The New Theater 650 TV Tuner Solution from ATI
by Josh Venning on June 14, 2006 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
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TV Tuner Comparisons
In this section, we'll look at how the ATI Theater 650 compares with the NVIDIA DualTV MCE and the ATI Theater 550 Pro. As in the past, we will be looking at power consumption for these cards as well as image quality, but for this review we will be adding a section on CPU utilization to see what kind of overhead is associated with using these cards.
Power
For power, we tested each of the three cards at four different states: while the system was idle, while watching live TV, while recording live TV, and while watching TV while simultaneously recording the broadcast. Here are the results.
For reference, the power draw of the system without a TV tuner card installed was 145 Watts. We can see from the table that the Theater 650 and 550 drew less power than the DualTV overall, which makes sense given the DualTV's dual tuners as opposed to the other cards' one. We can also see that there isn't a very big difference at all between the power consumption of the Theater 650 and 550, and interestingly, there wasn't a difference between the power load of the system while watching and watching/recording with the Theater 650.
Channel Switch Speed
We again wanted to see if there was any difference between the channel switching speed of the different tuners, as the different hardware can sometimes affect this aspect of the tuner. Here are the results.
As the data shows, there is again not much difference between the Theater 650 and 550, and each of these cards took around two seconds to switch channels (the 650 being very slightly faster). The DualTV took about a half a second longer than the other two making it the slowest of the three. As we mentioned in the last review, two seconds may not seem like much time, but when trying to flip rapidly through channels, the delay can be very annoying. Unfortunately, it appears that the new "mini-can" tuner of the 650 doesn't substantially improve the tuning speed relative to the 550.
In this section, we'll look at how the ATI Theater 650 compares with the NVIDIA DualTV MCE and the ATI Theater 550 Pro. As in the past, we will be looking at power consumption for these cards as well as image quality, but for this review we will be adding a section on CPU utilization to see what kind of overhead is associated with using these cards.
Power
For power, we tested each of the three cards at four different states: while the system was idle, while watching live TV, while recording live TV, and while watching TV while simultaneously recording the broadcast. Here are the results.
| System Power Draw (Watts) | ||||
| Idle | Watching Live TV |
Recording | Watching + Recording |
|
| NVIDIA DualTV MCE | 170 | 197 | 176 | 203 |
| ATI MSI Theater 550 Pro | 167 | 186 | 171 | 187 |
| ATI MSI Theater 650 Pro | 169 | 187 | 174 | 187 |
For reference, the power draw of the system without a TV tuner card installed was 145 Watts. We can see from the table that the Theater 650 and 550 drew less power than the DualTV overall, which makes sense given the DualTV's dual tuners as opposed to the other cards' one. We can also see that there isn't a very big difference at all between the power consumption of the Theater 650 and 550, and interestingly, there wasn't a difference between the power load of the system while watching and watching/recording with the Theater 650.
Channel Switch Speed
We again wanted to see if there was any difference between the channel switching speed of the different tuners, as the different hardware can sometimes affect this aspect of the tuner. Here are the results.
| Channel Tune Speed | |
| Time in Seconds | |
| NVIDIA DualTV MCE | 2 1/2 |
| ATI MSI Theater 550 Pro | 2 |
| ATI MSI Theater 650 Pro | 2 |
As the data shows, there is again not much difference between the Theater 650 and 550, and each of these cards took around two seconds to switch channels (the 650 being very slightly faster). The DualTV took about a half a second longer than the other two making it the slowest of the three. As we mentioned in the last review, two seconds may not seem like much time, but when trying to flip rapidly through channels, the delay can be very annoying. Unfortunately, it appears that the new "mini-can" tuner of the 650 doesn't substantially improve the tuning speed relative to the 550.
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Mumrik - Thursday, June 15, 2006 - link
Still, why didn't you touch on the Hardware DRM?None of us know what this element means for the card and it MIGHT just be the deal breaker that makes this card WORSE than the 550.
You need to look into stuff like that, or somebody's going to make a purchase based on this "review" and quite possibly be very disappointed.
LoneWolf15 - Thursday, June 15, 2006 - link
Below are the updates I found for the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150, the card that has mostly replaced the PVR-250 with better quality and a single chip solution
http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/support/support_pvr...">http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/support/support_pvr...
Name: pvr150_500_basedriver_2043_24103.zip
Size: 2.2MB
Updated: April 13, 2006
WinTV2000 application update for the WinTV-PVR-150
Name: wintv2k411_23347.exe
Size: 2.5 Mb
Updated: Dec. 15, 2005
WinTV video decoder update
Name: hcwsmd05_23290.exe
Version: 5.0_23290
Size: 1996K
Updated: Oct. 17, 2005
I'd call that updated in the past year. When video cards are updated, Anandtech and others test to see if increased performance and/or image quality results. Are you saying the same should not be done with TV Tuner cards?
P.S. I could be wrong, but I don't recall you testing the WinTV PVR-150, which is considered by most HTPC enthusiasts to be a much better replacement of the PVR-250. If I'm wrong, apologies. If I'm right, then Hauppauge's cards have changed indeed since you tested the PVR-250.
BigLan - Thursday, June 15, 2006 - link
"The Hauppauge cards haven't really changed at all in over a year. Do we need to include socket 754 Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 478 in current CPU articles? Do we need to talk about the Radeon X800 and GeForce 6800 cards in new GPU reviews?"Two problems with this, Jarred. First is that the Hauppauge 250 got replaced with the 150, which offered better image quality and a lower price. Anand has never compared the 150 to the 550, or any other card. Sure you can say it's similar to the MCE500, but you didn't mention that in this article, only the 250.
Next up is that you actually did compare the X800 and 6800 cards to modern GPUs in the Oblivion article.
Crucial - Thursday, June 15, 2006 - link
If the S754 and S478 cpus were the last ones to be made and still the more popular cpu your darn right you do. The comparison to video cards and cpu's doesn't hold up because there aren't new tuner cards coming out every 6 months. Many people here don't agree with the statements that the 650 screenshots look better. Just because somethings new doesn't mean it's automaticaly better.
As for that comment, are you writing these reviews for yourself or for the readers of the site? With an attidude like this it's no wonder the review doesn't cover half of what it should.
Basically it sounds to me like you only have a Theatre550 card and dont want to take the time or spend the money to review a hauppage card. That or ATI is pulling the strings and won't let you. If thats the case just say so and alot of the flack will go away. You can try and justify your attitude towards these reviews but it is not what a majority of the readers want to see.
hondaman - Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - link
Thats some seriously flawed logic. In every review, one _always_ compares, HEAD TO HEAD, the king(s) of the hill vs. the newcommers. This goes for cpus, video, hd's, and yes, even capture cards.
The bottom line duty of a capture card is to capture video. It doesnt matter an ounce that you previously reviewed a card. Image quality is something we must see for ourselves, and allow us to decide what looks best. That means running the SAME tests on the SAME capture cards.
jeremyk442 - Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - link
Am I the only one who seems to think that the 650 looked worse than the 550 on the tomato shot? The differences in the stills were extremely subtle and give no indication of how much difference you would notice while using it. And this whole review felt like an advertisement for ati's new chip rather than a valid comparison (especially the image quality).JNo - Saturday, June 17, 2006 - link
I agree. The 650 was praised (vs the 550) for warmer colours but in actual fact, the 550 shot was the only one where the woman's skin tone seemed more natural and you could make out extra *details* on her that were smoothed over in the other 2 cards e.g. just above and below her lips if I remember correctly. "Brighter" colours aren't always better if they just create colours that aren't in the signal. Hey, we could all just turn up the colour bar on our TVs for a better picture if that were the case...BigLan - Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - link
Looking closer at the tomato shot, I think there's something messed up in the GualTV test. It looks like there's some ghosting going on, which is either a problem with the tuner chip or a problem with the setup. I don't believe that the dual tuner could have that big an issue tuning channels without the community having noticed by now, which suggests the test setup is wrong.mostlyprudent - Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - link
This is a relatively new area of interest for me. Can some one point me to some information on which, if any, of these cards supports a signal from setalite sources? I have a dual tuner receiver and want to use my PC as the other output (my DVR is filling up and I would like to capture some of the prgramming to archive on my hard drive). Wow, I feel like a newbie!SHSPVR - Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - link
No it do not supports a signal direct from setalite LNB you must used a sat receiver and I hate tell you but dual tuner sat receiver suck becuase of the fact that there are NO Blaster that support UHF Transmit signal so there for your SOL with 2nd TV output but you can setup the 1st TV output becuases it base on Standard IR Transmit signal.