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ATi HDTV Tuner For The PC Arrives

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the more-pixels-please dept.

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!"

9 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. THey just don't get it... by dnadig · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:THey just don't get it... by Jahf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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).

      --
      It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
  2. For HDTV n00bs... by darth_MALL · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  3. Size of HDTV? by spartan_789 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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?

    1. Re:Size of HDTV? by ObjetDart · · Score: 5, Informative
      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.

      --
      I read Usenet for the articles.
  4. HDTV Out of the Air by L3on · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!

  5. Holy marketing department batman! by Mad+Quacker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  6. Mac users can do it with a cheap firewire cable... by Rascasse · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  7. Bleeding edge tech? by Mudcathi · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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!

    --

    "He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb