MAY FINALLY BE DEAD - DEAD. only available locally and supplies are YMMV

5-5-09 It's back at $49.99 BACK TO PLUS S&H - use Shop Discover if you have one for additional 5% off

[$49.99 Thanks Jbot & shocking4life
Also if you have a Discover card (use your Shop Discover online shopping from the Discover Card Website to get an addition 5% ($2.50 off)

THIS WIKI IS NOT INTENDED TO SELL YOU ON A TV WONDER 650; rather to make you aware of the limitations of it and ALL TV Tuners... They are NOT for everyone, often times they have Issues...

I own three of these. At full price, there are better values out there: HDHomerun $159 (just was on sale for $139), AVerMedia ~$100+, and some Hauppauge tuners, but at $49.99 + tax these are a very good value see CAVEAT's below. The other (not Visiontek deals) are better IMHO b/c HDHomerun, some AVermedia & some Hauppauge cards support those companies' BETA software drivers/programs to remap QAM channels in Vista [[[Vista Native-ly won't support QAM - Clear QAM cable signals]]]. So these BETA programs (HDHomerun & AVerMedia were first with Hauppauge's software coming later) basically tricks VISTA Media Center (VMC) into thinking the ATSC - QAM signal is actually ATSC - OverTheAir which VistaMC can handle. Some like HDhomerun also work at allowing QAM in Windows Media Center Edition 2005 / (XP) systems (which MICROSOFT is shamefully not supporting) - and ATI has Completely dropped the ball on, which gives those three makers an advantage out of the box. (CAN BE OVER COME WITH 3rd PARTY SOFTWARE see option number 3 near bottom).

IF YOU DON'T HAVE CABLE, OR YOUR CABLE PROVIDER DOESN'T PROVIDE ANY OPEN/CLEAR QAM, then NONE OF THIS IS AN ISSUE FOR YOU. READ into that...those that get everything OTA. (Via Digital Conversion (STBox) on the Analog side of this tuner, and an OTA antenna for the Digital & High Definition Digital signals available in your area).
**Cable STB users: While this card DOES come with a remote control that has some functionality in Vista Media Center and works in CMC.... it DOES NOT have IR blasters that means you can not setup in Vista or MCE2005 to have the computer control the (Cable STB's station) as Vista MC & MCE2005 will balk at no IR found etc.
(((That doesn't mean you can't use your Cable STB for a signal into this as Analog, it means that you can't use the included remote to control and change the channel on the STB; you'll have to do it with your regular Cable remote =or= buy one of the Standard MCE 2005/VMC remote controls that include the IR blaster. (((YES, one more bummer from ATI))).
YOU CANNOT import a HD signal from your cable box into this card MEANS NO HD HBO, NO HD CINEMAX ETC.*** READ that carefully again. WHY? Because the F-Type TV Coaxial cable output that comes out of your Cable box is OK for Standard definition (meaning YOU CAN, I DO, import my Premium Paid content like HBO, Cinemax that your Cable Set Top box de-scrambles, into the ANALOG (labeled " TV IN " on this tuner) - or w/the S-Video ~ Composite input of this card and watch it or record it onto your PC using your TV tuner software. SO WHY CAN'T you bring in HD? Because the Cable/satellite companies have bowed to the pressure of the MPAA & TV NETWORKS that don't want you to be able to record their content in HD. The CAT's long been out of the bag on that one....it's similar to the fight they fought when the VCR first came on the scene.

Otherwise, HELL the F-Type Coaxial cable would would be an excellent way to pull in HD to other devices (despite what many think it is more than capable). What happens if you do connect your F-Type TV coaxial cable out of your STB (Cable to the ATSC - OTA / QAM tuner on the back of this card labeled " ANT IN " ? Nothing. The tuner doesn't know what to do with the signal.
(((Be careful not to confuse it's lack of ability to IMPORT HD content with it's great ability to Display and record ATSC OTA High Definition and with supporting software Open QAM256 /.Clear QAM High Definition. (It does that). The ONLY product out that I know of that actually can take a HD signal out of a CABLE STB in (*analog) High Definition is that NEW HAUPPAUGE box --- It made front page a few days ago sold by DELL (i think). It's not a Tuner card like this though, but it will act as a converter to take the Component *analog High Definition signal out of the STB and convert it to digital then send it along to your computer for watching or recording. (While not an all around solution its VERY PROMISING and a cool tool to add to your arsenal...as it will allow you to record that HD Premium content that's so coveted in a HD form!!

HOWEVER, if you connect that STB F-type TV coaxial cable output from your Cable box into your " TV IN " analog (NTSC) tuner side of this card ....just as with your Premium content (that's in Standard Definition format) you WILL get a signal. I turn on my TV tuner software and turn it to Channel 3 (that's the channel my STB outputs to with that port) - IF that sounds familiar it should, it's just like if you were using a VCR to a TV via the F-TYPE TV Coaxial cable...you'd use the selector on the back of the VCR and turn the TV to Channel 3 or 4 to get the picture....So what does the picture look like. Well first the STANDARD DEFINITION (premium content) that comes from the box looks GREAT! I record movies, shows like United States of Tara, Secret life of a Call Girl WOW, Californication...(ShowTime shows). The Theatre 650 Pro chip on these Hardware encoded tuners is EXCELLENT!
The High Definition Content however that comes out of the STBox is down scaled in picture quality and as if to punish us further it is NOT formatted to fit 4:3 so the outer edges of the content is lost. The picture itself through (our cable box) looks pretty much the same as the STANDARD DEFINITION quality content that i was speaking of before (except for the SEVERE cropping of the edges).

OK, so if you only get OTA signals or don't care about QAM you can skip most of the below stuff as a lot of it pertains to the OPEN / CLEAR \ UN-ENCRYPTED QAM from (some) - YMMV Cable providers. (((wanna see what QAM TV channels are in your area including digital music? QAM64 & QAM256 Click here:
http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/channels_us
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The reason I mention all that about the BETA programs is because ATI is straggling far behind in support. Since AMD's takeover they have disbanded their own Media Center software (which in some ways VMC & MCE2005 still haven't caught up to & in others they have exceeded it) and use a re-boxed version of Cyberlink's Power Cinema 4 software (they call it Catalyst Media Center version 1.0.3202). This is the "Software" that comes with these cards. (BTW - there is and update that came out, first one in more than a year updates to version 1.0.4310; appeared in Jan of 2009).... With the ATI (Visiontek) TV Wonder 650 ~ et al cards, there are three ways you can get QAM signals.

Number 1 - Use the included CMC (which is really the very old Cyberlink Power Cinema 4) ...Cyberlink is currently on version 6 if you bought from Cyberlink but we only get Version 4 (despite having one of the BEST MPEG-2 decoders, the software is BUGGY! and not nearly as nice as VMC or MCE2005). BUT you can ONLY use it to get QAM in VISTA.... how messed up is that? They bury that detail in fine print. So if you still use MCE2005 or XP Home/pro can't use CatalystMC to get QAM.

Number 2 (ONLY FOR VISTA USERS) - You can track down the Vista TV Media Pack 2008 (it's an UPDATE) that Microsoft developed but then ONLY RELEASED to their OEM Box PC makers like DELL, HP, GATEWAY etc. but its easy to find (READ about it at www.thegreenbutton.com ) you have to go to P2P / torrents or download hosting sites to find it. There are two different size packages out there (at least). One has just 32Bit version and the other i found at the time had 32Bit and 64Bit versions. I personally installed it - but it does a number of things including raising the MAX # of each type of tuners (NTSC, ATSC, QAM, CABLE CARD) that vista will detect. It changes the format that the files are saved as (((THIS makes a lot of the 3rd party add on software non-functional)) - just know what the benefits vs risks are. CMC was just way to crashy/buggy - problematic and not nearly as functional or nice as VMC.

Plus Microsoft's latest UPDATE the NET 3.5 breaks CMC (it won't start after installing that Net 3.5 update)... Verified on other sites/members. There is apparently a work around but it's like spending $50,000 to fix a three legg-ed, one eyed cat with distemper ...if you have VMC this card compliments it VERY WELL out of the box for NTSC (analog cable / satellite \ or Digital Conversion Box - for OTA Digital to Analog conversion, PLUS the second tuner is VERY EXCELLENT at pulling in ATSC - OTA Standard Digital and High definition shows. (((SO to sum that part up again, HARDWARE EXCELLENT - ATI's software support poor - the card does NTSC & ATSC - OTA out of the BOX with VISTA. That's not ATI's fault that VISTA didn't come supporting QAM; but all the other top companies didn't sit by they created a program to make it work.))) [/I]
ATI - points to CMC tuning in QAM; they just gloss over the fact that it's ONLY WHILE IN VISTA. I said it before that ATI's description about support for this card is as close to lying as you can come....

Number 3- Third way to get QAM using these cards is to buy a third party software like BEYOND TV that within the last year has taken up ATI's / Cyberlink's slack and integrated QAM support into their program for both XP and Vista. [[[TRY BEFORE YOU BUY]]] ... Beyond TV looks and operates very well but may not be to your liking at ~79 - $99 or software like it or SAGE TV can be a hard pill to swallow. That's why at $50 + cost of software this isn't too bad as they offers a VistaMC or MCE 2005 experience on both operating systems! (I'm sticking with VMC) on the one system I have that running on and I'm testing BT4 & Sage.

I guess an additional option if you have LOTS of time on your hands and like to tweak and set - up things then there are several free programs out that will also work well. You can find some listed at www.rage3d.com in the Multimedia section or www.AVSforum.com in the HTPC section or the green button listed above.

NOTE: Installing Microsoft's Net 3.5 (large) update at this time causes CMC not to start. IDK what the work around (there is one posted but i haven't had a chance to read it) or what happens if you already have that downloaded and installed and then go to install CMC ??? if that will work or if it will still not start up? JUST FYI

EDIT sorry i don't have a satellite box i removed the references to that.... My apologies. I'm not sure if it will record the S-Video out of a satellite box... So very sorry for that. I forgot the whole non-support issues. I was thinking in my head (some of you know about my cognitive impairments) that it was the same as cable. Very SORRY!

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