Full Review of ATi's All-in-Wonder Radeon

The Software, Continued

One of the cool features available on the AIW Radeon is called Timeshifting. Timeshifting gives you the ability to pause the playback of a live video input (TV or Camcorder recording) and resume it a bit later, while the original life broadcast is still being recorded. This obviously requires the AIW to record video and play back video that has been recorded already at the same time, to make sure you aren't missing anything. The ATi software digitally stores (in MPEG-2 format) up to 30 minutes of compressed video (default setting) so that you don't miss any of the live footage. The ability to zoom in, pan or take a still picture is available during video playback and with Timeshifting available you won't miss a thing.

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Another useful feature for those who use the TV tuner to watch cable TV is the TV listing software from Gemstar. The Guide+ program lets you find television programs like you would in TV Guide but on your TV set. Listings are updated weekly through a short connection over the net to update your computer's program listings. You're able to not only find event listings but also schedule your computer to digitally capture a particular show when it comes on. It's almost like setting up your VCR to tape a show except it's much easier to do. Keep in mind that you can capture as many shows as long as you have the hard disk space. The ATi software does have a protection setting where it won't write past a certain space use limitation that you can set.

The rest of the software players available from ATi are pretty simple and do the job of Window's Media player and things like Winamp. There isn't really a better solution that you couldn't download for free but it saves the average user the trouble by supplying a wide variety of pre-loaded multimedia software.