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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TV Tuner Comparisons
In this section, we'll look at how the ATI Theater 650 compares with the NVIDIA DualTV MCE and the ATI Theater 550 Pro. As in the past, we will be looking at power consumption for these cards as well as image quality, but for this review we will be adding a section on CPU utilization to see what kind of overhead is associated with using these cards.
Power
For power, we tested each of the three cards at four different states: while the system was idle, while watching live TV, while recording live TV, and while watching TV while simultaneously recording the broadcast. Here are the results.
For reference, the power draw of the system without a TV tuner card installed was 145 Watts. We can see from the table that the Theater 650 and 550 drew less power than the DualTV overall, which makes sense given the DualTV's dual tuners as opposed to the other cards' one. We can also see that there isn't a very big difference at all between the power consumption of the Theater 650 and 550, and interestingly, there wasn't a difference between the power load of the system while watching and watching/recording with the Theater 650.
Channel Switch Speed
We again wanted to see if there was any difference between the channel switching speed of the different tuners, as the different hardware can sometimes affect this aspect of the tuner. Here are the results.
As the data shows, there is again not much difference between the Theater 650 and 550, and each of these cards took around two seconds to switch channels (the 650 being very slightly faster). The DualTV took about a half a second longer than the other two making it the slowest of the three. As we mentioned in the last review, two seconds may not seem like much time, but when trying to flip rapidly through channels, the delay can be very annoying. Unfortunately, it appears that the new "mini-can" tuner of the 650 doesn't substantially improve the tuning speed relative to the 550.
In this section, we'll look at how the ATI Theater 650 compares with the NVIDIA DualTV MCE and the ATI Theater 550 Pro. As in the past, we will be looking at power consumption for these cards as well as image quality, but for this review we will be adding a section on CPU utilization to see what kind of overhead is associated with using these cards.
Power
For power, we tested each of the three cards at four different states: while the system was idle, while watching live TV, while recording live TV, and while watching TV while simultaneously recording the broadcast. Here are the results.
| System Power Draw (Watts) | ||||
| Idle | Watching Live TV |
Recording | Watching + Recording |
|
| NVIDIA DualTV MCE | 170 | 197 | 176 | 203 |
| ATI MSI Theater 550 Pro | 167 | 186 | 171 | 187 |
| ATI MSI Theater 650 Pro | 169 | 187 | 174 | 187 |
For reference, the power draw of the system without a TV tuner card installed was 145 Watts. We can see from the table that the Theater 650 and 550 drew less power than the DualTV overall, which makes sense given the DualTV's dual tuners as opposed to the other cards' one. We can also see that there isn't a very big difference at all between the power consumption of the Theater 650 and 550, and interestingly, there wasn't a difference between the power load of the system while watching and watching/recording with the Theater 650.
Channel Switch Speed
We again wanted to see if there was any difference between the channel switching speed of the different tuners, as the different hardware can sometimes affect this aspect of the tuner. Here are the results.
| Channel Tune Speed | |
| Time in Seconds | |
| NVIDIA DualTV MCE | 2 1/2 |
| ATI MSI Theater 550 Pro | 2 |
| ATI MSI Theater 650 Pro | 2 |
As the data shows, there is again not much difference between the Theater 650 and 550, and each of these cards took around two seconds to switch channels (the 650 being very slightly faster). The DualTV took about a half a second longer than the other two making it the slowest of the three. As we mentioned in the last review, two seconds may not seem like much time, but when trying to flip rapidly through channels, the delay can be very annoying. Unfortunately, it appears that the new "mini-can" tuner of the 650 doesn't substantially improve the tuning speed relative to the 550.
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soulader - Monday, October 6, 2008 - link
Does anyone know if Theater 650 PRO support time shifting?? pause live tv etc..thank you.
madprof - Saturday, February 2, 2008 - link
Apart from being able to input tv signals, does this card not allow for the output of video back to the tv? i.e. playing an avi movie on the aux input of the tvJustJack - Wednesday, October 4, 2006 - link
A lot of people seem to like the Hauppauge cards, but I will tell you that if they dont come out with 64 bit drivers for the 250 for Vista, I will never buy another Hauppauge card! I think that XP Pro 64 bit has been out for over a year and they still dont have drivers for that version. The only Vista 64 bit drivers are for the 150/500.edlight - Tuesday, September 5, 2006 - link
You get a TV card to watch TV and hope it will make something fine out of the dirty cable signal (that's what those new filters are for) and will pull in DTV well.Instead we read about how it does with a DVD. No way.
Please, think.
jonp - Tuesday, August 8, 2006 - link
It's August 8th and I can't find any 650 tuner cards anywhere that are available. Does anyone (AT included) know when they (from any producer, ati, sapphire, msi...) are going to become available? Every article on the web said July. Hope this isn't more vaporware. Jontoddbailey - Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - link
I get all of 3 hdtv channels ota, big deal. I get more via satellite.But can I record any of them onto my PC? Oh Hell NO! When are the people who make this stuff going to build something I can actually use? I and very possibly several others want a device to capture component, rgb, dvi or hdmi video signals. The closest I found is component to sdi on firewire, but sad to say it's only ntsc resolution.
For those who have capture via firewire, more power to you, But for my service (no cable tv available in my area), Dish network doesn't offer this capability.
any one want to em me in person ? talk to me at toddb@toddbailey.net
thanks
Wellsoul2 - Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - link
Hi,I have the ATI HDTV wonder tuner card and it works fine.
Excellent 1080i picture from ATSC tuner. Easylook software ok.
Remote ok. Works fine with ATItools and updated drivers etc.
Runs fine with 9600XT and 146Opteron.
What software/hardware will give me better experience with OTA ATSC?
Forget NTSC..I have ancient Hauppauge cards that do it fine.
Why should I spend more money and what benefit?
I don't care about qam or Windews Megamedia monopoly..
For free I already get a great HDTV picture OTA. Maybe I could use hardware
encoding or filtering on DVD's.
Paid $75 for a used HDTV wonder with Antenna and remote..why pay more?
Also..what is DVD/HDTV benefit upgrading video card?
SOme say 1600 ATI only does 780p and you need 1800plus to do 1080i..
WHat does this mean? will it really help my OTA HDTV experience?
millerbrad - Monday, June 19, 2006 - link
http://www.atitech.ca/products/theater650pro/specs...">The specs on ATIs website indicate that this cards uses 720x480 MPEG-2 compression.Does this mean that the cards won't actually output 720p or 1080i resolutions when watching digital television?
Wellsoul2 - Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - link
It seems to say it does hardware MPEG2 compression at that resolution.ATI's info is not great but my lowly HDTV Wonder card does software
compression in MPEG4 at a higher resolution so I assume this card
will do SOFTWARE compression at higher resolutions for recordings.
Yes..you can definitely watch at 1080i..it's referring to recordings to your
hard drive.
It probably also does time shifting and recording HDTV since my older
HDTV wonder will do that. You take a hit with software encoding since
your CPU does it.
Hopefully Anandtech can explain this further since I am a novice.
MrJim - Saturday, June 17, 2006 - link
Is there a cheap good Tv-card which has both hardware encoder/decoder?