cyber said:
I have AIW 8500DV on a P4 2.6Ghz. I used to get crystal-clear cable
TV programs on my PC but recently lost cable TV service due to their
expensiveness.
I saw HDTV Wonder (not the adaptor) at ati.com, but there is no spec
and no card photos. Would it add HDTV capability to my PC? How much
does it cost and where to get it? What kind of antenna does it work
with?
Any other cheap HDTV or DTV solutions for PC?
The HDTV Wonder is not shipping yet as far as I know. It will, when
available, allow you to pick up ATSC digital broadast television, which at
its best is considerably better than what you get over most cable and even
better than DVD quality. It may also allow some of the HD cable channels
to be accessed--that's not completely clear at this time.
The antenna is an open question until someone has one to test. If you read
the "authorities" they'll tell you that digital broadcast doesn't need much
in the way of an antenna. If that's the case why did I just have to put up
a horizontal array with rotor and amplifier to get digital broadcasts from
a station whose analog broadcasts I get fine with my old Rat shack cheapie?
What antenna you're going to need depends on your location and on what your
stations are putting out. If you go over to <
http://www.avsforum.com>
you'll find discussion of reception for most major metropolitan areas.
Even if you can't find your locality reading the discussion will give you
an idea of the issues involved and things to try.
The cheap way to get HD in a PC right now is the Dvico Fusion board in one
of its variants. It's picky about the machine you use and the tuning of
the OS--a lot of people get hesitation periodically with no apparent cause.
FWIW, the Fusion II will also work in analog mode with ATI MMC 8.6, which
suprised me. Don't know if the same is true of the Fusion III, which went
from a BT8x8 to one of the 10-bit Conexant chips.
The HDTV Wonder looks to be conceptually very similar to the Dvicos but
using an ATI-designed chip.
The MyHD is well thought of but more expensive. There are some others--one
of the older Telemann boards seems to have developed some good third-party
support and sometimes you can find one cheap on ebay.
