AMD Brings Back All-in-Wonder Card -- new ATI All-in-Wonder HD card

HardOCP ^ | June 26, 2008 6:57 AM (CST) | Steve 6:57 AM (CST)

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AMD Expands The Ultimate Visual Experience

AMD today expanded The Ultimate Visual Experience™ for North America with the ATI All-In-Wonder™ HD, combining award-winning ATI Radeon™ Premium graphics and ATI TV Wonder™ HD tuner technology card in one PCI Express® 2.0 solution. As the newest multimedia powerhouse to join the long line of All-In-Wonder offerings, ATI All-in-Wonder HD transforms the PC into a highly immersive digital video recorder for HDTV1 and analog TV, plus expands the realm of exceptional gaming with cinematic HD graphics for mainstream PCs. Blu-ray™ disc playback can be enjoyed in full HD glory (1080p) thanks to ATI All-in-Wonder HD’s unified video decoder (UVD) technology, ensuring movies play back smoothly and with incredible detail.

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fyi

[Outland]

This is new? I’ve had one for awhile now. It didn’t work with Vista so I went back to XP. Nice card and excellent video, but ATI’s Media Center software is buggy and AMD’s customer support is a joke of late.

[1Old Pro]

Amazing how a company on the brink of bankrupcy can continue employing Hector Ruiz.

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AMD announcement:

AMD Expands The Ultimate Visual Experience™ Combining Exceptional HD Graphics, HDTV, and HD Video for PCs

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One-of-a-kind ATI All-In-Wonder™ HD takes the home theater PC to new levels of TV enjoyment and graphics quality

Sunnyvale, Calif. -- June 26, 2008 --AMD (NYSE: AMD) today expanded The Ultimate Visual Experience™ for North America with the ATI All-In-Wonder™ HD, combining award-winning ATI Radeon™ Premium graphics and ATI TV Wonder™ HD tuner technology card in one PCI Express® 2.0 solution. As the newest multimedia powerhouse to join the long line of All-In-Wonder offerings, ATI All-in-Wonder HD transforms the PC into a highly immersive digital video recorder for HDTV¹ and analog TV, plus expands the realm of exceptional gaming with cinematic HD graphics for mainstream PCs. Blu-ray™ disc playback can be enjoyed in full HD glory (1080p) thanks to ATI All-in-Wonder HD’s unified video decoder (UVD) technology, ensuring movies play back smoothly and with incredible detail².

AMD LIVE!™ Ready and Certified for Windows Vista®, ATI All-In-Wonder HD has a manufacturers suggested retail price (MSRP) of $199, includes capabilities to watch and record free-to-air HDTV, unencrypted digital cable programming³, and superb analog TV reception powered by ATI Theater™ 650 Pro hardware MPEG-2 encoding technology. All-In-Wonder HD merges the best of the ATI TV Wonder™ product line with ATI Radeon Premium Graphics to deliver The Ultimate Visual Experience.

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Says this is new in the All in Wonder lineup ...uses both the ATI TV Wonder HD technology as well as the Radeon HD 3650 graphics technology.

[martin_fierro]

Nice card and excellent video, but ATI’s Media Center software is buggy and AMD’s customer support is a joke of late.

I've used ATI All-In-Wonder TV cards for years, but their driver update process drives me NUTS.

[jeffc]

ATI still doesn’t offer 3D drivers for Zalman monitors like nvidia does. Still behind the times . . .

[aft_lizard]

Yeah Hector has been a massive disaster however, although early, this latest spate of videocards is exactly what they needed and the budget minded pc upgraders needed, nVidia finally has a decent challenger at a price that is hard to beat. Now if only the fricking drm gods that be in hollyweird and whomever would allow cablecard hdtv tuners to be sold OEM to the public and not through some authorized builder where you have to buy a whole media pc to get it.

[mowowie]

People still buy ATI cards?
The reason i have always stuck with intel and Nvidia is because historically with almost all software ATI and AMD ALWAYS has issues with something.
I browse the “read me” and there are always some problem with either product whereas Intel and Nvidia are rarely mentioned. That coupled with the award winning motherboards I buy I rarely never have any Hardware related problems whatsoever.

[McGruff]

When researching a new Dell they only offer two video card brands ATI or Nvidia. Nvidia’s probably better for WoW and other high end games but ATI hangs in there. Completion is good for the consumer. If you are just browsing FR or using Microsoft Word you don’t need a fancy scmancy video card.

[ShadowAce]

[aft_lizard]

So you are one of those people who actually bought one of those headache inducing contraptions?

[Bommer]

Owned two. First one sucked, so I thought if I got a 256k it would be better. Except ATI has this habit of giving cards more memory and bloating it down with more crappy software. Fan went out, they offer no way to by a replacement fan. never again! Hauppauge video cards are far far more superior for video capture and recording.

[Calvin Locke]

I've given up on ATI, but I'll consider AMD for CPUs.

I have an AGP AIW card. An major update to my firewall gave me fits for a while with the card, then when I changed firewalls a year later, the new one screwed up the AIW to the point where I've all but given up on the ATI apps.

Any way, I'm using WinAmp for the TV portion of the card and killing a couple of nights trying to get ATI apps working again.

Ever since they went to requiring NET Framework, their SW went to cr@p.

I rarely used the FM, because the ATI implementation sucked. I say this as someone that used a Hauppauge PCI tv/fm card. The FM portion was a joy compared to ATI.

FWIW, I do miss the Gemstar/ATI TV interface. Especially as a point and click DVR...

[Calvin Locke]

If you still have the ATI card with the bad fan, there is a company that makes a replacement h/s. Try using a search engine.

I've revived the original fan at least three times so far. I take the h/s off, and remove the fan, and oil from the back, iirc. The fan is held on by three miniature screws. They are a PITA, because of their size, and the fact that they are obstructed by the fan blades. I lost one the last time, but two have been holding fine for about 6 months.

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HardCOP likes the new HD 4800 Series for Gamers:

AMD Back in the Game! ...AMD Radeon HD 4800 Series

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The 4800 kicks ass.

Say hello to the Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon HD 4870. We think you will be pleasantly surprised with the real-world gaming experiences we are having with AMD’s new GPUs. We evaluate the Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 and VisionTek Radeon HD 4850.

Introduction

Today we cover AMD’s new Radeon HD 4870 and Radeon HD 4850. Compared to previous Radeon GPUs, the 4800 series GPUs have been improved in every way.

We know most of you just care about the gaming performance so we are going to be to the point on specifications to give you the information you need to know so you can hurry up and start gaming!

[rmlew]

A Radeon 3650? Taht is a pathetic card
I'm more interested in the excellent results with the brand new 4850 and 4870. The $300 Radeon 4870 seems to be almost equal to the $700 Nvidia 280 for games.
AMD's processor designs may be behind Intel, but their acquisition of ATI and switch to 55nm chips has paid off here.

[jeffc]

No. I’m more interested in the Matrox DVI triplehead as a way for true total-immersion surround gaming. But I don’t have the PC or the monitors for it . . . yet! Headache inducing? Please tell . . . .

[aft_lizard]

I am actually quite optimistic about AMD’s future if they survive, as they should(barely), against the core duo era at Intel. The Fusion platform seems very promising, highly specific computing to your needs may be the future and hopefully AMD makes it work.

[steve86]

I’m happy with my PCHDTV 5500 and Nvidia cards.

[aft_lizard]

I always get headaches from 3d glasses. You are talking about this monitor right?

[jeffc]

yup. That's it. I've wondered why 3D gaming (ala IMAX 3D) hasn't been more popular. That pic you posted doesn't look like it's watchable without the polarized shades, like IMAX 3D is. So what's the deal with monitor? Bad image?
Guess I'll delve more into 3 wide-screen monitors with a Matrox triplehead splitter.