Anyone else using an ATI All-in-Wonder card for recording?

[Mail Ias]

I have an ATI Radeon 9700 All-in-Wonder Pro video card. It features a built
in TV tuner and has software for recording programs -- a TiVo wannabe for
sure.

I've made a few attempts recently to use it's record capabilities when there's
a scheduling conflict with the TiVo. It's been hit and miss. Sometimes it
works. Sometimes it doesn't. When it works it's OK. If it doesn't, I have
no idea why.

Just got done looking through all the included apps, ATIs web site,
newsgroups, and different message boards (actually got detoured thinking I
could install Windows Media Center on it). I'm still lost.

Here's the issues as I see it:

- a mad collection of 10 different programs for all the different features,
i.e. TV app, file player app, TV Listings app, Library app

- to schedule a recording you launch the TV listings program, right click on
the program and hit record. Simple enough. When it works

- after recording a program weird things happen to your sound. My wife tried
to watch live TV after it was done recording something. Every time she
switched the channel it would mute the Line In in the sound control panel.
Told her to reboot to fix it. She didn't reboot, but somehow it fixed itself.
(I know it has to do with the recording and not making you hear it while,
recording...)

- one time I tried to change the location of where it saves the recordings. I
changed it successfully as far as I can tell. But, even after several reboots
and days, it still records to the original location. I can't figure out how I
changed it. It wasn't easy to figure out the first time.

- the playback interface is awful and ugly. They tried too hard to make it
cool, and as a result made it useless.

Soooo, can anyone feel my pain? Have you used this same software? Was it as
bad for you? Did you learn how to work with it? Did you give up? Did you
find something better?

I'm kind of hoping for some replacement software that will work with this.
Maybe even finding a way to get ahold of Windows Media Center Edition.

Any ideas?

 

[Gordon Scott]

I have an ATI Radeon 9700 All-in-Wonder Pro video card. It features a built
in TV tuner and has software for recording programs -- a TiVo wannabe for
sure.

I've made a few attempts recently to use it's record capabilities when there's
a scheduling conflict with the TiVo. It's been hit and miss. Sometimes it
works. Sometimes it doesn't. When it works it's OK. If it doesn't, I have
no idea why.

Just got done looking through all the included apps, ATIs web site,
newsgroups, and different message boards (actually got detoured thinking I
could install Windows Media Center on it). I'm still lost.

Here's the issues as I see it:

- a mad collection of 10 different programs for all the different features,
i.e. TV app, file player app, TV Listings app, Library app

- to schedule a recording you launch the TV listings program, right click on
the program and hit record. Simple enough. When it works

- after recording a program weird things happen to your sound. My wife tried
to watch live TV after it was done recording something. Every time she
switched the channel it would mute the Line In in the sound control panel.
Told her to reboot to fix it. She didn't reboot, but somehow it fixed itself.
(I know it has to do with the recording and not making you hear it while,
recording...)

- one time I tried to change the location of where it saves the recordings. I
changed it successfully as far as I can tell. But, even after several reboots
and days, it still records to the original location. I can't figure out how I
changed it. It wasn't easy to figure out the first time.

- the playback interface is awful and ugly. They tried too hard to make it
cool, and as a result made it useless.

Soooo, can anyone feel my pain? Have you used this same software? Was it as
bad for you? Did you learn how to work with it? Did you give up? Did you
find something better?

I'm kind of hoping for some replacement software that will work with this.
Maybe even finding a way to get ahold of Windows Media Center Edition.

Any ideas?

it works, sound can be tricky if you have an audigy sound card, make sure
you test your levels for sound by recording a few seconds of video/tv and
then playing it back, otherwise you may have to alter the mic input in
multimedia center setup, time with the manuals and /help will help you to
get familiar with the peculiaritys.

skins are changeable (yea the default blue spaceship has GOT TO GO)
click the
"checkmark" configuration button in the launchpad to change skins and
access some settings, You know what the launchpad is I hope.


Ive had my 8500dv AIW for 2 yrs, Im happy enough to be planning on a 9800
pro AIW next month.

 

[EJR]

I have an ATI AIW 9600 pro and am disappointed overall.

-The one time I tried recording an hour program it seemed to record it in 2
segments, one about 50 minutes long and one about ten
-The image quality is not as good as a TV
-The sound seemed slightly out of synch with the image
-Guide Plus is not very useful. It only has a 7 day listing, you have to
download new listings manually and the download did not always work
-The ATI driver installation is complicated and I know it still isn't right
on my machine.
-We don't keep the computer on all the time and my wife, daughter, and I
share this machine so setting something to record at a certain time and
actually have it happen is not going to work

I have a 13" TV on the desk next to the computer that we normally use
instead of the AIW. The only feature I use is the FM radio.

Next time I plan on buying a regular graphics card, a TIVO, and a little
desktop radio. Overall I think that combo would be more convient.

EJR

 

[Ed Dombrowski]

About 3 weeks after i got my TV Pro my cable company offered a 50 hour DVR
that worked with my providers digital guide. For $4 a month more then i was
paying you cant beat it with a stick. When i tried to use my ATI TV Pro i
had about the same results as you. A 50/50 shot that what i wanted to record
would actually be there when i got home. I havent used that feature since i
got my DVR.

Ed

 

[JAD]

First, why would you buy a AIW if you weren't going to record anything? Been using ATI AIW's for a long while, 128 rage pro and a
7500(never needed to upgrade since then). The only thing I find useless is gemstar. Everything else works perfectly. (3.9 cats)
Having a 8" color TV/monitor next to the PC's monitor similar to your situation, I would not expect my PC's monitor to look as good
as a television tube. I dunnno why anyone would, actually. I realize that there are 'better' tuners, but compared to a television,
none are THAT good.


Weird 'sound' problems and people reinstall ATI drivers? go figure

one time I tried to change the location of where it saves the recordings. I

changed it successfully as far as I can tell. But, even after several reboots
and days, it still records to the original location. I can't figure out how I
changed it. It wasn't easy to figure out the first time.

Where did you make the changes?

Start TV-goto: settings (checked box) personal video recorder-one touch record-

 

[Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX]

I have an ATI AIW 9600 pro and am disappointed overall.

The ATI softwae has a number of "VCR" quality settings,
and there are tuneable parameters within these. The
highest quality setting makes an excellent recording,
albeit one which might confuse Nerovision.

This is with an AIW 7500, the AIW 9600 may be different.

 

[Bill G]

I have an ATI AIW 9600 pro and am disappointed overall.

-The one time I tried recording an hour program it seemed to record it in 2
segments, one about 50 minutes long and one about ten

Did you reach the file size limit for your OS? In other words, are you
running FAT32 and the file size reached 2GB? NTFS removes that limit
so programs are limited by total HD space, not by file size.

-The image quality is not as good as a TV

You don't say which video format you recorded in. There are many
preset modes available, and of course you can customize any of them.
On mine, it's no trick to get recording quality as good as the
incoming signal allows.

-The sound seemed slightly out of synch with the image

Could also be related to the video format you're recording in.

-Guide Plus is not very useful. It only has a 7 day listing, you have to
download new listings manually and the download did not always work

I use TitanTV rather than Guide Plus.