ATI 650 advice - Is Analog PQ really that good ?

[daz19]

Hi

I have been looking for a replacement for my PVR500 analog tuners the picture quaility is just not up to my standards - ( but that is another debate )

I have been reading good things about the ATI 650 and I have decided to take the plunge and buy one, only problem is that they don't seem to sell them in the UK, The only place I have found them is US and Canada.

Before I place my order I would like some feedback from anyone who is running this card on the picture quality. I am really looking for a serious improvement on my PVR 500.

I am currently running my Cable Box through the Scart to composite on the PVR500.

Thanks in Advanced

[Jesse]

Hi,

The 650 provides excellent pq. Recordings made with these cards look as good as the picture strait out of my D* stb's.

The only issue I have encountered is stuttering during live playback. The problem is intermittent and varies in severity. The problem was much reduced by sage v6. Recordings play back just fine, so you can either pause live tv for 5-10 seconds or set the playback delay property for 5 or so seconds to work around this.

HTH

Jesse

[sunray]

I'm afraid I'll have to disagree about the picture quality of the ATI Wonder 650 card. I bought 3 of them when they were on sale in order to replace my 3 PVR-250s. I found a herringbone noise pattern in its recordings that iisnt present in recordings made by the PVR-250s. I'm not the only person to have this problem as I've seen posts on various boards from several other people with the same problem. The ATI 650 board seems to be very sensitive to noise. If you have a very clean analog cable signal the noise may not occur. Also, is there even a PAL version of this card? As far as I know NTSC is the only version available.

[Jesse]

Hi,

.....I found a herringbone noise pattern in its recordings that iisnt present in recordings made by the PVR-250s. I'm not the only person to have this problem as I've seen posts on various boards from several other people with the same problem......

I had the herringbone pattern in all recordings made with my pvr500. I have used the same source (Directv STB's) with both the pvr500 and the ATI 650's. I am not trying to dispute your results, it is just another case of different machines getting different results. I have read plenty of posts describing great results with the pvr500, it just did not happen to work out for me. I guess it boils down to being willing to risk whatever $$ the cards happen to cost.

I can say that it is certainly possible to get great results with the ATI card.

Jesse

[daz19]

Also, is there even a PAL version of this card? As far as I know NTSC is the only version available.[/QUOTE]

I thought this card supported NTSC, PAL and SECAM ?

[real_per]

Did you purchase a card ?
I'm looking for the same one, and is living in Europe too...

[something fishy]

There's certainly a PAL version as I have used them. However I went back to my PVR250 and PVR350 combo. I found to very hard to accurately set contrast and brightness on the ATI so I wasn't clipping whites. I perhaps could have got there in the end but gave up and reverted (I had the ati cards on trial).

I was using composite in and certainly white level aside the picture is good just not a big step up from what I had.

Note also that you will need to install the ati control panel applet as there is pretty horrible temporal smoothing turned on by default without it. Also mine had quite a long audio delay that the hauppauge cards dont. It won't be problem if you're using ati cards exclusively as you can set Sage to compensate but it might be an issue if you're mixing with other brands.

[real_per]

Sounds interesting. I can't seem to see them anywhere...

I was planning to use them in a multituner setup, and so the sound issues doesn't sound good (no pun intended )
And neither does the PQ, which was the reason why i wanted to try them out.