HDTV WONDER™ Remote Control Edition

[Jason Dunn]

http://www.ati.com/products/hdtvwonder/index.html

"The HDTV WONDER™ is a PCI card for analog TV, free-to-air digital TV (DTV: SDTV and EDTV), and full quality free-to-air HDTV reception. It offers personal video recorder capabilities, with the controls to watch, pause and record all forms of TV to your system’s hard disk, or to CD’s and DVD’s. In addition to analog cable support, the HDTV WONDER™ with an HDTV antenna allows consumers to experience free-to-air HDTV broadcasts without having to subscribe to potentially expensive cable or satellite service charges. Treat yourself to the fantastic image quality of HDTV on your PC today with the economical HDTV WONDER™ and expand your digital universe."



This is something that interests me quite a bit, if only because within a year or so all hardware manufacturers will be forced to update their hardware to support the "broadcast bit" - a tiny piece of data that will be embedded in HDTV streams. And, trust me, this isn't a good thing. The broadcast bit is a type of DRM that will control whether or not you can record the HDTV show, how many times you can watch it, etc. I'm all for protecting the intellectual property of others, but this broadcast bit is nothing more than a play to sell DVD boxed sets of TV shows. If you can record your favourite shows in HDTV, you won't need to buy the DVD box set, and that's what they want you to do.

The only thing I'm unsure about with regards to this card is how it connects to the TV - ideally I'd want a DVI connection, but I can't find the types of connections it supports.

[Jason Dunn]

http://www.ati.com/products/hdtvwonder/index.html

"The HDTV WONDER™ is a PCI card for analog TV, free-to-air digital TV (DTV: SDTV and EDTV), and full quality free-to-air HDTV reception. It offers personal video recorder capabilities, with the controls to watch, pause and record all forms of TV to your system’s hard disk, or to CD’s and DVD’s. In addition to analog cable support, the HDTV WONDER™ with an HDTV antenna allows consumers to experience free-to-air HDTV broadcasts without having to subscribe to potentially expensive cable or satellite service charges. Treat yourself to the fantastic image quality of HDTV on your PC today with the economical HDTV WONDER™ and expand your digital universe."



This is something that interests me quite a bit, if only because within a year or so all hardware manufacturers will be forced to update their hardware to support the "broadcast bit" - a tiny piece of data that will be embedded in HDTV streams. And, trust me, this isn't a good thing. The broadcast bit is a type of DRM that will control whether or not you can record the HDTV show, how many times you can watch it, etc. I'm all for protecting the intellectual property of others, but this broadcast bit is nothing more than a play to sell DVD boxed sets of TV shows. If you can record your favourite shows in HDTV, you won't need to buy the DVD box set, and that's what they want you to do.

The only thing I'm unsure about with regards to this card is how it connects to the TV - ideally I'd want a DVI connection, but I can't find the types of connections it supports.

[ctmagnus]

Information for Canadian customers - Currently the HDTV WONDER™ is not being offered in Canada. The product is designed to receive over-the-air HDTV broadcasts which, although widely available throughout the United States, are not available in many parts of Canada. ATI will continue to evaluate the availability of terrestrial HDTV broadcasts throughout Canada and hopes to offer the HDTV WONDER™ for sale when the market is sufficiently developed.

[that_kid]

You beat me to it. Are there any over the air HDTV broadcasts going on in any parts of Canada?

[BugDude10]

Ya know, the more I hear about producers trying to restrict my ability to do what I want with what I buy, the more inclined I become to just stop buying their products. If I can't record the programs I want, because the producer wants to force me to by the DVD box set, then I'll just stop watching the show. If I can't rip my new CD to play on my portable, then I just won't buy the CD. (Or, in the alternative, I'll look for ways to circumvent the producers' efforts to infringe on my fair-use rights.)

I just don't like being told what to do. :x

Just my $0.02.

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by that_kid

You beat me to it. Are there any over the air HDTV broadcasts going on in any parts of Canada?

Oh, so you mean it can't be used to receive HD signals from the cable company?

[that_kid]

I'm not sure, I can't tell from what I've been reading. It should be possible to get it from cable, that would make it very appealing.

[Doug Johnson]

I may be wrong, but from what I have heard the "broadcast bit" only applies to satellite and cable, where full length un-edited movies are broadcast. Apparently the current recording restriction can't be imposed on broadcasts sent over-the-air because the standards for HDTV broadcast (8VSB) has already been set and won't be changed.

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by djdj

Apparently the current recording restriction can't be imposed on broadcasts sent over-the-air because the standards for HDTV broadcast (8VSB) has already been set and won't be changed.

Someone explain the "over the air" thing to me. When someone says "over the air", I think of a TV set without cable, one with a pair of rabbit ears. Around here, if you're lucky, you can get three whole static-filled channels with crappy video and audio.

In the US, HDTV is being broadcast over the air, for free? And this ATI tuner scans frequencies and lets you watch the shows? How many channels are broadcast? I didn't think that much bandwidth existed in the frequencies allocated for over the air TV...

How do people in the US get HDTV? Up here you either get it from the cable company or the satellite company - nothing else.

[wilkinsjme]

I am not an expert at this but here it goes....
Over the Air (OTA) is "free". Just like channels were tuned in before cable. You set up the antenna and point it and hopefully you are able to pick up a signal.

How many channels are broadcast depends on what area you live in. Most major cities here in the USA broadcast a digital channel as well. You need a tuner to decode the signal which is different from the analog signal. That is what the ATI product does. It tunes in the analog and digital (HDTV) channels if you can pick them up with an antenna (large or small).

People get HDTV in the states from OTA, Cable, or Satellite. I get all mine from cable because my TV doesn't have an HD tuner built in. However I would be able to pull in most of my local channels digital broadcast (NBC, ABC, CBS, etc.)

I am guessing that you will NOT be able to tune in any HD channels with this ATI card with signals that are from cable or satellite. Thats why I think they explicitly state this is only an OTA card. As a side note this card has a software based decoder. With an hour of HD averaging about 10gig I hope you have a lot of cpu power on hand.

Based upon what you say Jason, I don't think this ATI card will do you any good if you can't get any HD channels (or analog channels) via antenna from where you live.

There is something called QAM that would allow you tune in (some) HD channels from your cable co. But I am pretty sure this ATI card does not have QAM support. BUT I don't think all cable cos use QAM and not all HD cards that support it seem to work well. That is about as technical as I can get on QAM.

This HD decoder http://www.usbhdtv.com/ I think does have QAM support, plus it's a hardware based decoder, plus it's USB2 external. And they ship up to Canada. Right now this is the one I would like to buy.
There is also a DVICO http://www.dvico.com/index.html that supports QAM. There are probably a few others out there as well.

Hope that helps out a little....