Recommend ATI TV Wonder?

[Y2Jared]

hey,

I am very interested in getting a PCI TV Wonder and i want to hear your thoughts about it from those that do have one and capture stuff with it on a every-other-day or so basis.

Any specific program or things i should look out for with it?

Thanks

Y2Jared

[Torontonian]

i'm using one right now. for my purposes it works fine (under W2K)

[gmjohs]

I'm running this card with XP Pro and everything works fine. The ATI software is quirky, so I don't use it. But everytime I want to capture something with either iuVCR or VirtualDub I have to start the ATI TV program, then shut it down and all is well. Sometimes I have to change the color depth of the desktop from 16-bit to 32-bit or vice versa for the card to work properly.
All in all, I'm perfectly happy with it.

[Macros746]

I'd be curious to know what kind of AGP card you have in your rig before recommending the TV Wonder. The TV wonder goes for around $50 but, for a slightly higher investment, you can get the Radeon AIW (I got mine for $120) which is more of a jack of all trades and a very good gaming card to boot (don't know if that is of any interest to you) What types of things are you looking to do with the card? If you want to do any sort of gaming and have an AGP card that is dated I would recommend the Radeon. Particularly if you can hold off for another month or so. With the release of the new 'next-generation' cards the Radeon AIW will plummet in price over the next few months.

Macros

p.s. The Radeon has some very nice extras like Digital out, support for Dolby 5.1, Composite capture and s-Video capabilities.....

p.p.s. You have to deal with ATI's crappy software either way you go

[pynx]

Well, I am running an ATI TV Wonder along with my Geforce 2 32MB card and haven't had any problems. ATI Does however have the worst software and tech support EVER!! I use WinVCR to do all my capturing (in mpeg1 or mpeg2)and I am extremely happy with the performance of that software. I have compared my caps to that of more expensive cards and apples for apples there is really no diff (capturing at vcd quality). I guess it depends on the level of work you plan on doing...but for the money the TV Wonder is well worth it.

[Y2Jared]

Thanks for the replies. I really don't want to dump my geforce 2 64 meg with TV out card for an ati. Im a firm nvidia supporter but ati has a good name in tuners so I thought I would find out what you guys thought.

Know a address for the vcr program page? Or any programs that work fantastic with the tv-wonder? I got Iulab.com bookmarked but would like to try all programs and see which ones I like best.

Again, thanks for your replies.

Y2Jared

[thefish]

Is a TVwonder better than my current TView99? My video card is a ATI RADION 8500.

[FiEND]

the hardware on the tv wonder is great...

...but the software and wdm bull5h!t drivers make this card a royal pain in the ass and/or a dissapointment.

avoid ATI like the plague. had I known about vcdhelp prior to getting this card I would have made a much better decision.

[ATIWONDERIFWORKS]

Avoid anything ATI. I call mine ATI I WONDER IF IT WORKS.
Alot of people say theirs work no problem but then go on to explain what little bandaid solutions they use. You should not have to use band aids to get something working. There is just too many people having problems with this card .DONT BE ONE OF THEM!

[Torontonian]

I don't use any bandaid solutions for TV Wonder and it works.
if you think that other cards work better - you're in big desusion

[energy80s]

Indeed, I have an ATI AIW card and it really is sh*te, if I knew then what I know now about ATI I would never have wasted $200 on the bloody thing ... what a pile of piss!! Totally useless at TV capture/TV out/VCD playing/driver updates/customer support!!!

[gtrz]

I don't know what so many have against the ATI software..
I have a TV Wonder and I'm using the 7.5 MMC with it and
I love it.Only shortcoming it has is the vertical res limit
of 240 for most codecs but it can still capture some great
looking video as far as I'm concerned.I capture usually straight to Divx or Windows Media and they look great with
little doctoring other than recompressing the
audio if need be to fit on the cd.It's mindboggling to me
all the steps people go to for an end result,I like to keep
it simple 'cause I'm dumb..

[energy80s]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-12-28 01:09:08, gtrz wrote:It's mindboggling to me
all the steps people go to for an end result,I like to keep
it simple 'cause I'm dumb..
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I agree, I like to keep things simple because I'm a lazy bugger!! But with ATI NOTHING is ever simple. To get halfway decent VCD's I'm capping with ATI in "good quality" mode at 6mbps and framserving this through VDub into TMPGenc to re-encode to 1.15mbps VCD standard. And the quality still isn't as good as others are getting with direct VCD capture using other cards!

[ATIWONDERIFWORKS]

Quote
Torontonian: I don't use any bandaid solutions for TV Wonder and it works.
if you think that other cards work better - you're in big desusion

Hey Torontonian,
I think you are the one that is delusional,(I am assuming thats what you were trying to say ). Just look at all the people having trouble with it , probably more than any other card. I know you want to stick up for your hometown company but what good is a Caddilac if ya cant get it out of the garage.

[Torontonian]

1) I don't want to stick with anything Before I got this card I had Zoltrix but returned it back.
2) I'm not talking about software, I'm talking about the card. I didn't say MMC is a wonderful thing (but which card has perfect soft???)
3) Capturing quality mostly depends on chipset, it's a pimary thing. Drivers & soft can be chahged for better ones. It's true for all types of cards, for all manufacturers (I'm not talking about expensive ones).

Just look at all the people having trouble with it

I see people having trobles with any card, even in this forum. So, it's not an agument.

[Macros746]

I make NO justifications for ATI when it comes to supporting their cards but the AIW really is a marvel of hardware. It DID take more fiddling than it should have, but my AIW works amazingly at everything I throw at it. I would suggest that those people having issues should
1. DOWNLOAD MMC 7.5...it is a HUGE inprovement over previous incarnations

2. Try a few 'non-official' drivers. This is a bit of a pain but I am running my AIW with the OMEGA drivers and my gaming performance went through the roof. I have beautiful captures and great VCDs (I capture to MJEG and then convert....although I can capture to great looking SVCD if I want.

3. If all of this fails I suggest Showshifter and AVI_IO for capture....if the problem with ATI is their software then avoid it...

Macros

p.s. All this being said I again say that I don't defend ATI's behavior in driver and software coding at all. But I DO defend the AIW as a stunning piece of hardware. The image quality and colors are far superior to the competition.

[graphter]

I have a tv wonder PCI and have recently upgraded video card to GeForce 2 MX400 and to windows xp. I upgraded to MMC 7.1 also, but now the tv tuner delivers a scrambled picture with either the tv tuner or the s-video input. I can use the video capture and the picture does not come out scrambled or take stills with no problem but when just viewing the tuner it still wont work. Anyone have any ideas or solutions for this.

Thanks
Graphter

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: graphter on 2002-01-17 14:03:11 ]</font>

[ct991]

If the ATI TV Wonder is not the card to buy, then what card DO you guys recommend?