Best Video Cards For The Money: Sept '08
Detailed graphics card specifications and reviews are great—that is, if you have the time to do the research. At the end of the day, what a gamer needs is the best graphics card within a certain budget, and that’s what we’re going to show you. Read More
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AMD Releases ATI All-In-Wonder HD Card
Source: Tom's Hardware US – Category : Graphics Cards 11 comments
Sunnyvale (CA) - It has been a while since ATI offered a new version of its All-in-Wonder graphics/TV tuner card combination. AMD revived the product series with the ATI All-In-Wonder HD, which replaces the still offered AiW X1900 with a faster graphics core a much improved TV tuner chip and HDTV capabilities.
I had to think a bit about the last AiW card and ATI’s struggles with HDTV at the time. Just for the record, the X1900 version was released in January 2006, a few months before the ATI’s acquisition through AMD was announced. 30 months later, there is a new generation that hopes to build on successful AiW cards and maybe not so much on the lukewarm reception the X1900 received back then.
The All-In-Wonder HD has been updated with a PCIe 2.0 interface and upgraded to deal with the high-definition era. The card is now based on the Theater Pro 650 chip (the X1900 was based on the 200 version) and supports free over-the-air HDTV playback as well as HDTV and analog TV recording.
Also included is ClearQAM, a hardware MPEG-2 encoder (as well as VC-1 and H.264 acceleration), an adaptive 3D comb filter as well as a native HDMI interface. Blu-ray can be played back in full 1080p resolution.
The graphics chip is based on the previous generation 600-series 55 nm graphics core, clocked at 725 MHz (memory: 600 MHz). AMD claims that the graphics performance of the card will beat a Radeon HD 3650 by 5 to 15% in popular games.
The MSRP of the ATI All-In-Wonder HD is $199.
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I found one company that actually makes true HD recording cards but do not recall the name at the moment.
Vista support? Only noobs can be tricked in to thinking newer is somehow automatically better.
Still bitter that they haven't release drivers for my Remote Wonder II remote for Vista.
As am I that they haven't released all of the software for 64bit XP so that I can use my card.
Anyways, a bit disappointed as it does not "see" my cable (comcast) as being digital even though I'm a digital subscriber! Only option for cable is "Analog Cable". It does give me an option for atsc antenna, but that does not pick up any channels with the cable as the input.
Also, I have yet to get it to pass throw Dolby Digital when playing a DVD; I get sound, but it is strictly two channels. Maybe it does do Dolby Digital, but so far I have not figure out how.
Documentation is extremely limit and for the most part no help at all. No where does it talk about HD TV, Clear QAM, DVD recording/playback, and other media center features it ships with. The Media Center software included looks to be Open Source stuff, which is fine, but it is left the user figure out how to make it work as if they already have the skill/knowledge as to where to go on the internet find what they need to make it work.
Lastly, the NVidia 8600 card that I was using looked slightly sharper on my 50 inch HDTV. I notice that the fonts are slightly fuzzy with AIW-HD. The NVidia 8600 card had a very sharp/impressive image.
Maybe I am missing something, but boy, this product does not deliver on the ATI marketing that is on their website. Taking a guess, the intent is for this card might be for OEM systems, therefor Dell, Gateway, HP, etc will make the card work with whatever software they decide to ship with their Media Center systems. Maybe it works great if a person already has Media Center software installed, or decides to get it.