( 10 reviews )
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Posted: Feb 21 2009
This is a really nice tuner! I love how it has both digital (for certain cable channels and the new over-the air-channels - the ones that the whole digital TV transition is about) and analog (regular cable and the old over-the-air channels, even though they are all pretty much gone) TV tuners AND an FM radio tuner (although you can't use the analog TV tuner and FM radio tuner at the same time - they use the same input). It has hardware encoding, which means awesome quality - as good as analog gets and great for digital. The only downsides are: 1. ATI (not VisionTek) has kind of bad software, and bundles a whole bunch of control utilities that no one really wants. I definitely recommend that you use Windows Media Center! If you do, be sure to only install the drivers to avoid the rest of the junk. 2. The only thing that Windows Media Center is bad about is that there is not presently support for digital cable, so if you want to use that you have to install the ATI software. The good news is that Windows 7 will include support for digital cable (at least the Beta does). I still for some reason have trouble getting Windows Media Center (in Windows 7 Beta) to find the digital channels, which is really annoying (but that is Microsoft and not VisionTek or ATI). Hopefully someday Windows Media Center will work with digital cable and this card! Overall this card is great, but DO NOT BUY hoping to watch digital cable in Windows Media Center.
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Posted: Jan 23 2009
The Box: Dell 4700 2.8 Ghz Pentium 4 D/HT [Dual Core/Hyper Thread] 2 gig DDR2 Ram, 512MB 8500GT NVidia 2 HD's 40G / 60G The System: 1st XP Pro #1 No Good - got infamous NMI Memory parity error - VisionTek number on box to call - didn't bother. May be .NET Framework error - you need 1.1 not 2.0[?] #2 The system XP MCE [Media Center edition] Installed -Downloaded-Installed- Then installed card OKAY - "near" HD quality with rooftop antenna - in both MCE and Catalyst Media Center No complaints - I will be trying this in the intended problem child with 4gig of RAM [Abit IP-95 mobo] Recorded clip - seems to be some image delays - have to do more testing Other reviews complain of Programming Recording issues. Maybe the extra Ram or Recording to a separate physical drive will resolve the temp image freezes and delays - it may be whats shown with all really being recorded Other than image reviews some other tech details posted would be more helpful. ============= The above was a "Test" install - I just did a supposedly "Final" install - and I got the NMI Parity Error Same Machine, Cards etc Microsoft or ATI should get this together As well as using .NET Framework 2.0 or 3.0 not 1.1 as XPMCE "needs" [?]
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Posted: Jan 23 2009
The Box: Dell 4700 2.8 Ghz Pentium 4 D/HT [Dual Core/Hyper Thread] 2 gig DDR2 Ram, 512MB 8500GT NVidia 2 HD's 40G / 60G The System: 1st XP Pro #1 No Good - got infamous NMI Memory parity error - VisionTek number on box to call - didn't bother. May be .NET Framework error - you need 1.1 not 2.0[?] #2 The system XP MCE [Media Center edition] Installed -Downloaded-Installed- Then installed card OKAY - "near" HD quality with rooftop antenna - in both MCE and Catalyst Media Center No complaints - I will be trying this in the intended problem child with 4gig of RAM [Abit IP-95 mobo] Recorded clip - seems to be some image delays - have to do more testing Other reviews complain of Programming Recording issues. Maybe the extra Ram or Recording to a separate physical drive will resolve the temp image freezes and delays - it may be whats shown with all really being recorded Other than image reviews some other tech details posted would be more helpful.
