Why doesn't ATI build an HDTV AIW...?

[R. J. Salvi]

Is there a technical issue preventing ATI to build/release a HDTV version of
an All-In-Wonder? Thx.

 

[Tom Lake]

Is there a technical issue preventing ATI to build/release a HDTV version
of an All-In-Wonder? Thx.

Yes. The fact that ATI is no longer making ANY All-In-Wonder cards. The
line is dead.

Tom Lake

 

[xmradio]

Yes. The fact that ATI is no longer making ANY All-In-Wonder cards. The
line is dead.

Tom Lake

good, no more bungled junk!!!

xman

 

[Tom Lake]

Yes. The fact that ATI is no longer making ANY All-In-Wonder cards. The

good, no more bungled junk!!!

The concept was good but the execution was definitely poor.

Tom Lake

 

[First of One]

Always the optimist...

Some market ANALyst at the company probably decided the AIW line didn't make
sense any more, with the emergence of set-top boxes (satellite or cable).

 

[Some Guy]

Yes. The fact that ATI is no longer making ANY All-In-Wonder
cards. The line is dead.

That is irrelavent.

ATI doesn't have to call it an "all-in-wonder". They can call it
what-ever they want. The question is - why don't they make one?

I suspect that with AMD buying ATI, that ATI will be more limited in
what they are allowed to develop product-wise.

Here are some alternatives:

http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Video/mdp130.asp

http://fusionhdtv.co.kr/ENG/Products/DualDigital.aspx

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_hd.html
http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_d.html

 

[First of One]

That is irrelavent.

ATI doesn't have to call it an "all-in-wonder". They can call it
what-ever they want. The question is - why don't they make one?

It is quite relevant. The AIW line was axed because some analyst at ATi
decided that the whole concept of putting a TV tuner on a video card doesn't
make sense any more (or the potential market has shrunken too much to
justify continued R&D investments).

I suspect that with AMD buying ATI, that ATI will be more limited in
what they are allowed to develop product-wise.

There are several ways of looking at this. ATi has been guilty of some
missteps over the last couple of years, from the Crossfire dongle cable, to
the bloated Catalyst Control Center, to the X1800 delays, to the
never-ending problems with AIW software suites... With AMD, development of
non-sensible products may be better reined-in.

Here are some alternatives:
http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Video/mdp130.asp
http://fusionhdtv.co.kr/ENG/Products/DualDigital.aspx
http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_hd.html
http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_d.html

These are all standalone cards designed to work alongside the main video
card, and IMHO it's the best way to avoid headaches, since the multimedia
software doesn't have to matched to the display driver. ATi also has a
equivalent TV Wonder 650: http://ati.amd.com/products/tvwonder650/index.html

 

[T Shadow]

Always the optimist...

Some market ANALyst at the company probably decided the AIW line didn't make
sense any more, with the emergence of set-top boxes (satellite or cable).

IIUC ATI looked for AMD to buy them out. Would seem they've been cutting
corners because of money problems. Might make business sense to sacrifice
multimedia to keep graphics going. Just a guess and have no idea where I
read ATI was looking for a bail out. Why else would they allow the
multimedia hardware/software to gain such a bad reputation? If AMD wants to
continue selling MM hardware they need to do something. Bought the HDTV
Wonder because I had expectation of the best support. No longer have that
expectation so will be giving other brands, at least, an equal consideration
on my next purchase. Up till now all my graphics cards have been ATI.

WatchHDTV doesn't have all the features of MMC(DTV) but it works flawlessly
and it's programmed by an individual for donations. Maddening since MMC9.15
would be almost perfect if it worked as well as WatchHDTV.

 

[Bill]

That is irrelavent.

ATI doesn't have to call it an "all-in-wonder". They can call it
what-ever they want. The question is - why don't they make one?

I suspect the answner is that there is not enough profit involved to
warrant the investment of time and resources.

Simple Business 101.

Bill

 

[Barry Watzman]

I have always had good luck with the AIW cards, and I've owned many
dozens of them, perhaps a hundred or more (going back to the original
cards in the mid 1990's).

The problem that's going to arise now is that the newer motherboards
only have 3 PCI slots on them, period. So using one of those for a
separate tuner will have more of an impact than it has in the past.

 

[R. J. Salvi]

I suspect the answner is that there is not enough profit involved to
warrant the investment of time and resources.

Simple Business 101.

Bill

Though I'm responding to your post Bill, my response is generic to all who
have responded so far.

Fwiw...I don't know how much board real estate would be required, but it
doesn't seem like it would be difficult to shoehorn an HDTV (NTSC, ATSC and
QAM) tuner and hardware MPEG encoder on a card. With hardware encoding, it
would now be compatible with MCE and other software packages, wouldn't tie
up a PCI or USB slot with an on-board tuner and although overkill, would
have the bandwidth advantage of PCI-E.

Anyway, this is just thinking out loud, but I think a decent-sized market
for a card like that exists, especially if it worked with other software
packages. I currently have an AIW 9700 Pro in one of my boxes and I love
it...in spite of MMC. ;-)

 

[Barry Watzman]

Keep in mind that in only a bit over two years, the entire TV
broadcasting system that we have been using since before Pearl Harboer
was attacked (e.g. NTSC) will die. This is a time of transition, and
it's unclear right now just what a "tuner card" should consist of. You
have:

-NTSC (off the air analog TV)
-ATSC (off the air digital TV)
-QAM (digital TV on a cable system)
-Cable Card (decoder for scrambled channels on QAM)

To deal with. Basically, 4 totally different systems, requiring 3
different tuners (cable card is a decoder for scrambled broadcasts, not
a tuner).

 

[First of One]

What kind of TV signal do you get with your card? Is it conventional cable?
Pretty soon digital cable will be the norm, along with existing satellite
dishes. Both solutions have the tuner built into a set-top box, with only a
video output. As such, the only use for an HDTV tuner inside a PC would be
to receive over-the-air broadcasts on maybe 2-3 channels, with very limited
programming.

I have two X1900XTs in Crossfire. One of them has VIVO. The other came
bundled with a DVI-to-component adapter. I'm using neither functionality.

 

[Barry Watzman]

Re: "Pretty soon digital cable will be the norm, along with existing
satellite dishes. Both solutions have the tuner built into a set-top box"

There is nothing inherint about the location of a digital cable tuner.
It can be in a TV set, or in a computer tuner (internal or external) and
will be (is, actually) any time that you want to receive digital cable
without a set top box (at all).

 

[William]

I have always had good luck with the AIW cards, and I've owned many dozens
of them, perhaps a hundred or more (going back to the original cards in the
mid 1990's).

The problem that's going to arise now is that the newer motherboards only
have 3 PCI slots on them, period. So using one of those for a separate
tuner will have more of an impact than it has in the past.

Barry:

I remember saying the same thing when PCI first became the standard. I had
to throw out a few cards back then too. We are moving over to PCI-E. The
next time you purchase a new tuner card, audio card, scsi card, or whatever,
pick a PCI-E version.

I have a question. Would a tuner card run in a pci-e 1x slot, or will it
require a pci-e 4x or higher to run? ( I have no idea?) I would assume a
1x will do. It's supposed to be so fast and wonderful and what ever.

I'm facing this problem myself right now. I just purchased a MSI 975x mobo.
It only has two pci slots on it; 2-pci, 2-pci-e 1x, 2-pci-e 16x. I have a
tuner card and a modem card that use pci, so it's all filled up. The new
video card gets the pci-e16x slot. If I want a sound card, it will have to
be pci-e 1x. Or I will have to purchase a new tuner/modem card for pci-e 1x
to open up one of the pci slots for an audio card.

Oh well, soon their will be no pci slots on the mobo's.

William

 

[R. J. Salvi]

I'm kinda thinkin' that too. If DRM is the problem, motherboard
manufacturers can put an HDCP chip on-board with a "soft" autosensing
utility for DVI/HDMI video connectivity. When it senses the digital
connection, it activates the chip circuitry. fwiw...

 

[Matt Ion]

The concept was good but the execution was definitely poor.

The HARDWARE was good. The DESIGN of the software was alright (I still haven't
found other tuner software that's as "efficient".

Unfortunately all the software and drivers have been buggy as hell for years,
the whole uninstall-everything/reinstall-everything process is garbage, and the
incompatibilities between different versions of software and drivers was
inexcusable.

 

[Barry Watzman]

I don't know ... and it might depend on whether or not the tuner card
had hardware encoding or not. With hardware encoding, the card output
is MPEG2. Without it, it's uncompressed AVI, which is a lot more data.

You could (and might be wise to) dump the PCI modem card for an external
USB modem.

 

[Barry Watzman]

The HDCP chip will probably be on the video card ... there are a few
video cards that already have it. Of course if video is on the
motherboard, then it would be on the motherboard. But HDCP in our
computers is the way we are heading, if we want to watch DRM HD content
(even if it's just on our computer monitors, which will also need HDCP).

 

[William]

I'm kinda thinkin' that too. If DRM is the problem, motherboard
manufacturers can put an HDCP chip on-board with a "soft" autosensing
utility for DVI/HDMI video connectivity. When it senses the digital
connection, it activates the chip circuitry. fwiw...

--

I remember when Betamax fundies stood around and said "How could anyone
purchase and use SLP (Super Long Play or 3x mode) on a VHS deck. It is so
bad in picture quality." Well, they did - in mass, and all my videos I have
rented in the last 20 years are on VHS SLP mode, three movies per tape, and
I am copying them over to DVD. And I am damn glad to have them too $$$$$.

So now the fundies want to push HDTV as the ****---MUST HAVE---*** format to
view. With HDCP to stop you from making personal copies of what you
purchased and own.

God this makes me want to spit tacks every time I think of this. Most
people don't give a rats ass about the picture quality they are watching.
Have any idea how many people still use rabbit-ears to receive their off-air
TV? It's big. Ghosts, lines, and fuzzy - who cares.

It's the GOVERNMENT AND BIG BUSINESS that is pushing us over to HDTV, with
the cost of new TV's, tuners, DVD's, and what not. The consumer, by and
large, don't give a damn. It's also a big spectrum grab for the airwaves
that will be freed up.

Watch the FCC delay, again, the final, written in stone, must be, no more
delay, final date for ending current TV transmission. Why in the world
would I want to replace the brand-new 13" color TV I just paid $54.95 with a
$300.00 HDTV that does the same thing. Or a box that sets on top for
$50.00.

The people pushing this stuff get lost in the hype they live in. I don't
think the masses care all that much about HDTV. If the industry stumbles,
produces a product that is too hard to use, cost to much to use, or isn't
transparent enough, the consumer will not purchase it.

If it is mandatory for all current analogue TV transmission to stop by 2009,
then why are we still selling TV's that only receive this format? What
lunacy is this. If the FCC was serious about ending analogue TV
transmission, they need to STOP the sales of TV's for this format for at
lease 10 years in advance of the change over.

This whole HDTV, HDCP, is headed for a big train crash. (Maybe China will
declare war on us and we will embargo imports from them - wouldn't that put
a crimp in the works for us electronic junkies!)

I hope so. William.

In case you can't tell, this is an emotional topic for me - I want my free
TV, the way I want it, when I want it, how I want it, and don't turn off
features on the stuff I paid good money for to use either!