-- ATI
TV Wonder VE
-- Price: $45 USD
-- 10.15.2000
-- By: GideonX
The ATI TV Wonder VE, while is labeled as a value
edition, is still a good contender in the TV Tuner line they carry.
This card lets you watch television, capture video and still images,
schedule and record tv programs, zoom in on the action and many
other features. The included software lets you play Video and
Audio CDs, while also letting you watch television and edit video
files. What is the picture quality? Is it time to retire that
old television set and use this instead? Let's find out...
ATI's Fancy Box
The ATI Tv Wonder VE is the little
brother to the TV Wonder. The major differences between the
two is as follows:
|
Features
|
TV WONDER VE
|
ATI-TV WONDER
|
|
Stereo TV-tuner
|
-
|
x
|
|
Win 98 Compatible
|
x
|
x
|
|
Video Capture
|
x
|
x
|
|
Real Time Video Compression
|
VCR-1
|
MPEG-1, VCR-1
|
|
Digital VCR
|
x
|
x
|
|
Video Magazine
|
x
|
x
|
|
Closed Captioning
|
x
|
x
|
|
Zoom In
|
x
|
x
|
|
Sched. Viewing
|
x
|
x
|
|
Video Desktop
|
x
|
x
|
|
Channel Preview
|
x
|
x
|
|
S-video Input
|
-
|
x
|
Table ripped right off ATI's
Website
Included in the box is the TV
Tuner card itself, very small and compact and actually a breeze to
install into my Asus p3v4x motherboard. There is also a pass
through cable to wire your sound card to the tuner. Also
included is an audio adapter to get some composite audio action
happening.
So after installing the card, we start
off by using the ATI Multimedia Center. Please note, if you
plan to download the drivers for the card and this multimedia
center, you better keep that cd in a safe place because they don't
let you download it. Somehow they have an agreement of some
sort that prevents them from posting it up for download. With
that out of the way, lets take a look at the software.
ATI Multimedia Center
The included software lets you have the
ability to watch video cds, edit videos, watch television and listen
to audio cds. A nice package to get the most out of your tuner
and your system. Let's check out the TV quality of this thing.
Food Networks Iron Chef
The above was captured using the
included still image capturing feature of the tv tuner (As you can
see, I like the Food Network). The quality is not that bad,
slight color discoloration is seen, most likely due to my coaxial
cable splitting. The other feature of the tuner is the ability
to capture video. It does this in the .avi format, you can
compress it later with software since .avi's tend to be large.
Click the above picture to download
a 3mb video capture
There is a jack in the back for
composite video, so if you want to hook up your console video game
system through your tuner it is possible. Again, the video
quality may be slightly worse.
Click the above picture to download
a 4mb capture of Virtua Tennis
Overall, the tv tuner is very nice
alternative to the conventional tv set. The tuner is probably
best used in a dorm or if you have an extremely small apartment
where you can't fit a regular tv. I wouldn't throw my tv out
just yet, even if the still images and video capturing features are
extremely nice.
Edit: James Yeh, one of our readers, has sent
me an email to remind on the video capturing CODEC used by ATI,
namely VCR1. The previously uploaded .avi clips were not
viewable unless you had these CODECs installed which are specific to
ATI Technologies. I have since recompressed them to more
standardized formats. This can be accomplished using the Video
Editor software provided with the tuner if you plan to do some
capturing. Standard codecs from Intel and Microsoft can be
used along with some other not so standard ones.
Pros
Cons
Discuss this in our Forums
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