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ATI All-In-Wonder X1800 XL Review
Timmus writes "With the release of the X1800 series last month, it was only a matter of time before ATI announced a new All-In-Wonder card that took advantage of it. Today Firingsquad has a review of the new board, the All-In-Wonder X1800 XL. The card features all the multimedia capabilities of previous AIW cards, giving you TV viewing and recording, timeshifting, and of course gaming. Video capture shots are provided as well."
Officially, the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL carries an MSRP of $500...
End of Line
Higher resolutions at faster refresh rates is great, but I'm wanting video to head in a different direction. I'm sure I'm not alone.
First, heat efficiency in getting out of control. My MCE runs fairly cool but I needed to fab my own fan brackets. I won't even look at newer video cards if they're running 10 degC hotter. I know more speed generally means more heat but there has to be some techniques to reduce it.
Coupled with the heat problems we're getting annoyingly loud fans on the card. In my theater I've replaced a vidcard because the fan started acting up. Not good.
I'd love to see more support for the newer resolutions out there. My backup projector needs a 960x540 resolution which requires buying Powerstrip. My regular projector requires 1280x720. Even the newest cards I've tested ignore these fairly standard resolutions in their drivers.
I'm not impressed with many on-board video decoders lately. Fuzzy text, artifacts that shoulder occur and (sometimes) color errors.
I'm happy to see ATI releasing these fast cards at cheap prices but I fear that none of the future needs are being planned for.
They should also STOP SCREAMING THEIR PRODUCT NAME.
But without the pictures
s ection=Hardware&fs_article_id=1756
http://firingsquad.com/print_article.asp?current_
Just thought I'd point out the first thing I wanted to know:
Just below the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL lies the ALL-IN-WONDER X800 XL (PCI-E) and ALL-IN-WONDER X800 XT (AGP), which both carry a pricetag of $400. For the mainstream market, ATI then provides the ALL-IN-WONDER 2006 (AGP) and ALL-IN-WONDER X600 PRO, both of these boards officially carry an MSRP of $200.
Not everyone has a PCI-E mobo, and I assume this one isn't AGP
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
http://firingsquad.com.nyud.net:8090/hardware/ati_ all_in_wonder_x1800_xl/ Coral Cache link
So any chance we have Linux support out of the box?
How can a hardware review be posted on slashdot without a list of compatible open source OS's?
Think Deeply.
There are only two X's in this product name. I refuse to buy a video card that only has two X's in it's model number. Give it a name like "ATI XXL 81200X XP X-Treme Edition" and I'll consider forking over my money.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
I've always like the ATI TV tuners. Very easy to use. But I've always hated that their software won't record signals that have Macrovision in them. I had bought an ATI a few years ago to copy my VHS tapes to DVD. When one plays that is protect by Macrovision, the record button disables. Luckily it is (was?) only in the software, and their cards work well with all the open source stuff out there (virtualdub).
Anonymous Cowards suck.
What I want to know is have they released proper Linux drivers that support all the functionallity this time, unlike eith previous AiW cards.
More cost up front? Maybe, but my ATI TV Wonder is still working *years* after its purchase.
MrRogers(2)
I own an ATI All-in-Wonder 9800 pro. It is great, when it is working... It is fast, and all the features work well, but updating the drivers and sofware is a nightmare. I really miss the Nvidia unified drivers that I use on work machines.
The problem is that there are 3 files that need to be upgraded with every driver change - and while I understand this, the process is annoying. If a new driver comes out for video, and I install it, but neglect to install the other drivers for the card, the DVD viewing software, and the TV software break.
This, again, is understandable, but the process is annoying. ATI really needs to simplify their driver installation (and hell, having better Linux drivers would be neat too... but that is an aside)
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
The article summarizes: "Quite simply this is the card I would like to put in my MediaPC".
Will it run Linux, or will I be just as screwed on it as I've been with the ATI-TV (ISA), AiW 128 Pro, AiW 7500, AiW8500DV? I'm sure it runs great on Windows, which is great and all, only I want to punt Windows from my system and not have a dual-boot configuration.
Also what is up with offering only analog/NTSC reception on this side of the pond? NTSC broadcasts are supposedly dying soon, so why don't they offer HDTV-capable cards yet? They advertise high-definition output, which is just wonderful, but what's so great about an upsampled NTSC picture?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
What's the point of running software to tape shows when the software makes the box crash after 3.5days? When I don't use the ATI SW, it stays up for at least 10days (don't trust it more than that and force a reboot)
On top of that, some shows that I ask it to tape get deleted at the end of the show for no reason. It's so bad that I have to setup a process to copy the file before the ATI SW deletes it!
It seems anolog copy protection on Cable TV was working well even 3y+ ago!
(BTW: It's All-in-one radion)
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Why havent they supported HDTV and CableCard specification?
There's no reason to get this card considering it will be obsolete in a year or two.
As the owner of two older AiW cards, I stopped buying AiWs because it just doesn't make fiscal sense to consistently upgrade your TV tuner with your VGA card. The tuner features improve more slowly than gaming cards, and most of the study in this article covers the card's in-game performance, with TV tuning and its quality mentioned as a side note. Personally, I'd rather go with a cutting-edge gaming card for VGA, and a separate tuner for TV, since I won't be forced to part with either if I decide to upgrade the other. Additionally, the tuner chipsets in the AiW often have little 3rd-party support in the drivers, forcing users to use one piece of software to handle TV (ATI's Multimedia Center), often with little support in Linux (I know that MythTV dislikes most of the older AiWs, and I doubt this one will change that). Do yourself a favor and buy a TV Wonder instead (or, of course, a non-ATI product!).
What is the best PC to TV setup?
Cheapest with mild quaility trade-offs?
I got a 47" projection (not LCD) TV with HDTV (component) support.
My pc gots an nVidia 6800 GT (256MB) video card with vga, dvi, and composite output.
If I output through the composite to my TV, words look really fuzzy and the resolution settings are all funky in general. If I put some media player in full screen mode the picture is generally okay.
Where do I need to go from here to get a descent PC with TV as monitor solution going?
I'm considering upgrading my TV in the upcoming year, what features should I look for if I want to use the new TV as a PC monitor?
And how to get my PC Audio to my TV? Even with connector adaptors the signal doesn't seem compatable.
Thanks
Everyone knows this. The hardware is nice, but the software package and drivers are HORRIBLE. Yeah, you can get other software to capture video with, but you lose a lot of "proprietary" features of the ATI cards.
Not to mention ATIs notorious "we'll never release updated drivers for any new operating systems" policy when it comes to their AIW cards. I can almost guarantee that when Windows Vista hits, the TV features of this card won't work on it. Ever.
Honestly, you're better of picking up one of the Hauppage cards if you really want to have TV features. They're better, better drivers, and widely supported by all kinds of third-party software.
So long as ATI refuses to recognize that there are other OSes that consumers use besides MS Windows Latest & Greatest(TM), I shall continue to avoid purchasing their products. NVIDia is barely better, what with their binary drivers which always seem to be one or more kernel releases behind the times.
I do (really!) hate to have my comments modded to flamebait, but there are actually "OTHER OSes" besides x86 GNU/linux (really, there is!). Without reasonably complete source code drivers available, PPC||MIPS||ARM||other GNU/linux as well as *BSD, Solaris will never stand a chance against the WIntel behemouth.
Barring the possibility of obtaining source code drivers for the latest video cards (or other geeky kit), rather complete hardware documentation should be made available so that the F/OSS community can "roll their own" drivers. Major vendors appear to be so concerned about providing any insight to their hardware designs to their competition that they are forsaking a growing segment of the consumer market.
Recent news regarding MS Windows "rootkits" showing up in heavily DRMed product should illuminate the dangers of reliance upon one convicted monopolistic company "owning" a nearly ubiquitous portion of the market. Those companies that band together in support of a single platform risk alienating their consumer market when "extremely bad things" crop up to destroy that market.
Alternative OSes exist; alternative sources of media/content exist; and alternative hardware exists -- when consumers start voting (in droves) with their cash, the current industry "leaders" will likely be caught by surprise. I suspect that those most surprised will not survive.
This "review" seems to have been written by a marketing firm, not a reviewer.
I helped a friend get his AIW X-600 going. What a pain.
After several tries, the driver checker never did like the video driver that was installed -- it was always out of date.
The software for viewing DVDs, watching TV, capturing video -- all different interfaces. For a casual guy to want to control it -- very hard to use. Tiny little buttons with cryptic symbols. I tried lots of keyboard shortcuts to get the menus to disappear (I think F2 worked for one).
You can time-shift, yes -- if you tell it that's what you want to do. And you don't mind fighting the interface to try to move around in time (he didn't have a remote). And you can't move around in time while a normal recording is working.
Everything on his machine was lightning fast -- except for launching ATI's apps and waiting for video to come along.
Video capture didn't work in other virtualdub nor Windows Movie Maker.
There were flickering problems in the resulting video. Sound/video synchronization became a problem over time.
But, he could copy his video tapes to the hard drive, and then onto a DVD (way more complicated than it needed to be). He could watch TV, set up the programming guide (which didn't install by default -- we had to go look for it through the install DVDs).
It has the checkmarks of a TIVO, but not the ease of use and clean interface of a TIVO.
I hear the 6800 GS is the best value for money right now. (Just as as fast as the plain 6800, but cheaper.)
Personally I just bought a 6600GT because 150 euros is all I can afford, and my Radeon 9100 isn't cutting it any more.
I might add something to this:
Heat is bad for the card, yes. Bad for the inside of the case yes. Adding fans controls is yes... but you must factor many other things.
a) Where does the heat come from: Electricity, generally being wasted, and therefore upping your power bill
b) Where does the heat go: In the summer my main machine if left on overnight would noticable raise the temperature in the room. Over a few days it would become sweltering. Getting the heat out of the case doesn't always get rid of the overall problems of heat.
Personally, I'd like to see cards rated for heat emissions along with FPS etc. How about "average temperature after a game of Quake IV?" Fan noise would be another nice thing to factor in.