ATI TV WONDER
Written: Oct 11 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Product availibility, Cost
Cons: Poor Tech Support, Rude Customer Service, incompatabilities, Extremely Difficult Instructions, Outdated Software
The Bottom Line: For what it's worth, I think you are rolling the dice when it comes to ATI. I will never buy another product from ATI for as long as I live!!!
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| fourteecaliber's Full Review: ATI TV Wonder |
Just like everyone else, I love Epinions. I really like the reviews from other people about certain products. I read pretty good reviews about the Dell Dimensions 8100 series computer, so I ended up buying one (and I love it!). Well I decided to buy a TV Card for my computer, and think that it's a neat little feature. So, after reading some Epinions, I "settled" for the ATI TV Wonder. That was the worse computer product that I ever bought! ATI markets their product extremely well, because it's everywhere. I figured it has to be worth trying out. I received my product and opened the package up. It looked somewhat impressive with all of the features that it could accomplish. Well, a long story short, I attempted to install it. First, the drivers have to be downloaded before you attempt to put the TV Card in the PCI slot. But you can't install the Multimedia Program until the Card has been installed (very confusing to the average customer). The Software and drivers contained on the CD that came with the product was useless (very outdated). It takes an internet connection to download the newest software (10.3 megabytes). Fortunately I have a cable modem so it wasn't that bad (dial up modems would have to wait an hour or so before it was finished with the download). The ATI TV Wonder did not work on my 1st install. I changed PCI slots. Again, it did not work. I ended changing the card around to every availible open PCI slot (4 of them). It still would not work. I called ATI's tech support (Sorry, NO 800 number availible-expect to pay a large long distance phone bill because I was on hold for almost an hour). I ended up talking to a tech who said that I needed to update my computer (which I explained that I owned a NEW, LESS than a month old Dell pentium 4 and had PLENTY of computing power and the most up-to-date drivers). I was then told that their card (the ATI TV Wonder) had no problems and that it must have been me that messed up the installation. The ATI TV Wonder card would not even recognize my GFORCE 2 card (it said old/unrecognized video card). Furthermore, they told me that it was a Dell problem, not an ATI issue. Then they focused on the problem as ATI told me that it may also be a Microsoft problem (again shifting focus on THEIR TV CARD and pointing the finger at someone else)! After I insisted on speaking with a supervisor, did I get a little bit better customer service. I received a call back from a senior tech support technician from ATI, and again attempted to "walk me though" the installation. He pulled every trick out of the book and still could not get the card to operate properly. So, I took the card back to my place of purchase the next day and bought a Hauppauge Win TV-Go card. I installed it instantly! Less than 5 minutes later, I was watching TV on my computer! It had updated drivers and was even Windows XP ready (even though I still have Windows ME).
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 79.99
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Epinions.com ID:
fourteecaliber
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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