Review: ATI HDTV Wonder

CrimandEvil said:
It wasn't rushed to market, they took their damn time getting it out. Its your specs, they're too low. Try swapping it into a more "modern" system and see if you have the same problems.
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Ok so, what do you consider "modern"? BTW, I *do* meet ATI's minimum requirements.

Do you have an HDTV WONDER yourself in order to substantiate your assertions in this thread?
 
I'm not touching HD until it actually matures and works.

Those are the minimum requirements which means that it will run on that hardware sort like how the minimum required specs for most games run them craptacular, the point is that hardware well run it but not well.

I define modern as in something around 2Ghz, remember that HD encoding is really hard on a system. People talk about Doom 3 bringing systems to their knees HD encoding is it's bigger, older, pissed off brother. That should give you an idea of the stress it puts on your hardware.

The issues you are having are what you would expect with your system specs, nothing more nothing less. It looks like your FSB might be the bottleneck which is why I keep saying try it in another PC.
 
CrimandEvil said:
I'm not touching HD until it actually matures and works.
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... and the HDTV WONDER *will* work when ATI makes the time shifting optional. (If you had the card you'd know precisely what I am talking about).

Lets forget my specs for a moment (which actually do not *meet* but *beat* the minimum requirements) and turn your attention to what I am describing.

My system is [also] equipped with an ATI TV-tuner card that works flawlessly. When this particular card is in use, my CPU usage averages approx 4%. There is NO jitter, NO hiccup, NO disk activity - the video/audio is perfectly smooth as it should be. Everybody is happy. It just works.

So... go ahead and multiply this 4% figure by 10 for HD if you want, I should still be able to watch HDTV and use up only 40% CPU (if HD were indeed CPU bound). Of course thats not the case; the evidence is that CPU usage (even on "modern" CPUs) is maxed out or heavily taxed.

And even those who may not see any significant signs of jitter should not feel too comfortable with the idea that their all-to-expensive CPU is constantly running above 50% duty cycle for several hours watching - say the Olympics or StarTrek re-runs.

Now, like you stated, I *do* realize HD *would* require (note the conditional here) lots and lots of horsepower to encode. No doubt about that. But there shouldn't be anything to encode here. I should be able to *just watch* and not care about encoding/saving any of it on disk.

Read on...

Going back to my other tuner card for a moment, if I "pause" then this is when time-shifting kicks in. CPU then goes all the way up to 70% or so. Which means I can hit "play", watch time-shifted material while LIVE TV keeps being recorded and not see any visual degradation. (In reality I do see some sporadic glitches AND video/audio is of lesser quality presumaly due to lossy compression schemes, audio gets out-of-sync etc).

Going back LIVE brings CPU back to 4%, image quality returns to normal. Thank you.

Still with me?

What I have described here regarding time-shifting is similar in nature on all of my 3 computers running 3 different ATI TV cards (one for me, my wife and kids). Actually, my faster system is an Athlon 2500+ and yet time-shifting isn't working perfectly either. Everywhere CPU is way above 50% when time-shift is ON and goes back to 2~4% when not. This is not a coincidence and isn't related to whatever hardware I may or may not have.

While time-shifting is ON-DEMAND (i.e. when *I* want it) on all of my other TV applications, it is PERMANENTLY ENABLED on the HDTV application - created by the same vendor.

Why do I have a *feeling* the HDTV time-shifting feature is what really matters here?
 
In my usual viewing environment (Couple instances of Firefox, ZoneAlarm, Anti-virus, Outlook, misc helper apps....) I get about 40% utilization on both virtual CPU's

HDTV on the PC is definitely one of those "Exreme Apps" that will crush your pc unless you have top specs. Heck.. It abuses my PC too, and I would consider mine "mainstream"

I'd imagine that Hyper-threading goes a long way to reduce chop, due to helper threads/background tasks having more resources. Although I'm no expert, I'd imagine that controlling disk access, doing housekeeping, and decoding high-bitrate MPEG2 are calculations that are different enough to have a great benefit from HT.

Perhaps you can mount a HT-enabled CPU?

I noticed that the TV-On-Demand stores session .vcr files in ~700MB segments, making a new file every so often. When I had MMC writing to my other drive, it would hiccup every few minutes when it started another file. Adding the Striping array reduced/eliminated the Hiccup.

If you chop is regular, maybe it is your disk subsystem that would yield the most benefit from your attention (read: upgrade $$)

Unfortunately, I do not have a non-HT cpu system of sufficient speed to test out which would be the best upgrade.


marca2004 said:
This is in response to Binkt.

Thanks for your suggestion. I will try this evening. So how much CPU is your ATIMMC.EXE using now? (Do Ctrl-Alt-Del/Task Manager/Performance).

Yes, I do have the XT (Dual display) card. My home theater system is a Via P4XB mobo w/ P4 1.7 GHz 100 FSB, 512 PC2100. No overclocking.

One video output goes to a 15" LCD and the other goes to a 1024x768 1200 lumens Hitachi projector (primary output). Audio is driven by the Audigy 2 + Klipsh Promedia 5.1. My wall screen is 4:3 and measures approx 10' across.

This setup has been on-line for 30 months or so. During this time I've upgraded the Audigy to an Audigy 2 and ATI AIW 7200 to an ATI AIW 8500, then finally the ATI AIW 9600 XT.

One nagging bug with the XT card is that everytime I upgrade the video drivers my secondary display defaults to OFF - which means I have to fire up my projector to reset it. ATI claims this problem has been fixed. Right.

I haven't experimented with PIP. I suppose it would be possible to run both (9600 TV and wonder TV/DTV) at the same time, but hey, that would probably choke the CPU even more...or perhaps fix the problem (by NOT RUNNING THE STUPID time-shifting stuff) I'll take a look and get back to you.

Before I go, lets hear it again: TV-ON-DEMAND is buggy.

Ciao
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Chrisman5000 said:
This only works with over the air broadcast? Isn't that like only 4 channels?
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Works only with OTA, some can get around 30 channels with really good antennas.
 
Binkt said:
Unfortunately, I do not have a non-HT cpu system of sufficient speed to test out which would be the best upgrade.
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Thanks again for your hands-on insight.

Your top-of-the-line HT system is using 40% CPU! This still isn't right. It cannot be right.

I found on another forum someone who has an Athlon-64 3200+ (read more here http://www.rage3d.org/board/showthread.php?p=1333129476#post1333129476).

The interesting aspect of his experiment is that, as he lowers the CPU down to 800 MHz still, he gets only 50% across the board. Lots of headroom.

Maybe I should lower MY clock also?
 
Binkt said:
You are using this card with the AIW9600 ? Do you get Picture-in-picture like it says it's supposed to do?

Also, do you have the XT version with dual display? I am curious to see how the HDTV wonder will work under such conditions.

thanks!
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I am not too sure how to get PiP working. I should probably RTFM. But I tried running the HD and TV at the same time but the app won't let me do it. One of them has to be suspended or terminated. Starting HD/TV in different order did not matter. Perhaps PiP can only be used if TV-ON-DEMAND is stopped... here I go again.

As far as "how the HDTV works with the XT", well, it outputs its video like the 9600 card does i.e. TV is only displayed on the primary display. I do get the TV frame and application controls on the secondary display - but there is only video on my primary display (my projector).

Ciao
 
In Edmonton here I cant get HDTV reception, so is there a product that will allow me to capture HDTV from component video?
 
None commerically available, there are some professional solutions but they cost thousands at this point in time.
 
Yesterday I finally got a breakthrough - proving that the high CPU usage on the HDTV WONDER is an anomaly - and NOT related to my so-called "low" specs.

I disabled ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface). I followed the steps described here: http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/howtowin2kxpirq.html.

*** WARNING *** : Disabling ACPI support may cause undesired changes to your system. After the first reboot my wireless keyboard, mouse and network did not work. I had to re-install a bunch of drivers. But in the end, I got smooth and extraordinary video/sound. My CPU usage now hovers around 60% with 1080i, which was predictable.

This is only a workaround; I do not know what caused the extremely high CPU usage in the first place nor do I fully understand why ACPI creates a problem. I suspect an IRQ conflict but my confidence level drops below noise from here.

Another post (http://rage3d.com/board/showpost.php?p=1333130683&postcount=255) talks about driver incompatibilities causing high CPU usage.

During my tribulations I came across another notable fact: process wlancfg4 causes regular video jerks (every second or so) IF my network isn't on-line (e.g. if my USB wireless device isn't plugged in, disconnected cable, etc.). Jerks occur even if CPU usage is 60%.

---------------------

Another setup produces jerks: when I configure my ATI AIW 9600XT secondary display at 32-bit depth, instead of 16-bit.

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OK. Now my rhetoric: sustained CPU usage at 60% is still way too high for simply viewing HDTV no matter what. This CPU usage is now consistent with all my other ATI TV cards when TV-ON-DEMAND is enabled - which sucks. As Binkt noted in this forum, there are still video jerks when ToD switches from one file to the next or when changing channels. This is due to the latency introduced with this flawed disk buffering implementation.

Based on what I see with my other ATI TV cards [and my own assumptions] CPU should not exceed ~20% even on my low-end 1.7Ghz CPU because all HD decoding aught to occur on the card itself, then video (transcoded perhaps to save PCI bandwidth) should transit directly, via the HD app driver, to the application and then rendered. *Optional* TV recording should perhaps incur additional processing, but for a limited time only - and certainly not permanently.

The HDTV WONDER creates extraordinary images. The Olympics provided the best possible scenario for testing: fast, bright, colorful images. When I got the choppy video/audio eliminated, people gathered around and watched, mouth opened. This is truly the next level of broadcasting, here and now and at a reasonable cost.

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To answer Chrisman5000’s question more precisely, here’s a typical reception profile using ATI’s bundled antenna in the region of Phoenix:

KPHO-DT 1080i 80-100% reception
KTVK-DT 1080i 100%
26-1 1080i/480i 60-80%
KAET Digital 1080i 100%
KAET SD 480i 100%
KSAZ-HD 720p 100%
34-1 480i 80-100% (Spanish)
KPNX-DT 1080i 80% (Olympics)
KASW-DT 1080i 10-60%
KPPX-DT 480i 100%
KNXV HDTV 720p 80%
KNXV Digital 480i 80%
KNXV News 480i 80%
Telefutura 480i 100% Spanish
Univision 480i 100% Spanish
20-1 ??? 10-20% (no video)
Channel 480i 10-20% (no video)

This is based on a snapshot taken on Aug 28 at noon (typical day: blue sky, no cloud, dry, hot). My antenna is located 3’ from ground level near a window facing WNW.

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I still couldn't get PiP working. Binkt, any idea?
 
marca2004 said:
I still couldn't get PiP working. Binkt, any idea?
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I think the PiP has something to do with EASYLOOK and only works with the regular analog tuner. I remember it being pushed as a "feature" if you already have an AIW card.

I just thought that it would be fun, that's all.

Congrats on getting the thing working!
 
I've been wondering if you buy this HDTV TV wonder do you have to pay a monthly fee? or is it basicly free 125 channel HDTV on your computer?
 
Tomastb said:
I've been wondering if you buy this HDTV TV wonder do you have to pay a monthly fee? or is it basicly free 125 channel HDTV on your computer?
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There is no monthly fee, it grabs digital signals over the air (OTA). How many channels you get depends on your area. You can check your area on www.titantv.com

The number of channels broadcast OTA will only increase. Federal mandates are pushing all networks to broadcast digitally. Note that this is not necessarily HDtv, just Dtv, which could be anything from 480i (SDTV) to 1080i (HDTV). I get most channels in 1080i, which has most content at up-scaled 480i, unless it is specifically in 1080i, like news, sports, concerts, and other HD programs. Some day, all content will be HD (some day very far from now...)
 
CrimandEvil said:
It wasn't rushed to market, they took their damn time getting it out. Its your specs, they're too low. Try swapping it into a more "modern" system and see if you have the same problems.
Click to expand...

Quote from: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1641024,00.asp

But the upshot is: ATI released a product that was not ready for prime time. They failed to test it on many of the common platforms, including nForce and other AMD-based systems, and with non-ATI graphics cards. They also failed to test it with the wide-range of HDTV signals being broadcast across the US, which also led to big problems...

I rest my case.
 
I have an Athlon 3200+ on an albatron k8x800 pro ii mobo with 784 mb RAM and 160 gb SATA hd. I had followed several of the suggestions on various forums and ATI's website and have not had any success yet. Now I have to reload because removing the ACPI function killed my HAL.DLL file and a few of the suggetions stated that doing a full reload without the card in and then installing the card might work. I had the hauppauge 150mce working great but the ATI has the 100% cpu-usage and choppiness. I have a Radeon 9600 with 256 mv vram too. I see it has been awhile since a post was made on this topic but I am trying to resolve this issue before I pull my hair out!!
 
RM, hows it like without the PVR150? Awhile back there was an issue with the ATI drivers fucking up when paired with the PVR150, last I heard ATI had released drivers that fixed the problem but I honestly don't know if it was broken or remained broken.
 
Well, so far I decided that I had to reload so I did that. I created a small 10 gig partition on the 160 gig sata drive and loaded MCE on that. I then loaded all my mobo drivers which included sound, network, and sata. I then went and did a windows update and got all that I could which was 22 updates. This took about half an hour but worth it I suppose. I then loaded the HDTV tuner card into the machine and installed all the software for it. I had not yet loaded the PVR 150 or even a DVD software package but just wanted to test the HDTV card in the ATI sofware. The card performed like a dream at this point and I was able to record a few seconds of CSI NY and then play it back and it looked and sounded awesome!! I have it connected to my 51" Sony HDTV. I hope tonight I can load the PVR 150 and the DVD software and then I will test everything in MCE itself. I will keep my fingers crossed even though it is harder to type that way!!
 
An Ati HDTV Card and a Hauppauge PVR 150 in the same system? Is it possible? I tried it, with Ati's latest driver. Didn't work. At least I think those cards need to as far apart from one another on the PCI bus as they can.
 
ScourggeFX said:
An Ati HDTV Card and a Hauppauge PVR 150 in the same system? Is it possible? I tried it, with Ati's latest driver. Didn't work. At least I think those cards need to as far apart from one another on the PCI bus as they can.
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Your problem was a mobo one, IRQ assignment.
 
I'm confused...will my GF4 Ti 4600 support the HDTV Wonder or not? Anybody have it working with this particular nVIDIA card?
 
my HDTV wonder is effing sweet... it had minor bumps but nothing a computer enthusiast shouldnt be able to figure out :)
 
Are you able to fast forward through commercials with this or get picture in picture?
 
Wipeout said:
I'm confused...will my GF4 Ti 4600 support the HDTV Wonder or not? Anybody have it working with this particular nVIDIA card?
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My HDTV wonder works with my GF4ti4600.

It works a lot better with my GF6800GT and 6600GT
 
hi all, i'm a happy owner of a new ATI HDTV wonder thanks to the great sale at fry's last week ($100). i was a bit of a pain to get the thing working right (i finally got it to work right by performing a system restore to before i installed my previous all-in-wonder card...after that, installation went without a hitch). anyway, here are my questions that i still have not found answers for:

1) when installing the latest drivers and software updates from the ATI website, i noticed that the default directory the new files choose is not the directory the original drivers and files were installed to. i cancelled the updates until i can get clarification that this is correct.

2) is the gemstar online guide available only for analog TV? there seems to be no way for me to configure it for DTV.

3) based on previous posts, there seems to be no way to turn off tv-on-demand. that sux!

4) if all i want to do is record programs and burn them onto DVDs, which format should i save the files as? MPEG2 seems most recommended...is that correct?

5) is anyone else using titanTV to schedule programs to record tivo-style? the titanTV site doesn't say a whole lot about this.
 
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