Watchin DVDs on TV. Cool!
Written: Mar 01 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: DVD playback, TV Tuner, Recording from videos, Tivo like, S-Video
Cons: Screen curve on TV, Update Drivers problem
The Bottom Line: All-in-all I'm happy with my ATI ... I use the TV tuner more then I thought and the quality of recorded programs and video is very good!
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| Emerald232's Full Review: ATI ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON, (32 MB) PCI Video Card |
I got the ATI All-in-Wonder so that I could watch DVD's running on my computer in my office on my big TV in the living room. It was easy to install and fairly easy to use.
The ATI has an S-Video output port and so I bought a long 25 foot S-Video cable and drilled holes through the walls and connected up to my big TV in my living room. I also needed a long stereo audio cable to connect to the ATI. I can now watch DVDs and surf the web from my living room.
How do I do a mouse and keyboard you ask? I also bought a wireless logitec mouse and keyboard that work fantastically and go a long distance ... two rooms away! (There is a seperate review of it if your interested!)
I do have a couple of problems with the ATI. The first is that the screen is on my TV is slightly warped inwards at the top of the picture. It is a minor annoyance that I can live with.
Somehow the drivers got corrupted one day and so I decided to download and install the latest drivers from the ATI website but part of the install requires a key code that you get from a label on the original software disk. I entered the code but it would not take it ... so I just install from the original software disk and everything was working once again.
The ATI comes with TV-On-Demand; Interactive Program Guide; RADEON 3D graphics; Home video editing; DVD playback; TV/video output. You can record shows on a schedule kinda like Tivo and the TV Guide is nice ... but is really slow to download about once a week. You can capture MPEG-2 at 720x480 (depending on your processor/diskdrive speed). I haven't tried the video editing software that comes with the ATI, but I plan to at some point. It outputs Dolby Digital 5.1 channel output (haven't tried that yet).
I have heard the RADEON 3D graphics processor chip is very good and fast. I'm not a big game player. I have an F-16 simulator game and it seems to really be very nice graphically and fast updating. I think gamers will be pretty happy. It's got 32MB DDR memory and it is the AGP 4x/2x version with DVI output for flat panel screens. It comes with the following software: Ulead videostudio 4.0 (will edit Mpeg-2); Matchware Mediator multimedia presentations software; Merlin VR 3D modeling and animation; Guide Plus+ TV program guide.
The card has won lots of awards including Cnet editors choice; maximumPC Gear of the Year and extreme hardward award.
It has the TV tuner software, a DVD player software (I don't use it because my DVD hardware came with a great DVD player software) and file play that plays Mpeg-2's, Video CD player and Audio CD player.
I have a big grip in that it is a pain to switch to the proper video mode for using my connected TV in the room. This should be a one step process but instead I got to change the resolution to, what is it 800x480, and then I need to turn the S-video connection on. When you are done you have to reverse it. It's multi-steps and not fun. I think they tried to make it one step but their implementation is flawed.
It has S-video and composite video output so I am assuming I can suck video in and edit it and then play it back out to a VHS tape to give to friends ... Hay I can be a movie director now. I need to try that .. I will update this and let you know how it goes.
Check out the ATI website ... www.ati.com to get all the specs.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 160 I think
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Epinions.com ID:
Emerald232
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Location: Los Alamos, NM, USA
Reviews written: 21
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
Enjoy Travel, Films, Hiking, Technology, Science Fiction, Internet Stuff, Investing, Digital Photography, Bicycling and Canoeing
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