ATi's All In Wonder Radeon 7500 297
FlippedBit writes "ATi has released a very affordable All In Wonder product based on their Radeon 7500 chip. For a mere $200 smackers you can get decent 3D graphics, TV Tuner, TiVO functions, and a remote that will work from another room with no line of sight."
problems with it... (Score:4, Informative)
it doesn't work without a massive fight under windows 2000. it is the same software suite that comes with the TV wonder from ATI and their multimedoa center just sucks.
RF Remote (Score:3, Informative)
I have an old Dish Network receiver that uses an RF remote. It's great if you're listening to the CD channels piped through a home speaker system, and you want to change the channel blind (like you have the channel order memorized) but besides that it's worthless because you can never buy a replacement remote or integrate with a decent home theater controller. Of course there's a guy on the net selling an IR "upgrade" kit.
Oddly enough... (Score:3, Informative)
On the other hand, while I think that the price is great for what you get on this card, we've sold AIW cards for less than that before, so I'm not sure I'd mark it as "affordable" for someone who wanted just a "basic" AIW card. Still, a damn cool looking card.
A Tivo? Hardly (Score:4, Informative)
Also, recording on your PC from VCR (home movies anyone?) can be a real bitch if you dont read the rage3d faqs.
The controls are also still very icky. The program scheduling and recording leaves much to be desired (if its going, thats all you get from your TV card - no way to record one show and watch another -- even if your machine has the horse power, this card does not). Then, to find out what show you have scheduled and whatnot, you have to find the tab in the options and thats a shitty interface to begin with.
Also, when you install the MMC7.x which is required to give you the drivers for TV overlay and the program to watch TV, you get all kinds of other shit and program association take over (you can say not to install the shit but then when you play back recorded shows, they dont show right a lot of times w/o the ATI File Player)
Simply said - the card may be good - but the software leaves much to be desired - and it is far FAR from Tivo quality atm
(Please in the replies, if you know of good alternative software let me know - same if you know how to more or less make something of a decent tivo clone using an AIW + Linux)
Re:problems with it... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, my first problem is that this thing just isn't like Tivo. Tivo will automatically record your favorite shows no matter what the schedule is, which is great when you like stuff on TLC or History Channel that seems to air at random times.
Furthermore, Tivo is smart enough to record things it thinks you will like. This software is dumb as a rock - if I don't tell it to record something, it won't.
Even worse, the Gemstar Guide Plus software will only let you download 7 days of listings - you can't see further than 7 days out. That blows - I don't want to sit down every week and plan my next week of viewing, I want to do it maybe once a month. When I go on vacation, I can only record shows in the next 7 days - heaven help you if you're gone more than 7 days.
Last, and worst, it doesn't REALLY work with dual displays. If you have two video cards in your system, and the second one isn't ATI, the program won't launch. You have to disable the second desktop in order to watch TV. I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous.
I've got this card (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Linux support (Score:2, Informative)
NVIDIA vs. ATI (Score:2, Informative)
When they are good, they are very very good.
When they are bad, they are rotten.
I've had the experience with NVIDIA drivers working perfect on one machine, and on another it randomly crashes all the time.
I just bought an ati7000 for building an audio machine (no emphasis on graphics) and the 3d accell worked alsmo outta the box on a debian "testing" install (I had to switch it so the agpart module was loaded BEFORE the radeon module).
I'm tired of reading about the people that have it work "perfectly" at the expense of those that don't. I've had it both ways, and I like the ATI way better.
(however the ATI drivers need to be labeled better, they refer to things like radeon VE, while consumers just know radeon 7000,7500,8500)
Re:A Tivo? Hardly (Score:2, Informative)
It is a great piece of software-- works really well on a regular TV as well.. combined with a logitech wireless keyboard and a B & O TV, and I'm a happy tv watcher.
It even recompresses your recordings in the background so you can do archiving of your sheduled shows..
A few issues for those considering this purchase.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Linux? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A Tivo? Hardly (Score:4, Informative)
a bt878 capture card - elcheapo is best.
a hollywood+ mpeg playback card.. dirt cheap on ebay... DO NOT PAY the $79.95 retail for these.. only complete idiots are trying to sell them for more than $45.00 I get the mall the time for $29.00 on ebay.
a old P-II machine and nuppelvideo for recording and mplayer for playback.
Add a web-based scheduler and you are done.. no you dont get pause tv, or the other fluff but you do get it recording your shows... showtime every friday at 1045pm est for 1 hour.. is not difficult to program
Re:problems with it... (Score:2, Informative)
I've since replaced the Radeon All-in-Wonder with a Radeon 8500, because I wanted better dual-monitor support. Silly me. DVDs can't play full-screen at all with two monitors enabled, the dual-display support is horribly quirky, and when I attempted to add an ATI TV-Wonder board to get back the TV stuff not available on the 8500, I discover the two just plain don't work together, locking the entire system in seconds. The few seconds I did manage to get the TV going (only once) the quality was distinctly inferior to the All-in-Wonder.
I've got too much money sunk into this stuff to go replace it right now, but I seriously doubt I'll be purchasing another ATI product in the future. Their drivers just plain suck, and their tech support (when they even bothered to answer my e-mail inquiries) assumed I was an idiot and gave me standard suggestions that I'd already tried (and I'd told them I'd tried, had they bothered to read the e-mail I sent).
Buyer beware.
Re:Linux? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Linux? (Score:3, Informative)
Good 3D support bad tv capture support under Linux (Score:2, Informative)
Might want to stay away from this one (Score:2, Informative)
If you're just using Linux, you'll need to upgrade to XFree86 4.2 just to get the card working. The Linux drivers are more stable, at least. I've had two crashes and occasional texture corruption (with a few pixels of rainbow colors!?) while playing Wolfenstein, but no problems in 2D or with OpenGL screensavers.
Oh, and of course dual-head doesn't seem to want to work in either OS (Windows makes a valiant effort).
Maybe I just got a bad card out of the box, but the relative stability in Linux makes that seem doubtful. A friend of mine had similar problems with a Radeon 8500 and the CD drivers, but in his case the first update to drivers off ati.com fixed things.
Re:problems with it... (Score:3, Informative)
I had Windows ME installed, and after installing the video card and the accompanying software drivers it worked. Then I installed Ulead's Video Studio 5 and it killed my system. It took 10+ minutes to boot, I couldn't access my CD-RW or DVD-ROM drive, and everything was really slow.
I put in a new hard drive and did a fresh install of Win2K, installed all the drivers and everything as before, installed Video Studio 5, and everything works fine.
I replaced a GeForce 2 GTS card and a Pinnacle Micro DC30 capture card with a single card that gives me better performance, better input/output options AND gives me two Firewire ports.
The card comes with all the multimedia software and drivers, a free copy of Half Life with CS and TF, Ulead Video Studio 5, the RF remote with batteries and a USB RF receiver, a composite video cable, S-video cable, i-Link to Firewire cable, DVI to VGA adapter and a very nice break-out box cable with Firewire, composite, S-Video and digital audio ports. There was another CD of some sort of multimedia presentation software that went on the shelf with all my other "it came free with the (device) and I'll probably never use it" software.
I have already captured video from my Sony Hi-8 camcorder and burned a video CD with relative ease (I'd done it before, so it wasn't something new to me).
I have a DV camcorder arriving tomorrow, and I can't wait to check out the world of digital video capture.
If the new 7500 is even half as good as the 8500 (at right about half the price) it's worth the money, IMHO.
The only problems I have are:
1) The included RF remote isn't a universal remote, so since I have my satellite receiver hooked to the coax input on the card, I have to use the satellite remote to change the channel, and then I have to use the ATI remote (which is a nice remote, BTW!) to adjust volume, etc.
2) There is no way to change the video input from within the included video capture software (Ulead Video Studio 5). If there is a way, I haven't been able to figure it out.
recording on PC , from VCR (Score:3, Informative)
Another advantage is that it's a stand-alone device. You can plug a VCR in one side, a DV camera into another, and do the conversion automatically. Works with ANY platform that has 1394 inputs and drivers.
WARNING: The purchase of an ATI capture card (Score:1, Informative)
With that said, I would like to offer a very serious warning. This warning is to those considering the purchase of any ATI capture card. For I, will never purchase another ATI product again.
My intention was to ARCHIVE all of my existing and aging VHS multimedia. This is permitted under the terms of copyright law as "Fair Use". I have some really good movies I purchased on VHS over the years and I cannot afford to replace the entire collection on DVD, even it they were all available on DVD. Besides, I have already paid for the movies. I can't help it if the tapes are going bad.
Macrovision, an anti-copy technology implemented on VCR's over ten years ago is still being used today in more effective forms. It prevents you from being able to dub a video onto another tape from VCR to VCR. Computer digital capture doesn't even notice Macrovision and will capture any VHS tape.
Our friends at ATI are in bed with those anti-copy groups. They intentionally built in measures to DETECT Macrovision and PREVENT capture from any VHS or DVD that uses this anti-copy technology. They did this on purpose. VCR's suffer the Macrovision effect mostly my accident since Macrovision tricks the automatic gain circuit in them. There is no AGC circuit in video capture boards, at least not in the way there is in a VCR. So ATI went out of their way to cripple the capabilities of an otherwise good capture card. They didn't even have to do this by law. There are plenty of other capture cards that completely ignore Macrovision.
Also, what ATI calls VCD standard is completely off the mark. They offer a VCD capture mode that captures in a variable bit rate, and only 1.05 bps, which is below and off spec to the actual VCD standard. The result is an extremely low quality capture that has to be ran through a program such as TMPGenc to be corrected and actually usable in order to burn a working VCD disc.
ONLY PURCHASE THIS PRODUCT if you do not intend to archive your old VHS movies or capture anything that might have anti-copy technology such as VHS, DVD, some new Digital Cable broadcast, or from a Sony DSS unit.
Details? Visit www.vcdhelp.com and learn what I've mentioned here and much more.
-Roach
I just purchased one this week... (Score:3, Informative)
First off, I used to have an original All-In-Wonder card about 5 years ago, and it's still alive and well in my linux server. I loved that card, but 3D sucked until I added a 3dfx card. I ran those for a while, then the GeForce series came out, and I jumped on the ASUS 6600 Deluxe with the TV features. (ATI had me hooked on TV on my computer, so I couldn't live without it.) Well, 2 years later, my ASUS card begins to fail and I started looking at a new card--it came down to the Radeon 8500 or the 7500 AIW cards. Since I don't have a DV camera or any other type device, I figured I'd save the $200 and get the 7500 (after consulting a friend who also recently purchased the card).
I had some problems with the install, mainly with getting the remote and the TV display to work properly. The driver and software installs were actually quite painless (AMD 1.2 GHz, Win2k, just for reference). It turns out that the program for the remote is buried in the application directory, and the shortcut in all the software is wrong. After fixing that, the control worked fine. As for TV, I had no picture, but had sound. It turns out that when you have the TV composite out connected to a VCR, it makes the TV out the primary display, and your monitor is a cloned desktop. Make sure you switch that before you get upset like me that you have no TV display.
Let me say that if you have a TiVo, don't bother getting this card. If you also have a higher end graphics card and do a lot of gaming, don't get this card. However, if you have a GeForce 256 or older card, want decent TV record/playback, and do moderate gaming (with nice effects) then this card is for you. I have had no problems running my 3D games like I did on my GeForce 256 (the 7500 AIW runs like a GeForce 2 MX, so it's adequate for most games). The Guide Plus software (only for windows) allows you to download local channel guides, and set the TV to either watch or record automatically. But as someone else said already, it's dumb and doesn't gather watching habits or anything--not bad though if you just want to record something without being there. I'm still having some problems with recording video (audio and video get out of sync) but I think that's because of the settings I'm using for compression (you can use MPEG-1, MPEG-2, AVI, ATI VCR, or WMF). ATI is aware of the "10 second sync" issue with AVI recording, and are "working to resolve the problem".
In all, I really do like the card, especially the time-shift feature and the remote. I've bordered on saying that I love the card, but the recording issues are the only thing that holds me back.
TiVo Suggestions are a Good Thing (Score:3, Informative)
On the other hand, I can't understand why anyone could possibly complain about this feature. It uses disk space that is not being used otherwise. So it costs you absolutely nothing to have these programs recorded for you. Even if the TiVo never once managed to select a program that you were remotely interested in, it would still cost you nothing. But if just once, TiVo caught a show that piqued your interest, then the autorecord of suggestions feature will have been worth it.
Because only unused disk space is used for the suggestions feature, it works alot like the Linux buffer cache, where memory that is not being used will keep files buffered in memory. I've also heard people complain about this Linux feature; they think it's wasting memory, and just can't seem to understand that that memory would not have been used anyway. So it either sits there doing absolutely nothing, and is a complete waste, or does something that has a chance, maybe just a slight chance, but a chance nonetheless, of being useful.
TiVo's suggestions feature is not really like MSWord's autocorrect, because it doesn't interfere with your use of the box otherwise. I guess it does interfere a little bit - it makes the Now Showing list longer, which will make it slightly slower to navigate. But really, the effect is so minor, you'd really be splitting hairs to complain about that.
And yeah, I guess you could write your own suggestions program, but it would not be easy. More power to you if you can do it, but it would take alot of work.
BTW, I work for TiVo so please bear that in mind when you read my defense of TiVo features.