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ATi HDTV Tuner For The PC Arrives
Chi-Energy writes "ATi has released their new HDTV Tuner card for the PC today, which allows
High Def broadcasts and cable content to be displayed on any PC monitor. It should be
is especially impressive on some of the new fast response time flat panels that
are on the market today.
HotHardware has a full review and showcase of the product here. The
good news is, with the supplied antenna, you can just grab local HDTV
programming right out of the air for free!"
FWIW...
Extreme Tech HDTV review (7 out of 10)
*shrug*
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
1990 - Screen shots
1995 - VHS capture
1998 - Digital cable/digital satellite capture
2000 - DVD capture
2004 - HDTV capture coming soon to a bittorrent stream near you!!!
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
It drives me nuts that people keep spending R&D money on Over-the-air tuner cards for HDTV. THere are plenty of these out there, and they all stink.
What we NEED, and I mean REALLY NEED, is the ability to get HDTV from sources we int he real world actually USE (cable and sattelite) into our boxes. Right now there is no way to do this without an insanely expensive Component encoder card.
AT BEST, with your HDTV OTA card you will get marginal quality from a handful of HDTV channels. With satellite or cable you will get dozens of absolutely pure channels - and you can't get them into your PVR.
GRrrrr.
Here's all the dirt on HDTV. Read and enjoy :)
Put this one under the "Wait till it is damned near free" file.
HDTV is great, but when are the networks gonna start restructuring and grab ahold, instead of a few premium cable channels and the occasional "First to bring you HDTV - watch the news at 6!" Super bowl is awesome in HDTV, but I watch Speed Vision more than NFL.
Just like gaming consoles, HDTV lands in territory where the hardware is nifty, but until there's better software, youre screwed. Here's hoping there's light at the end of the tunnel.
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
1/2 hour show per DVD?
The good news is, with the supplied antenna, you can just grab local HDTV programming right out of the air for free!
Getting TV with an antenna? For free? Well, that sure would be nice, but I can't imagine it happening in my lifetime.
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uh actually, unless I misread the review... currently you have to use an ati product adjacent to the hdtv tv wonder...
they'll be adding generic gul in later driver software revisions... supposedly...
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Unfortunately, due to the new PPFB(Perpetual Profits for Broadcasters) Act of 2004, you can't actually watch any of the programming without paying a weekly license fee and providing a DNA sample to ease future prosecutions.
What resolution would my monitor or projector have to be so that I could watch HDTV at its full resolution without having to downsample? This is more of a HDTV in general question than an ATI-specific one.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
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ATI's goal is to offer a complete HDTV solution for an MSRP of $199. The package will include the HDTV Wonder, a Remote Wonder and a yet to be determined antenna. Throw in a potent Multimedia Center 9 and you have the makings for a sweet HDTV experience. To get the full experience of the card, users will need to use it in conjunction with an ATI graphics card to take advantage of such features as ThruView and Video Desktop, but the card will work with other DirectX 9 compatible OEM products otherwise.
Too bad MythPC's track record for supporting ATI hardware hasn't been the greatest. If your on the windows side of the fence I suggest looking at Media Portal. Its fairly new to the HTPC scene but looks promising and works with just about any card.
Being a Radeon 7500 All in Wonder user I'm very happy to see the HDTV Wonder as a PCI card. I was sure when I bought my AGP 7500 AIW it was going to be the last card I would need in a very long time.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
"you can just grab local HDTV programming right out of the air for free!"
Just like we've been able to do with HDTV for years now!
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
- it is crapped by some stupid user interface some marketing guy or even a nerd at ATI though was really cool, but makes the viewer application look like a boombox on steroids.
Any word on Linux support? (GATOS gonna pick this one up as a project maybe? Probably too early to tell....)
Anyways, I read somewhere that HDTV antennas are just regular TV antennas (so don't need a "special" HDTV antenna), just thought I'd throw that out at everyone.
What we NEED, and I mean REALLY NEED, is the ability to get HDTV from sources we in the real world actually USE (cable and sattelite)<snip>
That is what you get. The ATI comes with a tuner that not only supports OTA but also QAM so you can plug your local cable company's line into the card and get a signal. Now, that doesn't get you the encrypted stuff (ESPNHD, HBO), you will need a box for that, but will get you locals. That is the case for Cox Cable here in Omaha, NE.
AT BEST, with your HDTV OTA card you will get marginal quality from a handful of HDTV channels.
What are you talking about? If you compare the same content delivered over the air to that delievered via cable, it is all the same digital signal, not marginal quality. End of story. Now, reception of that signal might not be great, but if you do get a lock of about 60% or greater, it is the same. Again, this is my experience here in Omaha.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
So does Anandtech.
Anandtech review
The highest digital TV resolution is 1920x1080, although it's questionable whether most current content has that much detail.
Those of you living in major cities can easily do this, check http://www.hdtvpub.com/ for listing on what stations you can recieve. It's recommended to buy an antenna which will only run you about $25 from Radio Shack and you can recieve most of the basic programming in HDTV format for free!
The highest digital TV resolution is 1920x1080, although it's questionable whether most current content has that much detail.
You can be sure that porn will the the first!
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
What I'd like to see is an HDTV PCI card that just works under Linux. I know there is pcHDTV, which ATI's model is competing with, but there are no Linux HDTV cards that can do over the air, cable and satellite HDTV. When that comes out I will buy it in a second.
The story and review reads like this is the first HDTV tuner card for the PC - ever. There are already quite a few, and in fact for $199 this is substandard to the Dvico Fusion III Gold QAM, which was released not to long ago.
:(
This card allows you to intercept QAM modulated HDTV (in addition to 8VSB), which is what you get over cable TV. Regardless of what people say, if you can't literally see the transmitter from your location you are going to need some sort of antenna hardware above and beyond bunny ears, amplified indoor antenna's help - but not that much. Several stations actually protested the 8VSB standard because they understood that very few people were just going to be able to recieve a good signal with just indoor antennas.
With this card I simply plug into my cable, and most of my local HDTV channels are there at 100% signal. Also for the few stations that come in reliably OTA and I can easily switch inputs via software.
Also some representatives of this company have said that they are willing to aid in producing linux drivers, although I have been trying to get some specs and have not heard anything back recently
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." George HW Bush
...no other expensive software required. Another reason why I love my Mac.
RTFAMT (more thoroughly) it has a digital over the air tuner for up to 75 over the air channels and it has another connector for *analog cable/antenna* not digital cable. Hence, to receive ones analog cable channels, not digital channels.
As expected, there are no Linux drivers, and it will probably be a while before they can be made. In the meantime, pcHDTV makes a similar card with open source Linux drivers. Unfortunately, that card has no Windows drivers and can only receive broadcast signals.
If you are serious about receiving over-the-air DTV transmissions and don't have an external antenna, you will want this: The Silver Sensor directional antenna. It is the standard in use by broadcaster labs for in-building reception. You should get a long length of coax so you can point the thing out your window, sometimes you need to get a reflection off of a neighboring building if you are not line-of-sight from the transmitter. Keep poking it around until you get a usable signal.
Does anyone know how, or if, this card will handle the FCC Broadcast flag?
Look out honey cause I'm usin' technology
Ain't got time to make no apologies
Horrible I know! And to think, for years we've had to own an NTSC tuner to be able to watch analog tv broadcasts. Same goes for AM and FM radio, free broadcasts provided you can listen.
Are you new here or have you forgotten how technology works? Something new comes out and if sufficiently successful we move to it, even if there is a cost.
Want to replace your VHS tapes? Better be ready to spend money on a DVD player and disks!
Want to replace your LP's? Better invest in a cassette player!!
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
That excuse is years out of date.
If $400 is cost prohibitive, then you shouldn't have such a nice TV. Heck, $400 only buys you 6-9 months of crummy cable TV.
dctrecord
"You can't just skip the commercials, thats like stealing TV!" --Homer.
I'm supposed to be working right now.
Last night, PBS had another one of those "digital TV is the future" specials ironically mentioning how long and expensive the upgrade has been for them...but how affordable it will be for us all. Now, some choice quotes: "digital HTDV-capable TVs can be had for as little as $700" (!) or "set-top boxes for analog TVs can be had for as little as $600" (!). They are hoping for 85% household penetration within a few years.
I am still baffled, somewhat, by the digital TV "revolution." I have seen digital cable and its compression artifacts. My luck with DirecTV has been a bit better, with only dropouts during very heavy rain. Regardless, I do not own a digital TV, no longer have DirecTV (it's $400/year, you know), and now have a regular broadcast antenna. The news available on the WWW is better than most TV news and The News Hour on PBS is better than all cable news, which leaves me wondering why I should ever invest in digital TV at all (missing only The News Hour and a very small number of other shows), when I can bypass all of it in favor of getting a better Internet connection and keep using my VCR/DVD player for rented/purchased movies.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
I've been researching chipsets for digital TV. Here are my links to current hardware products:
STMicroelectronics System on Chip (2) Get Linux here
ATI Xilleon 220 (Products)
Sigma Designs Digital Media Processors (Products)
IBM PowerPC405 STBxx (Zarlink [2], Araneo)
Texas Instruments DM642 DSP (i3 Mood Box , X-Designs Flikit + Softier MediaLinux)
NEC EMMArchitecture2 (Galaxis + LinuxTV , PRISMIQ + Linux)
Equator Technologies BSP-15 boards
Via CN400 (Mini-ITX Board), PM800 and PM880 (w/ HDTV for Pentium 4) , ShowShifter HMN, Soyo Multimedia Ready Motherboard (with TV Tuner, $129.99)
Toshiba TX System RISC (MontaVista Linux)
Windows chipsets:
Intel 815 VisionPlus terrestrial box (Korean OEM)
AMD Geode (CoCom)
ARM (Samsung, etc.)
Digeo X-Stream (Paul Allen company)
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&t hreadid=207262&highlight=wintvhd
avsforum is great for home theater pc
I still dont trust ATI. I just bought a 9000 PRO AIW after some good reviews. All their drivers are WHQL certified now. So at least standard video / multiple out stuff dosent cause crashes. But the Tv-on-demand software causes 100% cpu utilization on a 2ghz p4, and often crashes. I saw a whole forum/poll for snapstream where people were buying the Hauppauge 250 or 350 to replace various ATI AIW cards. Like 90% were very happy with the switch (well they just use the AIW as a video card)
That's very interesting, given all those Amiga users who were using genlocks, VideoToasters, and whatnot to manipulate & display TV on their monitors back in 1990. I remember using my $35 garage sale genlock on my $150 Amiga 500 to use a live broadcast TV background for my desktop back before Windows had a desktop background!
"He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb
You can use anything with firewire that can record DV. Even a PC with linux would do.
I HAVE TO GET THAT. I'm such a moron. Thanks FCC!
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
There are two different standards for over the air television transmission in the United States: NTSC and ATSC. NTSC is the older standard, and provides for 525 interlaced lines of resolution, transmitted in an analogue fashion, with a funny mechanism for splicing a low quality color signal onto a standard originally designed for monochrome television. Thus the perennial joke-- NTSC stands for "Never the same color."
ATSC is a mechanism for delivering a MPEG stream over the airwaves. This stream can be High Resolution (HDTV), medium resolution (EDTV), or low Resolution (SDTV). Generally HDTV delivers 720 lines, or 1080 interlaced lines; EDTV, 480 lines, and SDTV, 480 interlaced lines of resolution.
SDTV is essentially equivalent to a DVD. Its color components are much more stable than a NTSC broadcast, assuming that you didn't try to go the cheap route, and once again commingle the signals on a composite or Y/C connection.
Most HDTV broadcasts are nothing more than scaled up versions of standard NTSC footage. (
m not talking about your HDTV line doubling)
I'm talking about the taping of actual shows in HDTV.
Most shows that do film in HDTV... They have 1 HDTV camera at best, while the rest are standard NTSC cameras that have their signal scaled up to meet the HDTV standard res. Then they simply claim it as "HDTV" When it is not. Most shows dont even have the HD cameras or editing equiptment. They simply scale it up before sending out the HDTV signal.
The cost for HDTV is too much for even major broadcasters to justify with the small number of HDTV viewers.
DTV's signal has become more and more compressed as they add channels. I recently looked at my fathers DTV signal and thought it looked like Reel Video. It was really bad. Its just so compressed so that they can fit their channels in their limited bandwidth.
Cablevision here claims Digital IO (100$ a month) is HDTV digital cable. When the truth is less than 10 channels are HD. And again you have the problem of shows simply just SCALING UP existing shows, or even NEW shows, claiming their HDTV when they're not.
HDTV is not worth it yet. Its over priced and the cable companies are out of their fucking mind price wise.