|
As I said in the title, this tuner works great in Windows Media Center. I wouldn't even install Catalyst Media Center from the CD unless you want to use it to convert video files. It does conversions quickly, but I've found the interface to be very slow and prone to crashing even on my high-end system.I use the analog tuner, and I have to say it's better than any other one I've ever used. Blacks are a deep black, the edges of the picture are crisp, and it doesn't randomly drop the signal.
I researched capture cards for quite a while before deciding on this card. The software that comes with it leaves a bit to be desired but it works ok. It had mixed reviews, but I have had absolutely no problems with it. I have Vista and I was able to download the Vista drivers and installed without a hitch. I have other software that I use for capturing, but I use the included software to create DVD's and watch TV. I'm very happy that I selected this card.
After purchasing a Gateway computer with Intel Core i7 chip, I logged onto Amazon.com and located this tv tuner for installation in my new machine. By giving three stars, I acknowledge that others on this web page have had a more positive experience than me and have gotten their 650's to work satisfactorily. The Hauppauge installed easily and provided excellent stable picture quality.
I researched the problem on microsoft.com and found a white paper on tv tuners. In my view, I shouldn't have to do that with a brand new, supposedly up to date product, and indeed I didn't have to do it with the Hauppauge card. I installed it and discovered poor picture quality.
I can't tell what might have happened if I had gone to Visiontek technical support or experimented with driver downloads from the Visiontek web site. The white paper scared me off by saying that the user could make no adjustments to a tuner card to improve picture quality. That settled it for me and I abandoned the card, replacing it with an Hauppauge 1128.
Based on my experience alone, I would have given this card one star because my experience with it was so customer unfriendly. So, apparently if you are lucky or are willing to do Visiontek's job for it you can get good results.
This is simply the best tv tuner i have owned.Setup was a breeze, only took 10 minutes.Installed the ATI Catalyst software then immediately began using it.Also works great with Windows Media Center.
DEMAND THAT COMPANIES BE MORE OPEN, WHATS IN THE UPDATE, WHY IS IT NEEDED, MORE THAN A TWO SENTENCE RELEASE NOTE (ROFL). Case in point with the old versions of ATI's TV tuner & All-In-Wonder Cards. There are times when supplied drivers are / can be far superior to the latest drivers from the website. Not really the choice for the basic user by any means. 5 minutes. maybe things have changed but if not then you're better off going with a company like Hauppauge that has enbraced or supported the Linux community.
ATI made a sudden transition from Analog Drivers to a T200 unified Digital driver bundle (BTW the analog drivers were far superior, much faster and more responsive & ACTUALLY A BETTER VIDEO QUALITY with (SD-TV Signals).this made all the older ATI MultiMedia Center (MMC) software incompatible with newer Catalyst Video drivers - Anything prior to MMC 9.08 now un-useable. you could/would have fark'd up your TV tuners operation. OK, fine so why not just run out & jump to the newer MMC drivers.well for starters ATI didn't inform or explain what they had done to the customers (you know the ones paying for the products & supposed service) but suppose you did download the newer MMC and managed to avoid all the incompatibilities left on MOST systems due to an inadequate ATI uninstall (via Windows Add or Remove programs) causing analog & digital driver incompatibilites.but lets suppose you knew that Guru3d (dot) com has a free program called Driver Cleaner pro and got rid of all the ATI video & multimedia software and registry keys (BEFORE THAT IN MANY CASES PEOPLE HAD TO REVERT BACK TO A SAVED GHOST/DRIVE IMAGE IF THEY WERE SO LUCKY AS TO MAKE THOSE == IN WORST CASES (MANY MANY CASES) THEY HAD TO RE-INSTALL WINDOWS XP. Ok so you then install the Catalyst video drivers & the new MMC on a relatively clean slate. Blanket statements aren't the best to make either. Even with the REGISTRY HACK sometimes it will re-enable itself if for example you change from TV tuner input to Composite or S-Video. The time span to write this.
time span to LEARN about & get a hold of all the things (BY DEDICATED ATI CUSTOMERS) that updating to the newest software from ATI inflicted on my (ALL USERS OF THE SOFTWARE BACK THEN THE UPDATED) months to a year.~ So its a tangent but its a related tangent. DON"T UPDATE DRIVERS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT'S DONE IN THE UPDATE. Now anytime you turn on the tv tuner card or that part of your all-in-wonder card it starts recording (since it was software encoding it took a bigger portion of CPU & memory than previously when the TV ran passive-not recording unless YOU started a record). If you were to have gone out & downloaded new drivers. AND IN THIS CASE IF YOU EVEN NEED TO INSTALL THE DRIVERS FOR THIS CARD.as i said in other comments.
except its FULL Of bugs & they completely changed its functionality. And then you had to go back in and delete all those recordings that were made (AGAIN THAT ATI DIDN'T EVEN TELL PEOPLE IT WAS DOING ALL THE TIME) and other than REGISTRY HACKING you can't pause or shut it off. If you use VISTA's Media Center for example, Vista will find the card and install all the drivers needed to operate it properly to use both HD & SD tuners.I heartedly agree that Linux has some much better functionality, but last time i checked LINUX support for these ATI cards was (DESIGN yourselfware). Ubuntu is beautiful but not if you have to tackle an unsupported card.
|
