Ballistics Report

Pros

Multimedia marvel: With ATI’s HDTV WONDER you truly can do it all. It’s the first product besides ALL-IN-WONDER to provide timeshifting, which is provided for both standard analog signals as well as the DTV stations. Even competing HDTV tuner cards from manufacturers such as Hauppauge don’t provide this feature. Besides providing out-of-the-box DTV watching and recording, HDTV WONDER also supports the same features that have become the norm on ALL-IN-WONDER such as mulTView, EAZYLOOK, and THRUVIEW, provided you have the right hardware.

REMOTE WONDER: ATI’s REMOTE WONDER integrates seamlessly with the HDTV WONDER and ATI’s Multimedia Center 9 software. The only addition ATI probably should have made is adding a button to the remote for the DTV player, but this can be easily programmed into one of the six programmable buttons ATI provides on the REMOTE WONDER.

HDTV Antenna: By including a UHF HDTV antenna in the box, ATI provides everything you’ll need to watch HDTV on your PC immediately. Setting everything up is a snap, the antenna is easy to move around and with the signal strength meter you can find the ideal location for the HDTV antenna.

If you’d like an antenna with a little more power, you can also attach an outdoor antenna to the HDTV WONDER. The connector is a standard coaxial connection, so no proprietary cables or hardware are required for installation.

Price: At $200 MSRP, the HDTV WONDER is a steal. Just think about it for a second. For $200 you’re getting the card with HDTV capability and TV-ON-DEMAND, REMOTE WONDER, the HDTV antenna and video input box. Now compare that with the TV WONDER PRO Remote Control Edition. It sells for an MSRP of $100 and while it offers the remote control unit, it doesn’t provide all the functionality of the HDTV WONDER (it lacks TV-ON-DEMAND support). We feel the $100 price premium is definitely worth it considering the extra features you’re getting.

Cons

DX9 cards only: Just yesterday we received word that the HDTV WONDER requires a DirectX 9 video card for operation. This means you’ll need a RADEON 9500 series or better graphics card, or one of NVIDIA’s GeForce FX cards. ATI will be providing a complete list of compatible graphics cards when the HDTV WONDER ships in the first half of July.

Stability: We encountered more lockups and crashes than we’re used to seeing in MMC 9.0. Typically ATI’s multimedia software is pretty rock-solid -- this was the first time we’d seen our TV player crash, hopefully this will be resolved in ATI’s next MMC software release.

USA market only: Unfortunately, for now ATI is limiting the HDTV WONDER to the US market only. ATI has decided to focus on the US market because digital television broadcasts are more widespread than other parts of North America.