems that in Italy 'digitale terrestre' is DVB-T. This link is a White Book for the service in Italy, and is in italian if anyone is interrested.

Late to market

[Anonymous Coward]

A Korean company named DVICO has been working on a QAM HDTV card for a while. They
have released two cards allready, the fusion I and II, which supported over the air HDTV. The
Fusion III just came out last week, I think. It has the hardware capabilities of tuning that holy
grail QAM 256, as well as OTA.

www.dvico.com - manufacturer
www.copperbox.com - retailer

Re:Late To Market

[Snover]

I wish you hadn't posted this as AC so I could ask you mroe questions if you've got that card. I myself went and spent twice as much for a Hauppauge HDTV tuner card that I ended up returning (horrid technical support, buggy software, and it didn't tune my digital cable). So, can you CONFIRM that this will tune digital cable?

Re:Late To Market

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, the DVICO Fusion III page seems to say it decodes test QAM in Seoul, but not on the ground in the good ol' US of A.

Nasty furriners, influenced by Old Europe weasels no doubt, have all taken OTA 8VSB HDTV signals and (gasp!) stuck them verbatim on cable systems. Well, that's no fun. Where's the challenge? Not to mention the serious danger of multipath while traversing the cable... ;-)

The Enlightened Ones in our bastion of democracy have decreed 256-QAM (or maybe Rep. Qualcomm was peevish that day), which is already how Kable giants deliver 4 channels worth of sports motion artifacts on one analog channel with "digital" cable. One supposes they carefully dissemble, er, disassemble OTA 8VSB into some kind of all I-frame stream and then back into 256-QAM. What's better than a lossy compression scheme? You got it, two lossy compression schemes! Oh, and that's an extra $10/mo. for HDTV, thank you. Holy Grail?? One shudders to learn what 2nd prize is.

BTW, the funky 3-terminal linear regulator on this low-profile card -- and soldered to the tuner can as a heat sink -- is a real hoot. And helpful, too, in cold climates so that the tuner shaft won't be hard to turn from detent to detent. You can't cook eggs on it and it won't melt itself loose, but the can gets, um, Wendy's coffee warm.

Late To Market

[Anonymous Coward]

ATI is by no means the first to produce a card like this. There has been a PCI HDTV card on
the market for over a year, produced by DVICO. Unlike most cards on the market, that keep the
HDTV stream off the bus, and overlay the video directly onto the vga signal and you don't get to
capture it at all, This card dumps the raw mpeg2 out to you. It will tune over the air HDTV as well
as the HDTV you will get on cable.

The Fusion III just came out last week, I think. It has the hardware capabilities of tuning that holy
grail cable QAM 256, as well as over the air. And you get to play with the raw hdtv data,
and process it however.

www.dvico.com - manufacturer
www.copperbox.com - retailer

200 Channels of High Definition CRAP...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every day I watch less and less TV. At one time I was excited about HDTV. But now I could care less. The content that is being delivered by the media outlets gets poorer by the day. Reality TV? Pro Sports? MTV? Talk shows? Soma for the masses. Numbs my brain.

The last thing I want to see is Andy Rooney, Michael Jackson, Queer Eye, or Oprah in high-definition.

And just for fun let me throw in a few of the predictable rants...
1) If it doesn't work on Linux it sucks.
2) If I could only get old Star Trek episodes in high-definition.
3) Can I get porn in high-definition?

Save your money and your brain...

Re:200 Channels of High Definition CRAP...

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny you should ask. Yes, you can get p0rn0 in High def. Both Voom and I believe DirecTV are offering it.

Re:200 Channels of High Definition CRAP...

[Anonymous Coward]

The terrestrial signals often include subchannels with weather, etc., which is convenient. Even analog feed looks pretty good. This may be a problem for cable operators and jaded viewers tired of premium channels.

A 1080i HDTV picture makes it clear that tight shots are going to require some advances in make-up and that sets will need much better fit and finish. Cars will have to be washed, etc.

1) Linux support is going to be a problem due to proprietary considerations (apparently, getting sued by IP vultures who find actionable h/w features via driver source).
2) See above. The canvas rocks will look even cheesier, and there's a limit to what restoration can do.
3) ENG-size HDTV portacams seem to rent for $1500-2000 per day. Min. several days. Maybe $5-10K/day for enough gear for amateur productions (single camera), and porn's good for a quick return on that rate. Makeup costs might be significant for group full body shots, but these could be fuzzed with socks or vaselene, and the thick applications saved for tight shots. Standard helper tricks like transparent tape are going to stand out in a really gross way. Continuity problems are going to be worse.

Re:What this card needs is a firewire port

[Wesley Felter]

If you want Firewire you're much better off buying a $20 Firewire PCI card than this much more expensive ATI card.

Ditto

[antdude]

The PVR software is buggy and limited like a true hardware PVR. For example, how come I can't schedule TV-On-Demand shows? I want to be able to watch, pause, rewind, etc. on scheduled recordings. Using non-default recording presets crashes MMC.exe!

The best PVR software so far is Snapstream's SeeBeyond, but it still has limited features for my needs. For example, no captioning like ATI's VCR format since I am partially deaf.

Re:No component in + No Linux support = why bother

[Wesley Felter]

I recognize that the entertainment industry is standing in the way of a component HD input card...

Take off the tinfoil hat. A component input card would cost $1000 in volume. Are you willing to pay that? Didn't think so. (And if you really want it, just buy a component->HD-SDI converter and an HD-SDI card.)

Source?

[ahecht]

I managed to download an HDTV version of Hatchery this past week. What was wrong with it? What web forums are you referring to?

Any hope for macintosh support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody think ATI will port this card over to mac os x? My HD Cinema display is waiting...

What about drm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there any digital restrictions management in the hardware?

Re:What this card needs is a firewire port

[doormat]

You need 5C enabled firewire ports and software to capture transport streams... thats not included in your standard PCI firewire card.

Re:How is this news? Fusion, MyHD, other cards

[Anonymous Coward]

ATI combines HD with graphics card, about only "news" there. Agree main concern is ATI's commitment and support, also Linux drivers.

HDTV PCI cards available, cheap ($300 or so w/MPEG-2 decode; $190 or so w/o). Many require the MS OS, however. All part numbers on the Fusion units are standard, not license plates, so alternate drivers and s/w possible for some (perhaps desirable given perf. of standard).

From South County RI, I can get the sole Providence HDTV station gangbusters. WPRI-HD (CH. 13) pins the meter on signal checker app. Since HDTV is digital, aiming an antenna is a PITA w/o signal strength indicator.

WCVB-DT in Boston (Ch. 20, xmtr. in Needham, 55 mi. away, 200KW, 1MW ERP if it's turned up to 11) lingers just 5dB below reception level most of the time and is frequently receivable. A couple of times, WBZ-DT (Ch. 30 - lives normally down 12dB) has been viewable.

This reception is with four tinfoil bow ties mechanically wrapped around magnet wire feeders that're soldered to cheap poly twin lead. They're not even phased right. Antenna is propped next to an upstairs window. For Boston, I just prop a metal half-screen from the window behind the antenna. Not some 3-meter parabola stuck halfway up Mt. Altitudino.

The HDTV can be recorded directly to HDD in "transport stream" (.ts) format at about 8.5 Gigabytes/hr. This includes all subchannels, audio, overlays, mind control signals, etc. Utility apps. can convert this to manageable lower-res. MPEG-2 form if desired.

http://www.dvico.com/products_mul_hd3.html
has one of the MS OS-only cards. demo s/w and content.

HDTV off the air looks great on $$$ HD monitors.

But looks awful good in s/w decode at 1024x576 or 1280x720 using the existing computer monitor we all have and one of these cards. The sound is much better. The picture is crystal clear versus grainy analog.

Note, HDTV content not yet prevalent. It's like the '60s and color: sparse matrix. But even the analog signal looks great via HD transmission (versus the same via the analog channel).

A great alternative to those $2K or $4K HDTVs until volume drags their price down. Can someone explain the TI micromirror projection HDTVs -- why exactly so expensive? A motor, light bulb, a color wheel, some mirrors/optics, one micromirror chip, a box and the equivalent of one of these cards is...$4K??

Re:How is this news? Fusion, MyHD, other cards

[queequeg1]

If you're wondering about the DLP units that use TI components, I believe it's because TI is the only company that makes the main components for this type of set. Monopoly power is a bitch when the tech is really good. I also seem to recall having read something about Intel developing competing tech which is supposed to drastically reduce the cost of DLP sets within the next year or so.

All in Wonder, great card, PVR sucks

[Yo Grark]

And before you go about telling me about myHTPC there is one serious thing lacking

"SEASON PASS"

Why can't I find a decent PVR software that lets me use my All in Wonder, and has a season pass feature?

IS THIS TOO MUCH TO ASK????

Oh and if anyone has suggestions, PLEASE let me know what else is out there, SageTV, MyHTPC, TVHolic all have been tested and were not ready for prime time.

Please help!

Yo Grark

There's one thing....

[Anonymous Coward]

The HDTV Wonder is the first computer PVR device that can tune/record Digital Cable (QAM 64 & 256). Even supports the interactive menu stuff..

ATI and Microsoft

[tintruder]

It's great a big manufacturer seems to be getting serious about Digital TV.

In this case, as previous posts have stated, there is little "new" here that other smaller vendors haven't offered for years. In fact, the "core" Nxt2004 chipset is over 2 years old.

ATI has serious credibility problems with end-users, and while the Catalyst guys have made huge improvement, and the hardware is usually good, the Multimedia side is hampered with poor user support, leadership problems and serious internal dissent concerning the future direction of development.

ATI is beyond 2 years late in releasing support for Microsoft's XP-MCE version of Windows. Part of this is a resistance to MCE because such would reduce the prominence and importance of ATIs own MMC.

Do you support MS and become little more than glorified driver writers enslaved to MCE parameters? Or do you stick to your own app (MMC) and try to beat MS, risking becoming the next Netscape or WordPerfect? Or do you try to strike a balance between the two?

Evidence will show that even though some work has been done, ATI has been shirking the MCE support, but trying to make it look like they aren't. Users who read press reports stating MCE is supported have plunked down a lot of money for AIW9600/9800 that don't work with MCE, whether as upgrade to OEM boxes, or as MSDN development machines.

This is a huge issue at MCE Hobbyist sites. Last fall ATI stated they would be supporting MCE on AIW cards. So far, the only "support" is via leaked versions of a modified Dell driver.

ATI has censored websites referencing this driver, threatening webmasters with termination of advertising, legal action and the usual "we ain't gonna talk to you any more"

Other vendors have released a parade of WHQL drivers for MCE publically, even for cards meant for OEM-only, not retail. ATI alone refuses.

At all of the MCE sites, there are numerous threads of irate users castigating ATI and defecting to the likes of Avermedia and Hauppague who DO support the users, no questions asked.

Even their hardware card which is stated as OEM-only, has found only one small integrator as a customer, and examples are leaking out as grey-market retail and on ebay.

I'm not going to challenge the open-source alternatives, or the superb alternatives like Snapstream or Sage, as they are somewhat independent of the following:

ATI seems to be spending a LOT of energy on ATI-only solutions (their MMC app) as opposed to supporting the MASS RETAIL future of HTPCs which is MCE/Symphony.

For instance, there will be MCE Extenders, but ATI is working on their MMC Easyshare which allows an ATI-equipped "server" to stream video th an ATI-equipped client. No other brands interoperate. Pretty limiting.

If most of the features being pursued as MMC components will soon be core components of future Windows, one must wonder why ATI is reinventing the wheel.

ATI seems to easily forget that one pissed-off customer has more impact than 100 satisfied customers, and the legions of pissed-off MCE users have proven that is true. ATI's arrogance has benefitted their competitors with hundreds or even thousands of sales that could have been ATI revenue.

So in summation, unless ATI decides upon a HTPC strategy that is based upon industry standards rather than internal wishes and fairy dust, and unless ATI starts taking better care of their most influential retail customers, they will not succeed in this arena on the basis of sheer marketing dollars alone....buyers are smarter than that.

ATI please insure your HDTV offerings are accompanied by stunning apps and superb support, or step aside and just sell chipsets to vendors who have and will.

ATI & HDTV

[SpookyMark]

I just want to drop my two cents in, I think that ATI needs to first hire some good programmers to get their drivers written correctly before they get into the HDTV market. Their bad drivers is what forced me to switch from Radeon to GeForce (even though I had the first Radeon AIW card when they first came out), almost anyone I speak with has some type of a problem with the Catalyst drivers. So if they are having problems with drivers for their main line of cards how can they make a good HDTV card & charge ALOT of money for it?