The New Theater 650 TV Tuner Solution from ATI
by Josh Venning on June 14, 2006 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
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Final Words
One thing many people commented on in our DualTV MCE article was the fact that we didn't include a Hauppauge tuner for comparison. We haven't included one in this review either, but we've looked at these cards in the past. To recap, the Hauppauge PVR-250 (and 350) is about the same as the Theater 550 in quality. What you get with a PVR-500 is also going to be similar to the DualTV MCE because of the dual tuner capability.
While software support might be a factor to consider when comparing the DualTV to the Theater 650, for the most part both of these cards work with a variety of TV applications, even though the DualTV is marketed more towards those with Windows MCE. The actual size of these cards might also be a factor for those with small cases, as the DualTV is double the height of the Theater 650 (and 550); however, the DualTV is still shorter than most GPUs.
Overall, the ATI Theater 650 does seem to provide better image quality than the NVIDIA DualTV MCE due to ATI's advancements in things like 3D comb filters, noise reduction, and edge enhancement. We would even say that the Theater 550 comes out ahead of the DualTV in some tests, and in terms of image quality they're about a tie (along with the Hauppauge PVR-250/350/500). The fact that the Theater 650 has support for DTV also gives it an edge over the others, and we also like the added control over things like sharpness and filters that ATI has provided with the new multimedia software.
The 650 will be available sometime in July according to ATI, and unfortunately we aren't sure what the final price will be. The NVIDIA DualTV MCE is still currently only available on the NVIDIA website for $169, while the Theater 550 has gone down in price slightly to around $70. Of course the price of the Theater 650 will be a big factor in the overall desirability of the card, so we will have to wait and see before we can completely assess its value. It would seem to us that a price of $90 to $100 would not be unreasonable for a card of this type with this feature set (i.e. DTV). Things like software bundle and remote control may change the package price somewhat, but this would be a fair price for the card itself in our opinion.
Taking everything into account, there are a lot of positives about the Theater 650. With all of the new features and enhancements, it looks to be the best TV tuner solution right now in terms of image quality. It's true that it doesn't have dual tuner capabilities like the DualTV MCE or Hauppauge PVR-500, but with two Theater 650s in your system not only would you achieve the dual TV ability, but you would also get higher image quality at the same time. This would of course require more space in your system and probably draw a bit more power, and you also need to make sure you have a motherboard with two available PCI slots (CrossFire/SLI users with dual slot GPUs need not apply), but for those serious about a home theater PC setup this should be possible.
The Theater 650 Pro may indeed be the best quality analog TV Tuner when it becomes available, but we have to bear in mind that this is still a growing technology, and cards like these still can't compete in all areas with a digital cable/satellite box hooked into your TV. Hopefully this will change when we see retail availability of CableCard products. With their introduction it's likely that tuner cards like the Theater 650 Pro and its successors may become even more important. If we are to believe all the convergence hype we've seen come and go, eventually we may replace all of our home entertainment needs with a PC. In the future, we expect to see real consumer electronic quality available on the desktop. Until such products become available, this card will be the card of choice for those users looking for the best TV tuner card for their computer/home theater setup, and we applaud ATI for the advancements they have made.
One thing many people commented on in our DualTV MCE article was the fact that we didn't include a Hauppauge tuner for comparison. We haven't included one in this review either, but we've looked at these cards in the past. To recap, the Hauppauge PVR-250 (and 350) is about the same as the Theater 550 in quality. What you get with a PVR-500 is also going to be similar to the DualTV MCE because of the dual tuner capability.
While software support might be a factor to consider when comparing the DualTV to the Theater 650, for the most part both of these cards work with a variety of TV applications, even though the DualTV is marketed more towards those with Windows MCE. The actual size of these cards might also be a factor for those with small cases, as the DualTV is double the height of the Theater 650 (and 550); however, the DualTV is still shorter than most GPUs.
Overall, the ATI Theater 650 does seem to provide better image quality than the NVIDIA DualTV MCE due to ATI's advancements in things like 3D comb filters, noise reduction, and edge enhancement. We would even say that the Theater 550 comes out ahead of the DualTV in some tests, and in terms of image quality they're about a tie (along with the Hauppauge PVR-250/350/500). The fact that the Theater 650 has support for DTV also gives it an edge over the others, and we also like the added control over things like sharpness and filters that ATI has provided with the new multimedia software.
The 650 will be available sometime in July according to ATI, and unfortunately we aren't sure what the final price will be. The NVIDIA DualTV MCE is still currently only available on the NVIDIA website for $169, while the Theater 550 has gone down in price slightly to around $70. Of course the price of the Theater 650 will be a big factor in the overall desirability of the card, so we will have to wait and see before we can completely assess its value. It would seem to us that a price of $90 to $100 would not be unreasonable for a card of this type with this feature set (i.e. DTV). Things like software bundle and remote control may change the package price somewhat, but this would be a fair price for the card itself in our opinion.
Taking everything into account, there are a lot of positives about the Theater 650. With all of the new features and enhancements, it looks to be the best TV tuner solution right now in terms of image quality. It's true that it doesn't have dual tuner capabilities like the DualTV MCE or Hauppauge PVR-500, but with two Theater 650s in your system not only would you achieve the dual TV ability, but you would also get higher image quality at the same time. This would of course require more space in your system and probably draw a bit more power, and you also need to make sure you have a motherboard with two available PCI slots (CrossFire/SLI users with dual slot GPUs need not apply), but for those serious about a home theater PC setup this should be possible.
The Theater 650 Pro may indeed be the best quality analog TV Tuner when it becomes available, but we have to bear in mind that this is still a growing technology, and cards like these still can't compete in all areas with a digital cable/satellite box hooked into your TV. Hopefully this will change when we see retail availability of CableCard products. With their introduction it's likely that tuner cards like the Theater 650 Pro and its successors may become even more important. If we are to believe all the convergence hype we've seen come and go, eventually we may replace all of our home entertainment needs with a PC. In the future, we expect to see real consumer electronic quality available on the desktop. Until such products become available, this card will be the card of choice for those users looking for the best TV tuner card for their computer/home theater setup, and we applaud ATI for the advancements they have made.
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rqle - Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - link
Currently own a Theater 550 chipset and i like it much better then my roommate nvidia dualTV one. My question is, can i buy another Theater550 so i can dualTV, would the system go crazy on me? Would like to have dual screen running different sport program at once and would be cheaper for me as well.DerekWilson - Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - link
that would work fineWoodchuck2000 - Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - link
When is Anandtech going to publish a decent article on TV tuners? In no particular order:Why use ATI promotional material that is designed to prove that the 650 is better than the 550? Use your own material if you want a fair test. More to the point, why transcode it? Im sorry, but file size considerations are not a good justification for degrading the image quality <IN AN IMAGE QUALITY TEST>.
How do you justify adding throwaway comments about equivalence with Hauppage products in the conclusions if you havn't addressed the cards at any point in the review?
Why have you taken the instantaneous CPU utilisation from task manager and tabulated it? You need to take an average over a reasonable period of time if it is to have any relevance.
Seriously, there's not enough depth in any area to make the review really worthwhile - you may as well post a single page saying "Look everyone, ATI have sent us this nice new card they want us to plug!" and it would have the same amount of relevance to 99% of your audience.
Cardio - Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - link
Why is there no mention of how this card preforms on DTV, that is its major difference and only really new feature? Am I missing something here? You didn't test the Hauppauge because you have looked at it before. You've looked at the ATI 550 before also. In the earlier test you campare a dual tuner card to a single tuner card rather to the other available dual tuner card. Will ATI only give you stuff to test if you don't compare it to the competition? As you said, Nvidia's card is only available directly from them and at twice the price. The Hauppauge MCE 500 is available anywhere and is cheap. Oh, you have looked at those cards before.I can tell you for sure that I am a lot more interested in Picture Quality and functionality than in power consumption or cpu usage.
Not worthy of AT and its getting to be a habit.
DerekWilson - Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - link
We transcoded it for your benefit (smaller file to download) -- in our image quality analysis, we used the unmodified output of the cards. Sorry if this was unclear.As for using ATI's material, you can't argue with a zone plate. Better is better and worse is worse. Same for the other tests we ran which were designed by SMPTE (http://www.smpte.org/)">http://www.smpte.org/) ... ATI was gracious enough to provide us with these tests we would have otherwise had to purchase ourselves.
testing the Hauppage card is a reasonable request, but it doesn't change the fact that it was similar in quality and performance to the Theater 550 in previous evaluations. That is perfectly reasonable information to use in drawing conclusions.
SHSPVR - Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - link
One thing I really hate more then anything is the fact that min reviewer are so lazy in the cheating game by using the PrtScn Button and do not do ture original video RAW decode MPEG screenshot in the rigth application software like Womble MPEG-VCR and always seem to be using MCE DVR-MS proprietary video and audio format carp what matter are they just to lazy in using other PVR software or GraphEdit to get real MPEG files but as we all know that the NVIDIA DualTV is not option with GraphEdit which has no exposes advanced features properties.2nd problem as today no body turely using low bitrate under 4MBit/sec which is more reasonable testing to see how well it really dose encoding without artifacts.
So you wondering why I said cheating well each encoder dose there video difference from each other and there for the decoder filter display difference in case depend on the clean up filter like Deinterlace, difference Enhanced Video Processing Technologies which get apply on top the MPEG Video.
Now as for comparison.
Hauppauge, ATI and NVIDIA
Hands down Hauppauge PVR cards wins becuase of some major reason it has support for more OS then any one eles Windows, Linux, Mac (Apple) and yes even OS/2 Warp or eComStation and has more 3rdparty application support.
As for a real encoding comparison all test they should done with the fellowing device
VCR, Stardard Antenna TV, CableTV Analogue/Digital and Satellite with fellowing output source S-Video/Composite and Tuner
CPU Utilization is really useless becuase all of today Video card are still mostly base on 3rdparty SW-Decoder which mean you still need fast CPU unlike a ture HW-Decoder which provides a real decoding performance unlike today video card which only do part HW-accelerated decoding not full HW-decoding.
Let say for Example you have Intel P3 800MHz runing 2000Pro or XP with 512MB and you can chosse from GeForce"4" MX4000 or GeForce"7" 7800 becuase you want upgarde your old doggie ATI 3D RAGE PRO 4MB what do you think you see in CPU Utilization from the two card newer card.
andrep74 - Tuesday, June 20, 2006 - link
One thing I really hate more [than] anything is the fact that I have to try to read cr*p like your comments, which try to pass off the sh*t in your head for English.SHSPVR - Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - link
Oh I also for add You need do Cartoon as well as reg video show