Site Meter Home Theaters » Blog Archive » ATi Brings Back A Winner

ATi Brings Back A Winner

by marc klink

For the last couple of years, there has been a huge hole in the video card market. It was 2006 when the last ATi All-in-Wonder was produced, and nVidia had discontinued their similar offering before that. With the huge increase of Home Theater PCs being built these days the removal of this type of product was all wrong.

Now ATi has announced the latest in the All-in-Wonder series, combining an HD3650 video card with the TV Wonder tuner card, for a list price of $199.

image

While not the fastest GPU around, the 3650 will do a very good job of taking care of the HTPC and media center market segment, while the choice for the gamer who also watches movies would be a 4xxx series card and a separate TV Wonder card. For those who are using a small form factor box to build the HTPC, this will be a beautiful thing, because the heat output of the 3650 GPU will be much easier to mitigate.

The PCI Express 2.0-based All-in-Wonder HD card,  includes unified decoder technology for hardware-accelerated Blu-ray playback, and records and captures both HDTV and analog signals using ATI Theater 650 Pro hardware MPEG-2 encoding. Dual DVI connectors are included, and HDMI support has also been added. HDCP support, however, has apparently not been included.

AMD’s Catalyst Media Center provides a front end to scheduling recordings, while a second bundled AMD LIVE! “Entertainment Suite CD” allows a user to access the DVR capabilities over the Internet with a broadband connection.

In the announcement from ATi, the door was left open when the question of faster GPUs paired with the TV Wonder. It may happen, and that would bring the raw speed of GDDR5 memory to the HTPC system, making it much easier to do those things that stretch the abilities of lesser GPU/CPU combinations. It will also make small form PVRs easier to build, as the combo card will free up an additional, much needed slot for an additional tuner.

-

Technorati Tags: - - - -


Posted in General on June 27th, 2008

Link to this Entry

Recent Posts

Related Posts

Leave a Reply


About Home Theaters

With the new and intermediate home theatrician in mind, Talking Home Theaters takes you on a tour of what's hot, what's affordable and what's not. If you've ever been envious of the endless home entertainment options available or are looking to build your first home theater without eliminating your children's education funds, you've come to the right place. We focus on scouring the internet for excellent entry-level ideas, incredible deals for newbies and home theater tips and tricks, so you don't have to.

Home Theaters Author(s)
    » marc-klink

NAVIGATE

LINKS

CATEGORIES

TOP COMMENTERS

RECENT COMMENTS

SUBSCRIBE

ARCHIVES

Technology Channel Posts

  • PCs Make a Fashion Statement at PROJECT
    Microsoft to highlight PCs with Windows that are fashionable and downright cool. The New Black Why does Microsoft, primarily a software company, care about the physical design and style of a [...]
  • Microsoft Office Groove 2007
    Office Groove 2007 is a collaboration software program that helps teams work together dynamically and effectively, even if team members work for different organizations, work remotely, or work [...]
  • StartupNation and Microsoft Office Live Small Business Search
    for Nation’s Top Home-Based Businesses for Second Annual “Home-Based 100” StartupNation (http://www.startupnation.com) and Microsoft Office Live Small Business [...]
  • Office Excel 2007
    Microsoft Office Excel 2007 is a powerful tool you can use to create and format spreadsheets, and analyze and share information to make more informed decisions. With the Microsoft Office Fluent user [...]
  • For investing, PCs are hands-down winners vs. Macs
    Apple's advertising campaign railing against people who use PCs using Microsoft's Windows has been funny, and relentless. So, it's only natural for investors to wonder whether a PC or an Apple Mac [...]
  • Microsoft Access: Quickly get started tracking information
    Start working immediately with the results-oriented features in Office Access 2007: Prebuilt solutions. The new Getting Started screen includes a variety of prebuilt database solutions. Use [...]
  • Lots of News
    Do you have the latest Microsoft Security Updates for August? Click to get started. How about Microsoft Accounting 2008? Use it for personal use or your small home business. What it's [...]
  • Circuit City Enhances Customer Experience
    With Customized Microsoft Software-Based Tablet PCs for Sales Associates in New-Format Stores Called the Enhanced Digital Guide Experience (EDGE), Circuit City’s new mobile devices can speed the [...]
  • Xbox and Rock the Vote to Give Voters a New Platform for Change
    First-of-its-kind partnership creates new ways to register to vote and jump into 2008 election. A leading gaming and entertainment platform just became a leading platform for change. Microsoft [...]
  • What's new with Microsoft Office 2007?
    Microsoft took into account extensive usability data and recent advancements in hardware and software, the team has delivered the most significant update to the Microsoft Office user interface in [...]

 

Hot Off The Press

  • A friend back east and a short Story from the Bangor Daily News
    [caption id="attachment_945" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Photo By Mary MacIntyre"][/caption] A good friend and famous basket weaver sent me this article from the Bangor Daily News. [...]
  • Thomas Weber named to Lou Groza Award watch list
    Arizona State University sophomore kicker Thomas Weber has been named to the Watch List for the 2008 Lou Groza Award, presented annually to the nation's best kicker. Weber, who last year became the [...]
  • Summer/Winter Gardening
    Tod and Jamie Hanley aren't the only Oklahoma gardeners looking for ways to beat the summer heat, but their solution is original: they garden in winter instead, using homemade hoop houses. On [...]
  • Survivor Gabon - Contestants!
    Here they are, our 18 castaways for Survivor Gabon! We've some old folks, a doctor, a lawyer, a professional video game champion (Yes, really), a pin-up girl, an Olympic athlete and more... [...]
  • Cooking with the Boys.
    Tonight it's Dan and Memphis' turn to cook. The main course? Meatloaf. Instructions verbally gotten from Renny, the boys go to work. And I start giggling... how cute are these two? Seriously? [...]
  • Auburn Soccer To Have A Pair Of Games Televised
    The Auburn soccer team will have a pair of its matches televised this season. Auburn will play at Vanderbilt on Sunday, Sept. 28, in a game televised on SEC-TV and then will have its Thursday, Oct. [...]
  • Creating your Bridal Registry
    Sometime within the first forty-five minutes of wearing a diamond ring, the average bride realizes she needs to register for gifts. At this point, there is no wedding date, no venue, no flowers, no [...]
  • Put your left foot in...
    It's Wednesday night, and the natives are restless as Renny and Keesha start to rehash things once again. Keesha: I feel bad for Michelle. Some you don't feel bad for, but her I fell bad. I really [...]
  • Seattle Weekend Edition for 8/29/08
    [...]
  • ‘Chuck’ Gets Full-Season Pick Up
    NBC has given an early back-nine order to Chuck, just over a month before the second-season premiere. Chuck’s first season held its own in the ratings, but was cut short due to the writer’s [...]