Pixel View Tv Tuner Driver

ATI has certainly made some new friends with the Radeon 9700 Pro. Currently the king of the 3D graphics mountain, ATI wants to capitalize on this momentum with "kicker" products such as the Radeon 9700, Radeon 9500 Pro, and the Radeon 9500. We knew an All-in-Wonder (AIW) product based on 9700 was only a matter of time, but ATI has pulled out all the stops with its latest incarnation. For the first time, ATI's latest GPU and the AIW card are at 3D performance parity, meaning you leave nothing on the table by going with the AIW in terms of 3D performance, except most of your spare change.

The All-in-Wonder 9700 Pro is what we like to call a "ginsu" card, because it can cut through anthing – 3D and 2D graphics, digital video, video capture, TV, and PVR. These products come with TV tuners and software that lets you turn your PC into a TiVo PVR to record your favorite TV shows, and then watch them when you desire, and skip past the commercials. These cards also allow you to perform video capture, both via analog inputs and via FireWire if your digital camcorder and PC system support these features. Long story short, these cards do just about everything you can possibly do with a PC graphics card.

There were several previews on the Web about the AIW 9700's features, but we held off with such previews, because we believed actual hands-on time spent testing the product's numerous capabilities would be more useful to our readers.

ATI has long held the brass ring in the "ginsu" graphics card arena, and while they've stuffed plenty of 3D horsepower into the AIW Radeon 9700 Pro, there are many other details to sweat. Turn the page for a list of what's new in this version, read about our PVR and video capture tests, head right to our Review Summary to get our opinion on whether you should buy this card, or head right to Test Results to find out how the All-In-Wonder fared against family and foe.

The 9700 version of the AIW in some sense represents a return to its roots. Gone is the FireWire port that was found both on the card itself and the I/O breakout box, a likely casualty of including a full-throttle 3D GPU. Firewire has increasingly become a motherboard-down feature, and new FireWire cards are under $20 too, which probably also hastened the demise.

The digital tuner chip that the Radeon 8500 AIW used has been replaced by a new, smaller "tuner in a can". ATI officials claim no loss in image quality by returning to the tuner in a can, and based on our tests, we agree.

ATI has also returned to the old style input only I/O hub. The outputs instead reside on a ganglia of cables that hang off of the card itself. Output connectors include S-Video, composite video, 1/8" stereo audio, and an RCA S/PDIF digital audio jack to send Dolby Digital streams to an external decoder.

Component Video: New to this version of AIW: component video output. A separate cable ganglia that replaces the normal one delivers this, and the same analog and digital audio outputs found on the original cable. It's understandable, but cumbersome to have two separate cables -- you'll have to fumble around behind your CPU to change your output options. The AIW Radeon 8500 had both inputs and outputs on the I/O breakout box, which meant more cables topside, but made switching cables much easier.

Routing audio to the AIW 9700 Pro no longer requires an external cable that loops from your sound card. Instead, a CD-drive-type audio connector attaches to one of your sound card's internal input ports. This is another welcome change, since it frees up the line input on your sound card for other devices you may want to record from.

New Software: Pinnacle Studio has replaced Ulead's Video Studio as the bundled video capture/editor/production tool. This addition gives AIW increased credibility with video aficionados, and is a good replacement for the more basic Video Studio.

The AIW 9700 Pro also features several new software apps. Video Soap cleans up "snowy" video, and removes some compression artifacts. VideoShader is a feature that uses the Radeon 9700 GPU's pixel shader hardware to soften edges at tile boundaries for the block-based compression schemes used by most video codecs. A special version of Real media player that take advantage of this feature is included.

ATI was the first company to bring us Video Desktop, where TV playback becomes your desktop wallpaper – letting you view windows and icons on top of a video image. ThruView refines this feature by making the desktop icons and windows that sit on top of the video image translucent – much like those annoying channel logos on cable TV.

PVR and EPG: The AIW 9700 Pro uses GemStar's GuidePlus+ for its electronic program guide (EPG), which downloads a weekly program listing that you use to select programs for the AIW to record for you. This feature works with antenna TV signals and standard cable, but unfortunately does not yet work with satellite TV services. Once recorded, you can go back and view these programs using ATI's File Player. You can only record one program at a time, but using the "ATI VCR" setting, AIW Pro 9700 delivers very good video quality at 1024x768, although at 1600x1200 video does get a bit grainy from the additional stretching needed for full-screen playback. You can navigate through the listings using the remote control's DVD navigation arrow buttons, although the Select/OK button doesn't bring up the TV application to show your selection full-screen.

The ATI TV application's PVR has one-touch recording, and you can choose from one of four pre-defined video quality presets, or configure your own that can use a maximum bit rate of 2Mbits/sec, and whether you want to use ATI's VideoSoap, which can be applied in real time as you're recording to your hard disk.

At 2Mbits/sec, you can get better-than-VHS recording quality, which is admittedly damning with faint praise. But you have to remember that you're still recording an NTSC TV signal, a fifty year-old standard, and it only has about 500 interlaced scan-lines of resolution. So don't expect your TV recordings to look like DVDs, because they won't. DVDs use a variable bit-rate (VBR) compression scheme, and typically run around 3-5Mbits/sec, although they can spike as high as 9.8Mbits/sec, although that's rare. But the main difference has less to do with the bit rate and everything to do with DVD's native resolution of 720x480 progressive scan. At 2Mbits/sec, you'll eat about 880MB per hour of video recorded. There are also options for lower qualtiy settings that eat less disk space, but you give up video image quality to save hard-drive space.

This new feature can reduce video compression artifacts to improve playback quality, particularly of video streams using lower bit rates and more compression. We encountered an audio-glitch when starting the PVR -- a wicked audio loop-back that created an "echo chamber from hell" effect. Muting the TV application got rid of the problem, so we suspect that the auxiliary input connected to the sound card's wave output fed back into the aux input, creating a loop. This echo loop doesn't show up in the recorded video, whether the TV application is muted or not, but muting it during recording allowed us to view the program being time-shifted. ATI was able to replicate the problem in their test lab, and sent us an updated release candidate driver that addressed the problem. Once this driver was installed, we were able to use the PVR functionality without incident.

Another important component on the AIW 9700 Pro board is the ATI Rage Theater chip, a separate ASIC that handles the video input and output, as well as digital audio output for Dolby Digital. This chip often goes overlooked, but it is essentially the main port of video entry and exit from the AIW 9700 Pro, and key to bringing video features to life on the card.

Video Capture Test Results We used Pinnacle Studio SE to capture video both via the Audigy's FireWire port and via the Rage Theater analog video/audio input. In all instances we used the maximum data rate possible for the capture to minimize compression artifacts. Pinnacle Studio SE is a generally solid application with plenty of useful and slick-looking transition effects, good title tools, and the ability to make DVD menus.

Our Sony DVR-PC5 camcorder was recognized by Pinnacle, and the application was able to control the camcorder's transport controls, and captures went smoothly. We then disconnected the camera's FireWire connector, and used the AIW's composite video input and stereo audio input, and again, Pinnacle captured both audio and video without dropping frames. However, we did encounter a fairly severe thud each time we began capturing via the analog video/audio input. We also heard this spike when we first brought up Pinnacle's capture interface, and when stopping an analog capture. Turning down the volume reduced the severity of the thud, but it was still audible nonetheless. We found that this thud didn't wind up on the audio track of the captured video, however.

One annoyance with Pinnacle: the nasty registration agent. It insists on launching not only each time the application starts, but every time Windows starts up as well. This is a "feature" we could definitely live without.

The AIW 9700 Pro's software bundle consists of: Pinnacle Studio 8.4 SE Matchware Mediator 7: Enables the ability to combine text, pictures, videos and sounds to build media-rich presentations ATI Multimedia Center : ATI's suite of applications that include a TV tuner with PVR capabilities, Video CD, CD, DVD players and a Media Library where you can catalog and organize all of your media: video, audio, home movies, etc. )

ATI Remote Wonder: ATI's very solid RF remote control that can drive all of ATI's apps, and also delivers mouse functionality as well. Because it uses RF for its signaling, you don't have to aim the remote at the USB receiver pod, or even be in the same room for that matter. This remote is available as a standalone product for about $50 bucks, and is one of the best PC remote controls on the market. It can even drive applications if no other ATI hardware (i.e. a 3D card) is present. The remote also has mouse functionality that works well, transport control buttons, DVD navigation arrow buttons and a Select/OK button in the middle of those, buttons to launch ATI's TV, DVD and Media Library apps, as well as Internet Exploder or your browser of choice. You can see our review of the Remote Wonder.

Cabling that arrives with the AIW 9700 Pro, as with previous AIWs: S-Video and composite video patch cables.

Here's a list of all the features of the Radeon 9700 All-In-Wonder Pro: Analog video capture via composite or S-Video inputs Stereo analog capture via stereo RCA jacks 3D graphics acceleration by the mighty Radeon 9700 Pro GPU TV tuner PVR "digital VCR" Hardware-accelerated DVD playback and ATI's own software DVD player Video output via either composite, S-Video, and now component video outputs to external display devices.

Radeon All in Wonder 9700 Pro Pro: Screaming 3D performance, hardware DVD decode, real-time MPEG-2 encode. Con: All those features and power come with a $450 price-tag. Summary: Still the best all-in-one 3D/TV/video capture/PVR card going with good improvements over the previous generation. But all that panache doesn't come cheap. Score: Company: ATI Technologies Check Prices : All-in-Wonder Radeon 9700 Pro Radeon 9700 Pro ATI has refined the All-in-Wonder line of products generation by generation, and based on our test results, this latest installment continues that tradition. The top-shelf 3D performance, the addition of component video output, VideoSoap, and now bundling Pinnacle Studio SE make the package more appropriate for video jockeys and 3D gamers as well.

We encountered a few rough edges in testing the PVR and analog video capture, although these should be fixed in a future driver refresh. Our 3D performance benchmarks show that the AIW is second to none and on par with the Radeon 9700 Pro, the current top 3D dog.

This combination of solid software, high-performance hardware, and integration detail makes the AIW a solid product. We'd still like a second VGA or DVI-I output on the AIW's back pane, for multi-monitor support, but there's no room for it. This product will continue ATI's dominance of the "prosumer" video production space. The AIW 9700 Pro starts to leverage the Radeon 9700's powerful GPU and pixel shaders for video applications – and this trend should continue, given the powerful ALUs that live in today's GPUs.

nVidia Attacks: nVidia is rumored to be readying its next-generation Personal Cinema. Its initial product was a good first try, but it obviously nVidia was grappling with problems that ATI solved long ago.

A revamped ginsu solution from nVidia mated with either the GeForce 4 Ti 4600 or even the upcoming NV30 might give the Radeon All-inWonder 9700 Pro a run for its money. But that's the future, and the AIW is here now and ready for action. So if you want it all, and afford to spend $450 bucks, the Radeon All-in-Wonder 9700 Pro is the card you want.

We tested using our Intel test system, which has the following load-out:

System Specs

Intel Pentium 4 2.53GHz check prices Intel 850EMV2 motherboard using Intel 850E chipset check prices 512MB PC1066 RDRAM check prices Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum check prices 3com NIC check prices Western Digital WB400 40GB ATA-100 EIDE hard-drive check prices Toshiba DVD-ROM check prices KDS Avitron 21" monitor Fresh install of Windows XP Pro Service Pack 1 with latest system updates as of 11/6/02 check prices DirectX 8.1

We tested with our usual benchmark suspects: 3DMark 2001SE 3D GameGauge 3.0

3D GameGauge 3.0 is a suite of game tests consisting of: Comanche 4 (Direct3D) Dungeon Siege (Direct3D) IL-2 Sturmovik (OpenGL) Jedi Knight II (OpenGL) NASCAR 2002 (Direct3D) NHL 2002 (Direct3D) Serious Sam SE (OpenGL) Unreal Performance Test Build 927 (Direct3D)

We take an average frame rate from each of these games and then calculate a geometric mean to determine the final 3D GameGauge score.

We test at two resolutions with 3D GameGauge 3.0: 1024x768x32 with 4X FSAA (Full-Scene Anti-Aliasing) enabled, and 1600x1200x32 with no FSAA.

We then did video capture using both the analog composite video input as well as digital video capture via the Audigy's FireWire port using our Sony DVR-PC5 Camcorder. We also looked at AIW's EPG (electronic program guide) for its usefulness and programmability, and also tested the AIW's PVR capabilities.

3DMark 2001SE We compared the results gathered on the AIW 9700 Pro to that of its 3D gaming-focused sibling, the Radeon 9700 Pro. The results for the latter card come from our review that was published when the card first shipped.

Our results: the two cards deliver nearly identical performance. This bodes well for 3D gamers looking to take their video production act uptown. Rather than present multitudinous graphs with equal-sized bars, we instead present a condensed version of the test results, which provide a very good representation of our more detailed findings.

The two ATI boards deliver comparable performance, although the AIW 9700 Pro is just slightly ahead at both test resolutions: 3.9% at 1024x768x32, and about 2% faster at 1600x1200x32. These scores are so close as to be within the margin of error of the 3DMark benchmark, so this one's a draw.

3D GameGauge 3.0

The overall average scores for 3D GameGauge are virtually identical, only this time the Radeon 9700 Pro has a razor-thin advantage. But in the individual game tests, we did see some notable differences between the two cards. Here's how the scores broke down:

Jedi Knight II 1024x768x32: AIW 9700 Pro 17.3% faster 1600x1200x32: AIW 9700 Pro 18.2% faster

Dungeon Siege 1024x768x32: AIW 9700 Pro 10.6% faster 1600x1200x32: AIW 9700 Pro 11.1% faster

Serious Sam SE 1024x768x32: Radeon 9700 Pro 35.3% faster 1600x1200x32: Radeon 9700 Pro 47.1% faster

Comanche 4 1024x768x32: Radeon 9700 Pro 3% faster 1600x1200x32: Radeon 9700 Pro 2% faster

NHL 2002 1024x768x32: Radeon 9700 Pro 1.5% faster 1600x1200x32: Radeon 9700 Pro 0.7% faster

IL-2 Sturmovik 1024x768x32: Radeon 9700 Pro 4.6% faster 1600x1200x32: Radeon 9700 Pro 4.2% faster

NASCAR 2002 1024x768x32: AIW 9700 Pro 9.4% faster 1600x1200x32: AIW 9700 Pro 13.1% faster

The AIW 9700 Pro benefits from having a newer driver that's had more time to be optimized, and the only games where the Radeon 9700 Pro is considerably faster is Serious Sam SE and Jedi Knight II. In all other games we tested, the two cards are essentially running even. But for a few exceptions, the AIW Radeon 9700 Pro doesn't give any ground on the 3D performance front versus the Radeon 9700 Pro.

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in ExtremeTech.

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