Question about the Diamond ATI TV Wonder HD 650 Combo PCI-E

[usually_quiet]

I'm considering getting a TV card for my PC, primarily for watching TV using an indoor antenna and Windows 7 Media Center. So far, the Diamond ATI TV Wonder HD 650 Combo PCI-E NTSC/ATSC/Clear QAM seems like the best bang for the buck within my budget.

I have read many customer reviews, and over all, it seems OK. Tuners are not the latest and greatest, but people aren't reporting that they don't do the job, and I have good reception.

I might also use it in a pinch to capture in MPEG-2 format from my cable box's S-Video connection. Is the ATI Theater 650 a good chip for that purpose or will it over-process a relatively clean analog signal and remove too much detail?

If anyone using this card has anything additional to say about it, I'd be interested in hearing that as well.

[danno78]

I might also use it in a pinch to capture in MPEG-2 format from my cable box's S-Video connection. Is the ATI Theater 650 a good chip for that purpose or will it over-process a relatively clean analog signal and remove too much detail?

I don`t think so. However, you can turn off noise reduction. All hardware mpeg2 engine will cut down some detail. If the quality is the main concern you should capture uncompressed and compress later using 2 pass or one pass and high bitrate.

[usually_quiet]

Thanks for the reply. I'm not interested in making uncompressed captures. Doing that is too much work for me just to record TV. I'm not sure my hardware can handle software encoding competently, so I think I need a hardware solution. I guess I will have to live with a little loss of detail.

[danno78]

Ati hardware encoder: 30 sec sample with S-Video connection and 6Mb constant bitrate:
http://download675.mediafire.com/vjytyeb0lmeg/jtnyqg4mint/Capt_Svideo_6Mb.mpg

[usually_quiet]

Thanks for the test clip. It looks very good, about the same as my DVD recorder. If I had to use my computer as a temporary replacement for a DVD recorder, I think I would manage quite well for a while with that level of quality.