TV on the PC... Woohoo!
Written: Aug 31 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Functions well as a TV and recorder, relatively cheap
Cons: TV at full screen must be viewed several feet away; Drivers can be tricky
The Bottom Line: The ATI TV-Wonder is by no means a replacement for the standard TV, but it works great as a supplement to the computer and for full-screen viewing several feet away.
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| mark_ufl's Full Review: ATI TV Wonder |
As a college student who is trying to save space in the dorm, I thought that a TV tuner card would be a cheap and easy way to get TV in my room without having to buy a seperate unit. Although the TV-wonder doesn't match the quality of a regular TV, it works well as something to watch while I'm doing other things, and also for full-screen viewing during the evenings.
Features
* 125 channel TV-tuner
* (Mine had this, I don't know that older versions had this setup) -- Breakout box for Composite and S-Video inputs
* Video desktop - set the wallpaper to the TV (pretty cool function)
* Channel preview - see all channels on one page
* Digital VCR - record TV into MPEG-1 or AVI format on your computer
Installation
This subject is a little tricky, because ATI has released new drivers for the card in July 2001. This will describe the setup using these drivers. I found that one has to follow the instructions that are given with these drivers to ensure that the programs work correctly. After downloading the drivers from the ATI site, I installed DirectX8 and the DirectX video capture update (getting them from the Microsoft DirectX website), then installed the first part of the ATI drivers. After this, I then installed the card in the system, rebooted, and let it go through a series of driver installations (the readme file with the drivers describe the steps). Afterwards, I finally installed the ATI Multimedia Center program, and after that you can watch TV. It is a semi-lengthy process but as long as you follow the directions it goes exactly as expected.
TV Quality
The TV quality of the TV-wonder varies with size. It first opens up at 320x240, and looks excellent at this size. You can go to 640x480, and the picture still looks relatively good, although it tends to get a little more pixelated. Going to full-screen diminishes the quality to some degree if you stay close to the monitor, but if you stay about 4 feet or further from the screen, it is hardly noticeable. Most people watch a regular size TV from several feet away anyway, so this doesn't really bother me at all, I just watch TV from my bed and it looks quite good. It autoscans for channels when you first start up, and you can label channels if you like so that it doesn't just show the channel number. One thing to note is that I'm using an LCD monitor, so the quality on a regular CRT monitor may be better, but I haven't had a chance to test it on a CRT yet.
Digital VCR
Digital VCR allows you to record either into AVI, MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 formats. There's a button on the TV tuner so that you can record on-the-fly, or you can record a show by setting a timer to tell when and for how long it needs to record a TV show. It is a nice feature, and the quality is basically the same as that of the ATI-TV quality.
Other Features
The breakout box for the composite and s-video inputs is interesting and I haven't tested them yet, although I think that they would work quite well and give decent quality. They are nice in case you need to hook up a VCR or gaming system to play on the computer monitor. There are other little features within the TV program such as Video Wallpaper which allows you to set your wallpaper to the TV which is pretty cool. Hot words allows you to put in a search term and it will scan closed-captioning for that hot word and notify you when a program matches it. There are other little features such as TV magazine (which I've never used) that will be useful to some and not to others.
Conclusion
The ATI TV-Wonder is a relatively inexpensive way to add TV to your computer. It will not be good enough to replace a regular TV, but the quality is more than sufficient for watching TV while doing other work (It's really nice if you use the TV while playing Enhanced TV of Millionaire! or the Two Minute Drill), and the quality is good enough that you can watch full-screen TV if you stay a couple feet away. For $70 I can't complain, it's cheaper than buying a TV and it has plenty of features that will keep most people happy. Just carefully follow the driver instructions :)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 69
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Epinions.com ID:
mark_ufl
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Reviews written: 35
Trusted by: 7 members
About Me:
UF student majoring in computer science. Wish me luck!
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