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January 8, 2007 9:15 AM PST
ATI cable tuner, what's your deal?
 How does it connect to your PC? (Credit: ATI)We're not exactly sure what the whole story is with ATI's newly announced TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner. We do know that it's a digital cable TV tuner and that it will support the PC CableCard standard, bringing digital cable, analog cable, and over-the-air high-definition content to your Windows Vista-equipped laptop or desktop. It sounds like it will come only bundled with new PCs (starting January 30), which makes sense, given that we learned last year that you won't be able to build your own CableCard PC from scratch.
What we don't get is how it connects to your PC. From the picture, it looks like an external device, so we wonder if that means that there's a proprietary interface added to the guts of the system you purchase it with. If not, what's to stop you from adding it to any other system? We're scheduled to meet with AMD tomorrow, so hopefully we'll come away with a better idea of how this thing works.
Update: Our meeting with AMD this afternoon helped us wrap our brains around the TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner a little better. It will be available from most major desktop and laptop vendors, including Dell, Toshiba, Sony, HP, Gateway, Alienware, NiveusMedia, and Velocity Micro. Pricing will vary by vendor, but AMD estimated about a $200-to-$250 premium. It will come in both internal and external models (and the external one has a removable stand), and both connect to your PC via USB 2.0.
We also found out that in case you're thinking about buying PC with the tuner in order to use it on another system, you'll find CableLabs standing in your way. In order to get permission to sell the a PC with the TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner, each PC vendor must submit a letter to CableLabs requesting certification. In exchange, CableLabs provides custom BIOS software, which closes the encryption loop. Without that custom BIOS, you're out of luck.
TalkBack
6 messages
Bought a Dell XPS420 with 2.6 GHz quad core, 4 GB ram, raid 0 500G drives, Vista ultimate and dual ATI cable card tuners. One tuner DOA (luckily the cable guy left the second cable card with me). The ATI tuner is very noise sensitive and will drop a signal or recording at the drop of a hat. Only 4 of the 20 or so shows I told the system to record have recorded. Even after a firmware upgrade, the Cox Scientific Atlanta box is much more stable. You cannot use another Media center PC as an extender and most recorded shows (even NOVA) will not let you play the show on a different machine than the one which recorded it originally. I paid a lot for this system and while the computer itself works well, as any type of dvr/media player the thing just plain sucks. I am personally tired of the studios, networks, cable providers restricting everything they touch. I have several MP3s legally bought (not rented) that will not play because the outlet I purchased them from went belly up and the DRM crap has locked the files. I believe in paying for what I use but this continual screwing of the customer is pushing me to buy hacked systems and take what I want. As you sow so shall you reap, corporate America does not seem to understand this; Executives, enjoy your shrinking bonuses as legitimate customers start to steal what they would have paid for because you have made the process impossible.
Many folks out there like myself have been waiting for this for SOOOO long, and now we've been told the only way to get our hands on this product is to buy an ENTIRE NEW PC. This really seems like a poor attempt to drive both new PC sales, and Vista sales if you asked me. I can understand the DRM stuff, but I'm 99% sure that could have been done on the software level, not like this. They're just telling consumers it has to be like this so they can make more money off of us. I'm a .NET developer with an MSDN subscription. I've used Vista through the Betas and had ultimate running on my home workstation, home laptop, and work laptop over a month before the final release hit the shelves... All the while salivating at the mouth over the CableCard/OCUR product.... only to find that my dreams have been squashed by corporate greed. Once again, hollywood, M$, and all other PC makers... You've shot yourselves in the foot. This is going to take so much longer for consumers to adopt now that you've put your greed before anything else. WAY TO GO. This makes me sick.
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As it currently stands, I have a computer out in my living room, connected with the digital passthrough to my receiver and via a DVI cable to my TV. I surf the web, watch movies and play games all from my couch using my PC. I built the PC myself about a year and a half ago, and I was hoping to add DVR functionality to my home theater setup. I currently use Windows XP professional, SP 2, and was thinking of upgrading to Vista to add in the media center functionality as well as DirectX10 for games in the future. However, most of the TV tuners on the market to date do not provide the best functionality when combined with cable services, and had an average picture at best. A cablecard enabled TV tuner card would then be a perfect remedy. However, I now need to buy an entirely new PC in order to get that functionality, something which I am not willing to do. As my current computer ages, I had planned on upgrading the motherboard/processor and memory, but the sound and graphics cards I have no reason to replace, much less the case or hard drives. So, some of the selling points of Vista, like the built in MCE, become a moot point for me as i cannot make use of cablecard technology, so then Vista also becomes in my eyes, moot. The dream of the integrated entertainment of the living room may have been achieved quite a bit sooner if companies allowed consumers to meet it on their own terms. The customer is always right is and old adage that rings as true today as when it was first spoken. As it stands, they'll just have dusty merchandise sitting on the store shelves.
by ajlueke (See profile) - February 15, 2007 10:33 AM PST
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I had to re-write this note half a dozen times to get it to the point. Hollywood has every right to protect it's content. But I predict that it will get so paranoid about 'copyright' infringement, that in the near future when you buy a DVR, you will have to call Hollywood Direct in order to activate it, have a tech come out to your home to make sure your new $2,000 TV is HDCP compatible, and then have your PC torn apart to confirm the same if you want a cable card based system. Would it be worth it for the average Public to go through all this just so he/she can record, say, Home Makeover Edition in Hi-Def for later viewing? Guess again Hollywood  . I hope ATI/AMD proves me wrong, though. Maybe it's not all gloom and doom like I think . But if it is, I'll just cancel TV all together if it gets any worse . Three TV's and cable boxes that don't work reliably is bad enough as it is .
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Now we know where ATI has been spending its time - on something new to sell us! Trying to get Vista TV Tuner drivers out of ATI for their current and not so current PCI TV cards and All-In-Wonder series is like getting finding a wooden nickel. You've heard of them, but they are almost non-existent. Personally, I won't buy anything multimedia based from ATI again until they actually do support their stuff.
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http://ati.amd.com/products/tvwonderdigital/index.html
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