AMD unveils TV Wonder 600 USB, 650 PCIe HD tuners

Regardless of whether you're scouting a TV tuner for your desktop or portable machine, AMD has unveiled a duo of devices that will likely fit the bill. Up first is AMD's plug 'n play ATI TV Wonder 600 USB, which should have no problem tuning OTA HD on any machine equipped with USB, and also comes bundled with an IR remote, AV input, and Catalyst Media Center software. For the desktop only crowd, the ATI TV Wonder 650 Combo PCIe (pictured after the jump) sports ClearQAM support, hybrid analog / digital tuning, a 3D comb filter, FM tuner, and like its portable sibling, works just fine with Windows Vista. No word yet on the pricing details, but both units should be shipping out next month.

[Via DailyTech]

[kcchesnut Posted Jul 10th 2007 11:23AM]

for HD, they really should be doing MPEG-4 hardware encoding.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 11:34AM]

These won't do Mpeg-4 decoding/Encoding, as far as I know, QAM/ATSC is Mpeg/2 with Dolby Digital Sound. There's no reason to alter the stream for Live TV. It probably converts the analog singal to Mpeg-2.

Don't know about the internal one, but the USB definitely won't be hardware decoding. It'll just stream the Mpeg-2 to the computer, and the computer needs to do the rest.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 11:39AM]

The ATSC content is already encoded in MPEG-2. If this is a white-label of Elgato's product, it is only capturing the stream off air. To decode and then re-encode the content in H.264 would require a much more expensive device. A good and fast hardware H.264 encoder supporting HD costs many thousands of dollars. I happen to have a couple in the lab. It is simply not feasible, at this time, in a consumer-grade product to provide HD H.264 hardware encoding in real time.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 10:59AM]

what kind of channels would the usb-one be able to capture ??

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 11:02AM]

Wow. That looks a LOT like my EyeTV Hybrid from Elgato. Interesting...

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 11:11AM]

Will these(specifically the internal one) play nice with NVIDIA graphics cards, mother boards, etc.?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 11:36AM]

I meant signal, not singal. And I was referring to the SD stream when i said analog signal.

But, my question is, will this be supported in Vista's Media Centre? My friend has an old 9800 All in Wonder, and he told me that the card wasn't supported in the new Media Centre.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 11:39AM]

My brother got the TV Wonder 650 in his new dell XPS almost 2 months ago, must have been OEM only up until now.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 11:39AM]

That's great but QAM support in Vista/MCE is non-existant at this point (unless maybe you are usin the HDHomerun, but then you wouldnt buy this also).

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 11:54AM]

Thank you ATI, but where do I plug in the CableCARD so I can watch the HD channels I pay over $1500 a year for on my home built media center PC?

What's that? I can only watch the 3 unencrypted QAM HD channels I get that don't include the local Red Sox games?

Sweet!!!! I love you CableLabs.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 11:55AM]

Can anybody post some links to DVR support for these under Windows? I have a MythTV box at home, but it looks like the listing service (Zap2It Labs) is going under pretty soon, and I'll be left with a capture card but no listings to run the DVR. I've been thinking about upgrading to something like the 650 on Vista Media Center to schedule recordings, but I don't know much about capabilities. Linkage?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 1:01PM]

That's great but maybe AMD should start supporting their existing hardware before they start coming out with new hardware. I've got a TV Wonder 650 that claims support for Windows Vista and still doesn't capture properly. As of the last update the playback is actually worse, not to mention that there is still no Catalyst package after they told me it would be released last month. AMD actually recommends their product for use with other companies applications.
Thanks once again for your valued driver support AMD.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 1:04PM]

Elgato's Eye TV Hybrid is actually Hauppauge's HVR-950.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 1:25PM]

I think it may be the other way around. EyeTV Hybrid was released in October 2006. The HVR-950 was released in January 2007. I guess it's always hard to say.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 1:33PM]

Elgato buys the units from Hauppauge.

[MemphisLeak Posted Jul 10th 2007 1:52PM]

if i bought one of these would i be able to play ps3 or 360 through my laptop?

[keirmeister Posted Jul 10th 2007 1:54PM]

I have the Hauppauge HVR-950 (Elgato EyeTV). I can only assume this ATI USB stick is the exact same thing.

If not, I would love to know what the improvements are - Aside from better TV software. The Hauppauge software sucks big time, but the Elgato stuff is beautiful.

Also, the HVR-950 does work in Vista Media Center.

[0megapartcle Posted Jul 10th 2007 1:56PM]

Everything Elgato releases is just a rebadge of somebody else's product with 20% additional profit (at least) added on top.

[keirmeister Posted Jul 10th 2007 1:56PM]

I think the USB stick would have too much delay for it to be effective as a game console alternative.

I would hazard a guess that the PCI version may not be much better. Wouldn't all the decoding cause too much lag?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 3:45PM]

My eyeTV 200 crapped out. Could I just get the Hauppauge HVR-950 and use it with my exisiting eyeTV software??

[Spinnernj Posted Jul 11th 2007 2:07PM]

Is that a x1 or x4 card?