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ATI Technologies Inc. 100-703102 TV Wonder VE

ATI Technologies Inc. 100-703102 TV Wonder VE

List Price: $49.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This IS a quality product, but make it a 4.5
Review: ...

About the only hiccup is that it starts off with a messed up picture. Changing display depth then changing back fixes that problem. While it has to be every time you run the TV, it's not THAT big of a deal. In fact, that's the only real flaw. It's also a flaw the doesn't exist on all machines, but a select few configurations. Overall, the TV quality is great. The capture quality, though not quite DVD resolution is still pretty respectable and fast. The software bundle is average, but certainly competent, enough to do a good job and not get in the way.

Ultimately, it's the hardware that speaks volumes. It's cheap, versatile, and wildly flexible. I managed to easily record some taped VCR stuff onto my PC in MPEG2 format with relative ease. Power users will want to convert longer vids to much smaller DiVx files offline, but the average use won't complain much. They'll probably be mucking around with the TV functionality a bit more than the video capturing.

A VERY GOOD CARD with just a few very minor bugs.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: what a piece of junk
Review: Add me to the list of people who think this thing stinks. I've got a 2.6 ghz dimension 4600 w/ 800 mhz fsb, 768 ram and a 120 gb hard drive...and this thing manages to crash my system every time. Oh yeah a top of the line ATI graphics card too...

I don't know what the problem is, but the program freezes every time I start it up. It asks me to re-install the software each time I reboot the computer. Oh the CD it came with didn't even work either, it had junk stuck all over it and it wouldn't read. I downloaded the drivers and software but that didn't work either. It just keeps freezing.

On top of this, the one time I actually got it to work (for 30 seconds or so), the picture was grainy and horrible, and there were popping noises coming from the speakers.

From the gunk stuck on the CD I think they might have sold me a refurb or something...I'm about to call tech support and go nuts.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: FREEZES AND LOCKS UP CONSTANTLY
Review: ATI doesn't change over time. I tried their TV card years ago. Had problems such as conflicts with my graphics card. I just tried one of their newer models - Still quite lousy.

The TV Wonder VE card freezes constantly on my Win XP PC. I have to reboot to get my PC working properly after each freeze (Not days. Not hours. I mean within minutes of starting the TV software).

I have a brand new high performance PC. The graphics card is by ATI. This is totally unacceptable ATI.

Its good we have these sites on the internet so we can review these lousy products and let other consumers know the facts about what these companies are selling.

MY NEW PC: Win XP, 3.0 GHz, 800 MHz bus, 512 RAM, 80GB HD, 128MB DDR ATI Radeon 9200 Graphics card.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Card works fantastically in WindowsXP
Review: Don't believe the reviews about this card not working in Windows XP. I'm running it perfectly in Windows XP Professional on 2 different workstations. I have zero problems. This card is great for video capture (even at 320x240). If you want to take video from VHS and convert it to an AVI (then to DVD) and want to do it cheaply - then this is the card for you! I have recorded tons of programs and old VHS's and converted them to digital. The scheduler works great, and recording TV shows works like a charm...

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: (...)
Review: first of all, (...)it doesn't even automatically set the system audio so you can record TV WITH SOUND, after a few runs, it just blanly fails to start and say you have to reboot!!

the hardware is buggy too, I can watch TV ok, but when I record, the recorded video has a terrible squeak like "ssssssssssssss", drives you nuts, my system had no problem with recording whatsoever before.

Most annoying is their unfriendly tech support, it's in Canada, man, I spent more money calling to Canada trying to fix a crap I for which paid $$$ to ATI , and those jerks in there are like it's not their business and treat you like school kids.
if you want to call 1800, good, 20$ bucks or 2$ a minute, nice, aren't they saying: " these craps we sell are not really going to work, and if they don't work, it should be that way and you should pay extra $$$ to have a WORKING one------ by figuring it out yourself after tolerating unfriendly jerks"

don't ever buy any ATI stuff again, it's not money, it just feels too bad. I have a radeon 9000, it keeps flicking when I play 3D games,

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: One of the Worst Products I've Ever Bought
Review: First of all, this product doesn't even deserve the minimum 1 star I've given it. If you enjoy rebooting your computer several times a day, go ahead, buy and install this product. This product freezes my Windows 98SE computer several times a day. How do I know? Because my computer ran fine before I installed this product. It is one of the worst products I have ever bought. I work with computers for a living, so I am knowledgeable enough to to have gotten this product to at least function. But if you're an average person who expects to just plug this product into your computer and have it work, save yourself the trouble and pass. This TV tuner card has been the biggest waste of my time, and no doubt it will be a waste of your time as well. If you manage to get the software working, you'll find that it is very poorly designed. And if you attempt to contact the ATI tech support, don't bother. They haven't even responded to any of my inquiries. I thought upgrading the software to the latest version they have on their web site might help. That didn't help at all. It actually made the situation worse! Now my computer can't even boot up into Windows. It just gets an infamous Blue Screen of Death. Way to go ATI! You've succeded in designing another fine piece of junk!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Maximize TV watching resolution
Review: Hello guys. Sorry for my english, my native language is spanish.
Well, I bought my ATI TV WONDER VE card two months ago. I have a Celeron 850 mhz, absolutely all integrated, but I have no problems during card installation.
The card works very well, but my big disillusion is the poor resolution for video capturing (320 x 240 in MPEG1 compression). Also, TV watching resolution is the same (320 x 240), so the image is not so good when you use full screen mode, but it is acceptable.
I looked in the ATI website for a way to increase resolution, and I found that many other users have the same restlessness. ATI's answer is that the resolution is limited by software, not hardware.
That makes me "click". So, I load other TV watching program in my computer, the Ulead Media Studio Pro 6.0, and after several minutes configuring it, I could see a sharp and clean TV image with a resolution of 640 x 480 (Ulead's limit). Nevertheless, video capturing with this Ulead software is very bad, so when I need to capture video I use ATI video capturing software.
So, the card is a good option, but for increasing the resolution all you have to do is use other TV watching software...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: great product
Review: i bought the card from best buy for $30, and it's the best money i've spent on my computer. the software is fully functional. the recordings are tv quality. The video quality is just like the tv in my living room, even in full screen mode. i have not experienced any of the problems other reviews mention. It truly is a wonderful product.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Resource conflicts
Review: I bought the card, plugged it into one of my PCI slots, and installed the software, following the instructions in the manual. I found out, as soon as I tried to run the TV Tuner, that the card had a resource conflict with one of my BIOS extensions. Try after try, I could not get the settings to change. I ended up returning the product, and looking for another TV Tuner card.
I'm sure that if I didn't have those resource conflicts, it would have been a great product...documentation was sufficient, the other programs seemed to function great, but because of the serious errors I had, I'm giving this 2 stars.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Product!
Review: I bought this and it took about 10 minutes to install. I am running an XP machine and you need to download the XP Drivers from ATI's site. Don't even bother with the enclosed CD, everything is in the XP download. The picture is wonderful. I can input video from my analog camcorder and record with DVD quality. AND all the software I use that has a capture option, recognizes the card. I spent [money] on USB Instant DVD and can only use the few apps that come with it. ATI WONDER TV is a Great Product...


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