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!"

Comments

Extreme Tech has a review up too

[enrico_suave]

FWIW...

Extreme Tech HDTV review (7 out of 10)

*shrug*

e.

THey just don't get it...

[dnadig]

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.

Re:THey just don't get it...

[Jahf]

Dozens of HDTV channels over satellite? Not if you are on one of the big 2 satellite providers (DirecTV or DishNet). You'll get at most -1- dozen today (actually, with DirecTV I think it's more like a 1/2 dozen right now with plans to double that this year).

The only way to get -dozens- of HDTV channels over satellite is via VOOM and from all reviews I've seen their channels are almost worthless except for the few that are also on DirecTV. Voom has such a small subscriber base today that I don't have much faith in them making it (plus their satellites are so far down in the southern sky that often people can point their dishes at them).

I don't have direct experience with Dish other than to know that I dislike their STB hardware so I avoid it. I don't have experience with HDTV over cable because I can't get digital cable where I live (and the analog signal goes over a couple of hundred of miles of repeaters and ghosts worse than OTA NTSC).

I completely agree with you that we need satellite and cable HDTV cards but there are 2 things that are going to stop you:

1) The satellite providers have to cooperate with you and they are NOT interested in this. Yes, I know all the arguments we would make to them to allow this but they don't buy them. Hell, go read the TiVo community forums for DirecTV users and pay attention to the Organize an HMO request thread for an example of DirecTV not paying attention to customer demand for PC convergence ... and HMO is now -free- on standalone TiVo's.

2) The Cable companies do not have a unified standard (yet), hence the reason why the HDTiVo only supports satellite or OTA (for now). Until they have a standard not only agreed on but implemented it is way too fractionalized for an HDTV PC option to make sense to companies like ATI.

That 2nd point is being addressed and once you see the cable manufacturers adopt (I believe it is FCC mandated) an interoperable and compatible standard you probably will see PC options as well as an HDTiVo that handles them.

You will probably also see a large number of DirecTV/Dish subcribers moving and then see the satellite providers start dumping crap channels for HDTV channels. However I doubt you'll see a general purpose PC option for satellite HDTV viewing. MAYBE an OEMed one that includes the card reader and such but I don't think that the satellite providers are savvy enough to figure out how to make that work in a way that PC adopters would buy in to (it would probably be so crippled and expensive that we'd simply forget about it).

Re:THey just don't get it...

[Chris Carollo]

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.

It's a bit hacked at the moment, but you can actually get HD signals from your cable box via firewire to your PC. The FCC has mandated that all cable companies that provide HD also provide a cable box that has working firewire outs.I'm able to record the HD transport stream to my laptop and actually watch the HD stream on my laptop screen as well.

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

Here you're just wrong -- OTA signals are often BETTER than via cable because cable companies can compress their QAM signal as much as they'd like. OTA requires the diginal feed to use the full 19.2mb/s stream, so as long as they're not multicasting you're often getting a better-quality feed.

Also, most cable boxes use a component (YPrPb) connection whereas computer-based HD OTA tuners use RGB, and RGB is a noticably better signal. So if you're able to actually receive the HD signals (not too hard in my experience), OTA can often look better than cable.

That said, I do agree that it's nice to finally have a QAM-capable card so that it's easier to actually record content using cable.

For HDTV n00bs...

[darth_MALL]

Here's all the dirt on HDTV. Read and enjoy :)

Size of HDTV?

[spartan_789]

Anyone know how much space a show recorder in HDTV actually takes up? I'd be curious... With the increase in resolution must come MUCH larger file sizes...

1/2 hour show per DVD?

Re:Size of HDTV?

[ObjetDart]

Anyone know how much space a show recorder in HDTV actually takes up? I'd be curious... With the increase in resolution must come MUCH larger file sizes...

Several TV shows in HDTV have been available on BitTorrent for a while now...er, or so I've heard anyway. Encoded with Divx, they take about 350 megs per 1 hour show minus the commercials, and are pretty good quality.

Amazing

[L. VeGas]

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.

And as usual...

[Pivot]

- 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.

You Just Don't Get It

[BRock97]

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.

Re:You Just Don't Get It

[Mad Quacker]

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.

Not according to ATI, yes the NXT2004 chip does support QAM, but the card does not. The ExtremeTech review explains this.

HDTV Out of the Air

[L3on]

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!

Re:what resolution?

[KrackHouse]

There are two versions of HDTV. 1080i which is 1920x1080 interlaced and 720p - 1280x720. I have my computer plugged into my HDTV and your best bet is to run it at 1280x720. If you have an Xbox there are a few games in HD but most of those run at 720p. Keep in mind that most "HDTVs" don't get anywhere near 1920x1080 especially the plasmas. Watch out for EDTVs, they're not high res displays.

HDTV Under Linux

[b1ng0]

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.

Holy marketing department batman!

[Mad Quacker]

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 :(

Mac users can do it with a cheap firewire cable...

[Rascasse]

...no other expensive software required. Another reason why I love my Mac.

Re:even *BETTER* captures

[Elamaton]

2004 - HDTV capture coming soon to a bittorrent stream near you!!!

You mean like the ones that various TV-rip groups have been releasing at least for about a year and a half now?

A quick search at NFOrce Entertainment returns this as the first "officially" released HDTV rip (unless my search was horribly flawed, which is quite possible), but it seems that onwards from December 2002 the HDTV rips gradually became commonplace.

Anyway, old news :-).

Broadcast flag?

[code shady]

Does anyone know how, or if, this card will handle the FCC Broadcast flag?

HTDV vs. Broadband

[upsidedown_duck]

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.

Hardware links

[Darth Cider]

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)

Bleeding edge tech?

[Mudcathi]

From the article: "Known for their "TV Wonder" and "All-In-Wonder" series multimedia cards, ATI is a true pioneer in the industry, being one of the first to bring TV to the PC."

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!

Well holy hell... you don't need a mac.

[Ayanami Rei]

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!