ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner: AMD and Dell Bring CableCARD to PCs
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 3, 2007 11:37 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The online content offerings are actually decent, a far cry from what they were when they made their initial debut in MCE. Watching MTV's Overdrive channel for example is pretty much as useful as watching the actual TV channel; you arguably get even more music since you can select to watch just music videos (you actually get the entire music video this way, no screaming interruptions).
Unfortunately, watching online content quite possibly causes the most bugs in media center. We'd often have problems where content wouldn't play, or it would keep playing even after we told it to stop. When it does work, however, it's not bad.
Vista's media center has an included burn to CD/DVD option where you can create burned copies of recorded shows and other data.
Unfortunately, the recorded content can only be played back on the system you recorded it on making it only useful for making backups of shows you want to keep.
This is the error you'll get if you try to play your burned CD on another Vista system
Unfortunately, media center won't downsample your content to make it fit on your media:
Thankfully, media center continues to be very multitasking friendly: you can burn your CD/DVD in the background while you continue to use media center.
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DigitalFreak - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link
Uh.. I don't think you understand how these things work. The only inputs on the 650 & AIW are composite and S-video. Neither is going to allow you to record anything in HD from your cable box. The HD support on the 650 is only for OTA.BPB - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link
You know, until now I thought the AIW X1900 had YPrPb input. Man, I need to wake up!TheTerl - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link
I was amused by the choice in movies. After all, who wouldn't want to check out "Boinking in the Dorm Room" at work? With a title like that, I'm sure it's a cinematic masterpiece.Aside from that, very interesting article.
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link
Thing is, it may show up in the guide, but you can't actually order it... :0)WileCoyote - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link
Only Anand can turn an article I would normally ingore into a fun and interesting read. Good stuff!MercenaryForHire - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link
Agreed. While I have nothing but distaste for this hardware, its related metric assload of DRM tie-ins, and lack of DIY support, I enjoyed reading the review of it immensely.pjladyfox - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link
"why on earth would you go through this when you can just rent an HD-DVR from us for $9 a month?"I think this pretty much sums up the entire system to begin with. It really does make me wonder if the unholy alliance (read: MPAA/RIAA/Cable/Telco) is making the use of CableCard-based devices more difficult than it needs to be. The number of people that were called on-site just to resolve the multiple issues is a rather telling statement that while the tech may be great it is being set up to fail in the marketplace.
And why was there no provision for HDMI input? I mean, it was designed with HDCP encryption in mind so I would have thought this would have been a no-brainer but if I had to guess I would say the unholy alliance shot that idea down real quick. -_-
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link
Cable companies are required by the FCC to provide cable cards upon request. However, it's pretty obvious they make it as difficult as possible to get them up and running ($42.95 install fee?).tuteja1986 - Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - link
I hope the person incharge of this project reads this because he needs to get up his lazy ass and start sloving these issue by getting the right dude to slove this problems. Then ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner + VISTA MCE will succeed or Hollywood could just kill DRM which would make life easier on their loyal customer.