AMD unveils trio of new ATI TV Wonders

Those looking for a fresh way to capture OTA signals on their computer need to look AMD's way, as the firm is kicking out three new ATI TV Wonder devices today. Up first is the TV Wonder 650 Combo USB, which includes two TV tuners to pick up OTA HDTV signals / ClearQAM programming, analog TV and FM broadcasts. For those with desktops, the TV Wonder 600 PCI or TV Wonder 600 PCI Express should fit the bill quite nicely, as they offer up the same features as their USB sibling in less portable forms. Notably, all three units come bundled with Catalyst Media Center software, which enables the devices to quickly convert (read: "with two mouse clicks") recorded programming to formats suitable for use on the iPod, Zune, PSP, iPhone, Palm Treo, etc. Price wise, the 650 Combo USB will demand $149, while the other two (pictured after the jump) will run you just $99 apiece.

[Doctadjones @ Oct 15th 2007 9:07AM]

So the question is: Can I use the ClearQAM tuner with MediaCenter?

I do love my HDHomerun, but I always like to have options.

[Mike Cerm @ Oct 15th 2007 3:03PM]

No. Windows Media Center doesn't support QAM, for some reason. XP MCE (and Vista MC) only work with over-the-air HDTV.

[tmc2k @ Oct 15th 2007 5:28PM]

According to the TV Wonder Matrix, this will support clearQam in Vista MC(only - they have to collect their tax somehow).

http://ati.amd.com/products/tunermatrix.html

[James @ Oct 15th 2007 9:09AM]

1) Will these be available for the UK?

2) Will they actually work with Vista MCE properly [90% of UK tuners don't :(]

[Tom @ Oct 15th 2007 11:59AM]

Er...yeah they do...

[max mcleod @ Oct 15th 2007 9:21AM]

What's the point, in 2009 most ota channels will be gone, am i correct?
the cable company will be pushing advertisment heavy digital cable on everyone.

why don't they release digital tuners for the masses instead.

[Morgan @ Oct 15th 2007 9:28AM]

I agree. I don't understand why tuners are being released without cable-cards b/c without them there is no chance I will be buying them, with HD channels being my primary content. I'm still waiting for the right solution... HD recording with NDAS or at least USB HD storage.

[DJ @ Oct 15th 2007 9:46AM]

Over the Air ANALOG signals will be gone. Digital signals are already being broadcast and will stay. NTSC vs ATSC. QAM is for cable only.

[Spyvie @ Oct 15th 2007 11:13AM]

Not only will ATSC OTA signals still be around, they are and will continue to be the very best HiDef signal you can tune on your TV... and they're free!

A new era of free OTA goodness!

[max mcleod @ Oct 15th 2007 1:27PM]

still sounds stupid... ota doesn't give me the few channels I actually watch... so its not worth it to me. I will be screwed when the digital switch hits. I will be forced to rent two settop boxes and hopefully use the firewire to control channel changing.

[bigglare @ Oct 15th 2007 9:26AM]

If Media center supported Clear Qam these cards would be something special. But since neither XP nor Vista's Media Center's Support anything but OTA or possibly Cable Card with ATIs all in wonders the Clear Qam is worthless.

[nerdwes @ Oct 15th 2007 3:44PM]

You're wrong

http://www.silicondust.com/wiki/products/hdhomerun

[kballs @ Oct 15th 2007 8:56PM]

The HDHomerun does clear QAM by emulating an ATSC OTA tuner. Vista does not yet support clear QAM without an OCUR/cablecard tuner.

[bigglare @ Oct 16th 2007 9:40AM]

So homerun supports QAM and tricks Vista into thinking it is not seeing QAM? So I am still right. Vista does not support QAM.

[JoeStalin @ Oct 15th 2007 9:36AM]

Does anyone know if the USB dual tuner device has hardware encoding or decoding? Is that something ATi typically does? I'd like to add a couple more OTA tuners via USB but don't want my CPU to get slammed. If there is a USB device that does encode/decode I'd appreciate any help you can give.

[tcc3 @ Oct 15th 2007 10:13AM]

All of the newer tuners have MPEG encoding on board. They have to if they are "media center compatible." Almost no one does dedicated hardware decoding any more as that is mostly handled by the video card.

[underwhelm @ Oct 15th 2007 9:58AM]

It seems pretty clear that the PCI and PCI-E versions of the card don't have exactly the same features from the picture. What is the internal header for on the PCI-E version?

[underwhelm @ Oct 15th 2007 10:02AM]

I spoke a little too soon, I spotted the internal header on the PCI version... Still curious what it's for.

[Dan @ Oct 15th 2007 10:12AM]

Call me if Vista MCE support appears for clear QAM

[Mike Cerm @ Oct 15th 2007 3:16PM]

Even when my cable company supported QAM (before they took it away), they were recompressing the HD channels, and it looked really bad. I was unaware how much worse it looked until I was forced to use OTA.

Now that they support QAM again, I won't use it, because OTA looks that much better.

[Robert B @ Oct 15th 2007 11:28AM]

The cards are great, but unless it's gone through some MAJOR changes, the Catalyst Media Center is useless. I have an older 650 PCI and although the picture is nice and the recordings look great when played back on my tv, I constantly have trouble with the software.

[octoberasian @ Oct 15th 2007 2:17PM]

I agree.

From what I've read in forums and other tech sites, the Catalyst Media Center is buggy at best and unstable. One poster mentioned that the latest software version is completely different from the last CMC released two years ago. That past version was a lot more stable and had more options.

I have been considering to get a TV Wonder 650 PCI for quite some time. And, the best alternative I can find at this moment is: http://www.team-mediaportal.com/ (MediaPortal Media Center).

Open-source and free. So, if and when I do get a TV Wonder 650 PCI, I'm not installing Catalyst Media Center, but MediaPortal instead.

[Robert B @ Oct 15th 2007 4:18PM]

The current Catalyst is actually a skinned version of CyberLink PowerCinema 4 with a couple extra features. I've had multiple contacts with ATI tech support over the last couple weeks trying to work out all the bugs I have and they basically told me that the program is buggy, errors are hard to track down, and the way the program is made makes it very difficult for them to fix problems - they actually recommended I spend the money to buy a different program. You're probably a whole lot better off buying a better program that comes bundled with a "free" tuner card. It costs about the same amount and the company can probably provide much better support on the software than ATI is currently able to.

[Rob @ Oct 27th 2007 1:50PM]

I tried bundled Catalyst, Beyond TV, and finally WatchHDTV which blew the others out of the water using 650 PCI.

http://watchhdtv.net

[KazO @ Oct 15th 2007 12:18PM]

The internal cards and the 650 USB have HW compression, the 600 USB doesn't. All of these were on the shelf (in Visiontek boxes) at my local Fry's yesterday. I almost picked up a 600 USB to use with my ThinkPad.

[foobarino @ Oct 15th 2007 12:55PM]

I'd be nice if AMD/ATI gave us something that didn't already exist from a dozen manufacturers and instead released the CableCARD box from the press release like 18 months ago.

Not to threadcrap, but it doesn't seem like they're even competing on price.

[Chris @ Oct 15th 2007 1:13PM]

They released in near a year ago, you can buy one of a dozen PCs with it included....

[Courtney @ Oct 15th 2007 3:51PM]

Unfortunately its not up to ATI to sell the cablecard tuners. CableLabs mandates that they can only be sold with systems that they have certified.

[foobarino @ Oct 15th 2007 1:34PM]

I guess I meant to say that I'd like to buy this:

http://ati.amd.com/products/tvwonderdigital/index.html

without having to buy an extra PC I don't need. Similar to how these are sold.

[James @ Oct 15th 2007 5:56PM]

I really, really want to see support for ClearQAM as a "commodity" service, where it doesn't matter who the last-mile provider is. I hate this model where if I want cable, I get Comcast or I can go screw myself. At this point, I've been living on a steady diet of OTA and HD torrents, and while I guess I could go on like this, my ideal solution would be HD cable and a purpose-built DVR machine.

Or, I could stop watching so damn much TV....

[Michael M. @ Oct 16th 2007 10:55AM]

Does this work with OS X?

[kgrr @ Oct 22nd 2007 8:52AM]

no. only windows xp media suite and vista

[kgrr @ Oct 22nd 2007 9:10AM]

Does it work for anyone???

I bought an ATI TV Wonder 650 combo on Saturday and attempted to installed it into my Toshiba A215-4747 laptop running Vista 32 bit OS.

ATI CIM 3.0.643.0 20.MB (upgraded from 3.0.642.0)
Theater 650 Pro USB 2.0 driver 6.14.10.250 40.0 MB
AVIVO 9.15.0.20713 3.0 MB
MS Visual C++ 2005 Redistrib. 7.3.0.0 10.0 MB
Catalyst MC 1.0.3202
Remote Control SW for CMC 10/18/2007 patch

I find the fit between the plastic outside of the box and the RCA connectors and S-Video connector to be off-center, making it impossible to connect external cables to the box without forcing things. I don't know if this is a poor case design or shoddy assembly.

[kgrr @ Oct 22nd 2007 1:53PM]

..con't
The TV tuner does not work, but the FM Radio part does-it can tune the sound for Channel 6 broadcast. I needed a patch in order to make the ATI Wonder Remote plus work.

Did anyone get the tuner to work??? Is there something I am missing???