ATI Theater 650 PCI TV Tuner/Card (Questions)

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deadman_uk

[H]ard|Gawd
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After looking at several TV cards, I have decided to buy the 650 from ATI. Unfortunely I couldn't find a UK store that sells this so I will have to purchase on eBay via an American seller.

My questions...

1) I understand the ATI 550 pro had serious issues with Nforce 4 motherboards (I have an A8N-E) and wasnt compatible. Does the same issue occur with the 650? Please tell me this, I need to know if there is a problem.

2) I live in the UK, but this is an American card, should I expect any problems? If so, what?

3) The card is known as the 650 pro, but in the ebay auction it's a plain 650. Are there different versions of the 650? If so, what are the differences?

I may even go for the Hauppauge WinTV HVR-4000 card http://www.pyramid.com/Product.aspx...urce=Kelkoo&ref_StockCode=611100&ref_Type=CPC but its a little on the expensive side.

Thanks all
 
1) i heaven't heard of any problems
2) The card won't be any use in the UK. The US uses ntsc for SD, which is different to the PAL used in europe. The HD tuner will be ATSC, but you'll need a dvb-T/S card in europe.
3) There's no pro card, they're all the same.

Bottom line, don't even bother. i think hauppauge has a good range of dvb cards for the euro market.
 
I think what you'll want is a decent DVB-S2 card, and a SkyHD subscription. I've talked with plenty of people in the UK, and that is what they use. You'll have the ability to view and capture ALL high-definition content without the worry of encryption, even channels like Starz HD and Cinemax HD.
 
The 650 should support all worldwide standards so it probably would have worked but checking with someone who has tried it wouldn't have hurt.

* Avivo-enabled TV and DTV capture ensures the highest quality TV on the PC experience
* Unrivaled TV clarity worldwide thanks to a new motion adaptive 3D comb filter supporting NTSC, PAL and SECAM standards
* Industry leading digital TV capabilities for ATSC and DVB-T DTV standards
* Hardware MPEG2 encoding that offloads intensive PVR functions from the processor at Tivo-beating quality levels
* Highly integrated chip including 12-bit worldwide video decoder, worldwide audio decoder, MPEG encoder and PCI/PCI-Express 1X bridge
* Microsoft Vista premium logo ready
Click to expand...

Just clearing that up.
 
Anarchist4000 said:
The 650 should support all worldwide standards so it probably would have worked but checking with someone who has tried it wouldn't have hurt.

Just clearing that up.
Click to expand...

The chip can handle the standards, but the cards and tuners are specific to whichever region it's sold in. A card made for the US market will have NTSC and ATSC tuners, which aren't much use to europeans unless they have a gigantic antenna ;) If there is a euro version of the card it'd have a pal SD tuner and some flavor of DVB for digital, but it doesn't sound like ATI is making such a thing.
 
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