Conclusion

Sometimes when designing a new groundbreaking product, manufacturers can take features they’ve provided for years in existing products for granted. In some ways, that’s exactly what we feel has happened to the TV WONDER ELITE, and other THEATER 550 PRO cards. ATI’s multimedia team was so focused on improving image quality, and bringing those standards up to what you’d see on a TV, that they forgot the underlying parts that made them so successful in the past.

Clearly ATI got the REMOTE WONDER PLUS unit right. The new remote control unit is slimmer, with buttons that are intelligently laid out and function well, with good tactile feedback and crisp response. We still think the original REMOTE WONDER and RWII units had a little more range than REMOTE WONDER PLUS, but the overall design is better than any other remote ATI has produced to date.

The hardware is also very good. THEATER 550 PRO definitely produced images that were superior to a similar card setup with THEATER 200. Noise in our cable signal was reduced as was feathering, and text appeared sharper. In our subjective opinion the final image is a little softer on THEATER 550 PRO as well, which may be a pro or a con depending on your particular tastes and preferences. The weakness in our opinion however is the speed of the new Microtune MT2050 tuner; while the space savings will no doubt be appreciated by small form factor or HTPC users, those of you with larger cases would probably be willing to sacrifice a little bit of space for a faster tuner. We know we sure would.

The real downside to the THEATER 550 PRO cards we’ve tested today however has nothing to do with the hardware, and everything to do with CyberLink PowerCinema. PowerCinema is a huge step backwards from Multimedia Center (MMC). Sure, PowerCinema is easier to setup for newbies, but that’s because half of the features found in MMC have been removed! If ATI really wants to make their multimedia offerings more user friendly, we’d suggest they color-code more hardware parts, and provide more documentation with their products, perhaps even a video demonstrating proper installation techniques on the software CD. Don’t dumb down your products by taking away features you’ve provided for years now. ATI says they wanted to de-emphasize MMC with TV WONDER ELITE, instead focusing on getting their products to work with third-party software applications, but that just isn’t a good excuse. When you fork over $150 for a high-end TV tuner card like the TV WONDER ELITE, you shouldn’t get software that’s worse than what you provide in the $69 TV WONDER PRO. But that’s exactly what’s happening now.

Fortunately there are alternatives to PowerCinema. We tested the TV WONDER ELITE and the Sapphire and TUL-PowerColor cards with Microsoft’s Windows Media Center Edition 2005 with no problems. MCE 2005 ships with an EPG, and solves the other gripes we mentioned on the PowerCinema page, and setting up the TV WONDER ELITE to run with this OS is a snap. Just make sure to install a MCE 2005 compatible DVD decoder such as PowerDVD 6 for best results. If you already own a copy of MCE 2005, consider the TV WONDER ELITE an Editor’s Choice Product, as the board clearly delivers superior quality. Another good solution is BeyondTV 3 from Snapstream. A trial version can be downloaded for free off Snapstream’s website if you’d like to try it out for a bit.

And to answer another popular question, how do the Sapphire and TUL-PowerColor THEATER 550 PRO cards compare to TV WONDER ELITE? Fundamentally, they’re essentially the same. You get the exact same hardware and software, with the key difference being the remote control unit used. TUL-PowerColor and Sapphire rely on CyberLink’s IR-based remote, while the TV WONDER ELITE ships with REMOTE WONDER PLUS. REMOTE WONDER PLUS is clearly the better remote out of the two, but with online retailers such as Newegg selling the TUL-PowerColor and Sapphire boards for over $50 less than TV WONDER ELITE, you have to ask yourself, is the extra money worth the remote? We think the answer for most of you will probably be “no”, especially with OEM versions of the TUL-PowerColor and Sapphire cards curently selling for $75 in the case of the Sapphire card, and $90 for the TUL-PowerColor on Newegg. In comparison, TV WONDER ELITE currently sells for $145.

For users looking to pick up an inexpensive TV tuner card, this is the route we’d recommend. You get all the best features of TV WONDER ELITE, most importantly of course being THEATER 550 PRO, without the hefty pricetag or the forgettable software. You can then spend the money you saved on a better remote, or a copy of MCE 2005/BeyondTV 3.

It’s because of this that we’ve awarded the Bull’s Eye Award to both Sapphire and TUL-PowerColor’s THEATER 550 PRO cards. Pick one of these boards up if the superior image quality and video encoding found in ATI’s THEATER 550 PRO chip appeal to you.