Diamond ATI Theater 750 HD USB TV Tuner

[s3r19lk1ll3r]

Hey, has anyone got this tv tuner (http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-TVW750USB-ATI-Theater-Tuner/dp/B002UOUQ08/ref=sr_1_1?ie=...6495686&sr=8-1) that could tell me just how well it works for viewing live TV on PC with Windows Media Center AND how well would it work for recording game play off of my PS3? Thanks in advance!

[usually_quiet]

I don't have the Diamond AMD ATI Theater HD 750 USB. I do have an earlier model ATI card with the Theater HD 650 chip, which has much in common with the Theater HD 750 chip. I use my card with Windows Media Center, and the video quality is is excellent when watching analog TV channels or capturing via the S-Video and audio ports.

Theater HD 750 devices perform analog-to-digital encoding using software instead of hardware, which places a burden on the CPU. A USB device that does hardware encoding would be a safer choice with the laptop in your profile, which only meets the minimum hardware requirements for this device. (Hardware requirements can be found at: http://www.diamondmm.com/TVW750USB.php.) Given that, the Diamond AMD ATI Theater HD 750 USB may not be the best choice for you to use for recording video games or watching analog TV using Media Center, since Media Center normally records a buffer to allow pausing and rewinding.

You should probably also use something other than Vista's Media Center for capturing video games. All versions of Media Center require installation of an IR blaster before they will capture S-Video or composite video.

[edDV]

As said, the ATI 750 stick uses software encoding from analog source except when paired with specific ATI display chipsets/cards. In those cases, the display card GPU assists with MPeg2/h.264 encoding. It is doubtful hardware assist will work on a laptop.

The primary purpose of the 750 is ATSC (digital broadcasting) or clearQAM digital cable capture. In those cases there is no encoding going on. The digital MPeg2 subchannel broadcast is extracted to a file with little or no CPU load.

According to this report, the Dominican Republic won't fully switch to ATSC until 2015. They don't say when ATSC will start. I'm not sure if Dominican cable is using clearQAM yet. For these reasons, a more traditional analog NTSC tuner (e.g. Hauppauge PVR-USB2) might work better especially for use with MCE and for MPeg2 capture with hardware encoding (no CPU load).

http://www.atsc.org/cms/index.php/communications/press-releases/225-dominican-republic...ision-standard

[s3r19lk1ll3r]

As said, the ATI 750 stick uses software encoding from analog source except when paired with specific ATI display chipsets/cards. In those cases, the display card GPU assists with MPeg2/h.264 encoding. It is doubtful hardware assist will work on a laptop.

The primary purpose of the 750 is ATSC (digital broadcasting) or clearQAM digital cable capture. In those cases there is no encoding going on. The digital MPeg2 subchannel broadcast is extracted to a file with little or no CPU load.

According to this report, the Dominican Republic won't fully switch to ATSC until 2015. They don't say when ATSC will start. I'm not sure if Dominican cable is using clearQAM yet. For these reasons, a more traditional analog NTSC tuner (e.g. Hauppauge PVR-USB2) might work better especially for use with MCE and for MPeg2 capture with hardware encoding (no CPU load).

http://www.atsc.org/cms/index.php/communications/press-releases/225-dominican-republic...ision-standard

I think I will be getting the Diamond ATI TV Wonder HD 650 Combo USB TV Tuner (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0037A3MVE/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=A9B09ZK9BZJQ6).

[edDV]

I own one of those. Nice for capture from composite (3D comb filter) or S-Video. Analog tuner is OK. ATSC/QAM tuner works OK but the software is not user friendly. I havn't used it with MCE yet but my ATI 550 PCI tuner card works fine.

[s3r19lk1ll3r]

I own one of those. Nice for capture from composite (3D comb filter) or S-Video. Analog tuner is OK. ATSC/QAM tuner works OK but the software is not user friendly. I havn't used it with MCE yet but my ATI 550 PCI tuner card works fine.

Okay thanks! I think I will be using VirtualDub to record though, not the supplied software.

[edDV]

That increases your change considerably if you choose to capture to Virtualdub. there will be no hardware support.

[s3r19lk1ll3r]

That increases your change considerably if you choose to capture to Virtualdub. there will be no hardware support.

what do you mean?

[edDV]

I don't know why I said that. I was changing locations. Late Friday afternoon then.

This type of card usually only works with hardware encoding when used with supplied software or specially written drivers from other applications (e.g. MCE, BeyondTV, SageTV, GBPVR). Most often they don't work at all for Virtualdub capture*. Once the video is captured to MPeg 2, you can import the file to Virtualdub or other software.

This weekend I'll try to hook it up to Virtualdub capture and see what happens.


*Unless you dig down into driver development software like Graphedit.

[jagabo]

I don't know about the 750 but the 650 has problems with its automatic gain. Many shots are are blown out (too bright) and the gain changes with time (eg, a shot will start out too bright but drop to a normal level after a few frames or seconds). I posted some sample images and comparisons with some other video capture devices:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/326560-Which-is-better-usb-stick-vhs-cap-or-hd-pvr-...=1#post2023227

Those were made from XP Pro SP3 using the driver that came with it. If I install the latest driver from ATI VirtualDub can't access the device. If anyone knows a way to disable or "lock" the gain I'd love to hear it.

[s3r19lk1ll3r]

I don't know why I said that. I was changing locations. Late Friday afternoon then.

This type of card usually only works with hardware encoding when used with supplied software or specially written drivers from other applications (e.g. MCE, BeyondTV, SageTV, GBPVR). Most often they don't work at all for Virtualdub capture*. Once the video is captured to MPeg 2, you can import the file to Virtualdub or other software.

This weekend I'll try to hook it up to Virtualdub capture and see what happens.


*Unless you dig down into driver development software like Graphedit.

Okay, let's go back. I will record TV on MCE but game play cannot be recorded with third-party software like Virtualdub? Is that what you mean? If so, does the product include software to record AV input of the TV Tuner, not only TV programming itself?

[usually_quiet]

I don't know why I said that. I was changing locations. Late Friday afternoon then.

This type of card usually only works with hardware encoding when used with supplied software or specially written drivers from other applications (e.g. MCE, BeyondTV, SageTV, GBPVR). Most often they don't work at all for Virtualdub capture*. Once the video is captured to MPeg 2, you can import the file to Virtualdub or other software.

This weekend I'll try to hook it up to Virtualdub capture and see what happens.


*Unless you dig down into driver development software like Graphedit.

Okay, let's go back. I will record TV on MCE but game play cannot be recorded with third-party software like Virtualdub? Is that what you mean? If so, does the product include software to record AV input of the TV Tuner, not only TV programming itself?

Virtualdub doesn't make use of hardware encoding for analog captures, as far as I know. I've only seen Virtualdub recommended for software encoding, losslessly compressed captures, or (rarely) uncompressed captures.The software that comes with the card, ATI Catalyst Media Center can control hardware encoding for captures from the analog tuner or the AV inputs.

I use Windows Media Center mainly for recording digital channels. I use CMC for analog captures from my card's AV inputs and analog tuner. CMC allows control over the bitrate, and the resolution for the capture, as long as the resolution is one of the common settings for standard definition. The user interface is clumsy, but it can be made to work. I have Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit installed and run CMC with an XP compatibility mode, so it should be possible to use CMC with Vista too.

Most freeware capture solution and many paid ones depend upon Direct Show filters to control the capture device. VLC apparently uses Direct Show , and may have settings that work like CMC, but I haven't made much progress there. I haven't figured out which Direct Show settings (if any) control bitrate and resolution for my card using GraphStudio yet either. Some of the tabs I see in the properties listed for the card's Direct Show filter, ATI AVStream Analog Capture, seem like unfinished stubs. Unless somebody has a better suggestion, I recommend CMC for S-Video or composite captures.

[edDV]

I don't know why I said that. I was changing locations. Late Friday afternoon then.

This type of card usually only works with hardware encoding when used with supplied software or specially written drivers from other applications (e.g. MCE, BeyondTV, SageTV, GBPVR). Most often they don't work at all for Virtualdub capture*. Once the video is captured to MPeg 2, you can import the file to Virtualdub or other software.

This weekend I'll try to hook it up to Virtualdub capture and see what happens.


*Unless you dig down into driver development software like Graphedit.

Okay, let's go back. I will record TV on MCE but game play cannot be recorded with third-party software like Virtualdub? Is that what you mean? If so, does the product include software to record AV input of the TV Tuner, not only TV programming itself?

MCE controls the card for recording off the tuner. Like most MCE compatible tuners, the hardware compressor is used and quality options such as Good to Fair are offered. You need to use mediainfo or GSpot to test what the quality settings mean for that card. Output will be an MPeg2 TS stream in a dvr-ms (Vista) or wtv (Win7) wrapper.

The composite or S-Video input is recorded with the supplied ATI software. Quality and mode settings are provided. Output will be an MPeg2 ts file that can be imported into Virtualdub or editors. This is typical procedure for hardware encoding cards like the ATI 550/650 and Hauppauge PVR/HVR cards.

There has been forum discussion of uncompressed capture with this card using Graphedit.