Repost: TV Wonder USB 2.0 - Where can I get one in the UK?...

[Chris Parry]

...... Does nobody know?

 

[Paul Murphy]

..... Does nobody know?

The ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 is ONLY available for the USA and Canadian
markets. The reason is that its designed to receive NTSC broadcast formats
and we use PAL I here in the UK. Possibly its usable in a few other
countries (that use NTSC) but ATI currently only markets their retail
products directly to those countries.

Paul

 

[Chris Parry]

The ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 is ONLY available for the USA and Canadian
markets. The reason is that its designed to receive NTSC broadcast formats
and we use PAL I here in the UK. Possibly its usable in a few other
countries (that use NTSC) but ATI currently only markets their retail
products directly to those countries.

Paul

Thanks for that Paul, but having read the review at The Register website I
assumed that it would be available here as well:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/17/review_ati_tv_wonder/

In a para on page 2 of the review it say:

"Now if there is a downside to all of this, it is price. The pre-retail
estimate is $99 which works out to around £55 at the current exchange rate.
This is by no means extortionate, but there is no remote control included.
ATI says it is planning to offer a 50 per cent discount to customers on its
separate Remote Wonder 2 control but this would still then carry a price of
£20 and the promotion has not yet officially been cleared for the UK market.
The Remote Wonder 2 is a nice controller, but I would have liked to have
seen some sort of remote thrown in, even a cheap one."

Chris

 

[Paul Murphy]

Thanks for that Paul, but having read the review at The Register website I
assumed that it would be available here as well:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/17/review_ati_tv_wonder/

In a para on page 2 of the review it say:

"Now if there is a downside to all of this, it is price. The pre-retail
estimate is $99 which works out to around £55 at the current exchange
rate. This is by no means extortionate, but there is no remote control
included. ATI says it is planning to offer a 50 per cent discount to
customers on its separate Remote Wonder 2 control but this would still
then carry a price of £20 and the promotion has not yet officially been
cleared for the UK market. The Remote Wonder 2 is a nice controller, but I
would have liked to have seen some sort of remote thrown in, even a cheap
one."

Chris

Thanks for that link. It certainly does look like a PAL (Universal
PAL/SECAM?) version has been developed. Given that ATI haven't developed a
PAL TV Wonder Pro - even though the NTSC version has been out for ages, I
wouldn't hold your breath waiting for this product to be readily available
in the UK though. You could try emailing the author of that review to get
some leads as to suppliers - my bet would be it was a one-off direct from
ATI to "test the water" (gain a feeling for the demand for this product)
though. Since ATI doesn't have any of its own sales offices in the UK
anymore (the one in Marlow closed some time ago), it would be difficult, as
well as very expensive to import one directly from Canada - that's assuming
they would actually sell one directly to an end user. It seems like UK
distributors of ATI based products are sluggish to adopt ATIs latest
offerings for some reason. A good example is how the Theatrix (the latest
ATI Theatre 550 based TV Tuner in PCI form) isn't available through Sapphire
here, even though its listed on their website.

Paul

 

[Chris Parry]

Thanks for that link. It certainly does look like a PAL (Universal
PAL/SECAM?) version has been developed. Given that ATI haven't developed a
PAL TV Wonder Pro - even though the NTSC version has been out for ages, I
wouldn't hold your breath waiting for this product to be readily available
in the UK though. You could try emailing the author of that review to get
some leads as to suppliers - my bet would be it was a one-off direct from
ATI to "test the water" (gain a feeling for the demand for this product)
though. Since ATI doesn't have any of its own sales offices in the UK
anymore (the one in Marlow closed some time ago), it would be difficult,
as well as very expensive to import one directly from Canada - that's
assuming they would actually sell one directly to an end user. It seems
like UK distributors of ATI based products are sluggish to adopt ATIs
latest offerings for some reason. A good example is how the Theatrix (the
latest ATI Theatre 550 based TV Tuner in PCI form) isn't available through
Sapphire here, even though its listed on their website.

Paul

Hmmmmmm... Interesting. I'll do some digging and let you know what I find
out!

Thanks for the background info Paul.

Chris