ATI All In Wonder Questions

[satandole666]

Did they stop making/selling these? Does anyone use these for HTPCs?

Anyway...I'm going to upgrade my video card here soon. It seems the AIW x1800 I have has a nice set of features (at least, I think so) for a base HTPC system. I used it before to play PS2/Gamecube/Xbox when I lived in the dorms.

Would I be able to run it in the secondary PCI-E slot at 2x or 4x speeds? I'd like to use the I/O features on the card to run my TV via an s-video cable.

I currently have 6 remotes between all of my electronics. I've cut it down to 3 at a minimum (stereo, cable box, PC), but if I use the AIW and its remote I should be able to cut it down to one entirely. That requires routing all I/O through my computer and that card, however.

So, will it work? Is it worth the hassle?

Thanks in advance.

[SickBoy]

AIW cards aren't suitable for serious PVR applications. They're ok as an additional tuner, in addition to one that has hardware MPEG2 encoding (so you can watch TV and record at the same time) but most of the "power" htpc apps won't support them (BeyondTV, GBPVR, MCE2005).

[Wicked Klown]

Here is a nice photo to show how well a All in Wonder (http://www.sysopt.com/features/graphics/article.php/12026_3637976_4) does against a TV Wonder 650 tuner.

[SickBoy]

I'll say too, that your display type also affects perceived differences in tuners. If you're viewing on a 19" CRT TV (as I did for the first year+ that I had a HTPC setup) you might not notice the difference, but it's very apparent on a HDTV over an HD-quality connection.