Take It Back?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chris Murfitt
  • Start date Start date
C

Chris Murfitt

I've just purchased an ATI AIW 9800 pro and I haven't even opened the
package. I'm starting to think that I should just take it back and get a
Sapphire 9800pro with no AIW. From what i've been reading here and at
Rage3d, the AIW is nothing but headaches. Constant complaints about poor
sound, poor TV quality, program recording problem, Guide plus inaccuracies,
and that's just to scratch the surface. It seems that every piece of
software that comes with the AIW needs different versions of drivers. I
don't know if it's worth the hassle just to get TV displayed on my computer.

I'm not sure if this is a case of 5% of the AIW owners are unhappy and
making their voices heard while 95% are perfectly happy and therefore have
no need to post. Thanks.

Specs
AMD 2400+
ASUS A7N8X deluxe
Soundblaster Live
512 Corsair 3200
Enermax 460W PSU
Windows XP Home
 
Remember...complaining about a product is much more motivation to post
than a happy camper. Anyway, if you don't want video capture, then by
all means do without AIW. I have been using a 7500 AIW for years with
little problem, as many have. I also have a 9700 pro NON AIW in
another machine. Both have been equally been performing flawlessly.
Hell, even been playing COD-UT-Need for speed etc., on the 7500 with
med. to high video settings. Drivers are always a concern no matter
the card brand or models within a brand. If you have had numerous
hardware updates with no operating system cleaning, I find this to be
the number one driver hiccup problem.
 
I haven't had an AIW since the original AIW Radeon. It was a great card,
but I only used the AIW specific bits for watching TV. Rather than upgrade
to an AIW each time, when I needed a performance boost I bought a Radeon
8500 and a TV Wonder.
 
Chris;

I have had 4 different AIW cards. I have enjoyed them all. Yes, there
were some problems along the way, but overall, there were more good
experiences than bad. You must understand that when people post in this
forum, it is usually because they have a problem. For every one person
posting here, there is an untold number of people who have the same
hardware, but no issues...thus no posting. Also, many who post here are
posting for problems that do not occur in "normal" use...many posters are
overclocking, using modified drivers, etc. Also, many who post here are
"bean counters" wondering why they cannot get one more fps out of the latest
uber game, or why there "wondermark 2004" scores are not what they want them
to be. The moral is don't judge any card solely by what you read in this
group. The majority of people who purchase ATI AIW are happy with them. I
have enjoyed each of the 4 that I have used over the years (my current being
an AIW 9700 Pro), and have learned much from these forums. I encourage you
to use the card...it will work well, and if you do have problems, then that
is what this newsgroup is for.

Bobby
 
I have purchased AIW 9800 PRO and it is great for the TV, DVR, and Tivio
WITH OUT phoning home. I was deciding between that and a 9800XT. I decided
for the same price I get a tad bit less 3d performance but I get a lot of TV
and capturing stuff. Yes there are problem. No it was not a plug and play
experience. But once you get it to work it is awesome and worth the head
ache. On the same computer I have 42" TV it is great to watch sports and to
rewind live TV and slow it down for the replays you want to see. I have
also installed a 7500 PCI card in my system with a second monitor. Having
no problems. I will say that the latest version of the software has some
problems so steer clear of 8.9. Actually a couple friends of mine purchased
this card at the same time. All of us had problems with the latest version
of the software.


gb
 
I find newsgroups funny but the best articles can be found on
www.vcdhelp.com.

I went there looking for a great video capture card as I did not want an
AIW, and, after spending quite a long time reading I came to one conclusion:

For each and every card, there might be 24 people stating that the card was
fantastic and exceeded all expectations, whereas the other few people
absolutely slated the card. These people used the same type of words you
see here, 'NEVER buy this card' and 'whatever I did it would not work' etc.
You simply cannot win with the mass amounts of hardware out there. It
actually does put you off.

In the end, I picked a Hauppauge WinTV PVR-350. Worked first time and
captures very clear video on a Dell Celeron 1ghz machine with 386Mb ram.
Wow.
 
Dam6 said:
I find newsgroups funny but the best articles can be found on
www.vcdhelp.com.

I went there looking for a great video capture card as I did not want an
AIW, and, after spending quite a long time reading I came to one
conclusion:

For each and every card, there might be 24 people stating that the card
was fantastic and exceeded all expectations, whereas the other few people
absolutely slated the card. These people used the same type of words you
see here, 'NEVER buy this card' and 'whatever I did it would not work'
etc.
You simply cannot win with the mass amounts of hardware out there. It
actually does put you off.

In the end, I picked a Hauppauge WinTV PVR-350. Worked first time and
captures very clear video on a Dell Celeron 1ghz machine with 386Mb ram.
Wow.
Click to expand...

Very nice board _if_ the compression it provides is what you want. Downside
is that you can't get uncompressed out of it (the chip doesn't give access
to the uncompressed stream) and you can't change the compression algorithm
beyond what's built into the chip hardware unless you rerender and take the
generation loss.
 
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