Home > Consumer Reviews > ATI Technologies TV Wonder Pro Remote Control PCI NTSC (100-703147)

I purchased the ATI TV Wonder Pro despite the bad reviews because I already had an ATI graphics card installed in my computer. I had been warned by IT professionals that it was best not to mix up TV cards and graphics cards from different manufacturers. If you don't already have a graphics card in your computer, consider the ATI All In Wonder which is more cost effective than buying separate TV and graphics cards.

Thanks to the advice from other reviewers on Amazon, the installation went very smoothly. I am running Windows XP Pro and I have a ATI Radeon Graphics card.

Key points about the installation. I did not use the included CD to install the TV Pro. Instead, I went to the ATI website and downloaded the newest versions of the drivers for the TV Pro. The downloaded files were executables and they installed drivers onto my computer. I also followed a link on the ATI website to get the latest version of Flash from Microsoft. I then installed the card into my computer and once I turned the computer on, XP recognized the new hardware and installed the drivers for me. I had expected to spend hours on the setup. Instead, it was incredibly easy.

One problem that I did have, however was a delay in the audio. Again thanks to another reviewer, I found that I had set up the TV Pro wrong. The TV Pro connects to your sound card through an external connection. An internal connection is possible, but ATI does not provide a cable to do so. The initial configuration of the TV Pro occurs when you first use the program. It is important that when you setup the audio connection that you choose line-in instead of microphone. If you do choose microphone, you will hear an annoying echo.

The other problem that I have had is channels being displayed in black & white rather than color. I originally had the cable connecting to my computer connected to the output from my VCR. The connection of the cables is actually key to good reception. If the connections between cables are not good and tight then bad reception and black & white images will occur. Turn off the TV Pro and the VCR and try again. Sometimes this works for me, but one channel refused to show in color. However, if I connect the computer directly to the cable and bypass the VCR, all channels come in just fine.

Lastly, don't expect any support from ATI if you do have problems. The FAQ and knowledge base are sparse at best. TV Pro has an option to run a self diagnosis and even though it is working fine, the diagnosis told me that it was missing a driver. I went to the ATI website and after a long search, I contacted ATI support for help. That was two weeks ago and I have not yet gotten a response.

In conclusion, taking some time to download the drivers before you install the card will save you a lot of the headaches described by others. The card works well and does exactly as advertised. However, I gave the card a rating of only three stars due to the poor customer support by ATI.

Compatibility:
I already have a ATI x300 PCI Express Graphics card installed on my PC. My PC detected the ATI TV Wonder on the first try. There were no conflicts or detection problems. Installation of the drivers followed, I had the software working in under 30 minutes.

The ATI TV Wonder:
I watch TV regularly, no issues with the TV signal capturing and rendering technology. The Images are clear and get 4 stars. However, the sound is piped from the TV Tuner to the onboard sound-card via the mic-input. Apart from the fact that it uses up my mic-in port, I wonder if this is an optimal solution for assuring the best sound output. There isn't an alternative setup that I can try to test out my theory. I still have to test the card for general video capture. I appreciate the ability to pre-set recordings.

Software:
The Software that came on the disk had some conflict with the ATI software that I already had on my desktop. After a little digging around, I discovered that the software I wanted to install - "ATI Control Panel", was used by both my ATI cards and that there was a newer version installed on my Desktop. This was preventing the installation of the package that came on the CD. To the best of my understanding, this was the root of the problem.

I then uninstalled all ATI software from my PC. Downloaded the latest from the ATI website, then proceeded to install them on my PC. Within minutes of downloading them, I had everything up and running.

The ATI TV application has some features worth mentioning. The Auto-Tuning is a snap, there are facilities for retrieving TV schedules over the internet. There is also a feature to help channel-surf the 125 channels at a go.

The Remote:
I have stopped using the remote since I have my cable-box tune into the various channels. However, the remote is a good add-on if your planning to use the tuner on the card. I would give the remote 3 stars, because the buttons feel and appear cheap. The layout of the remote is easy to navigate.

Overall:
The strengths of the TV Tuner card in core functionality merits 4 stars.

Does not work with Windows XP and Intel Processors with Hyper-Threading.

I purchase the ATI TV Wonder Pro without a remote control card and after reading some of the reviews wanted to clarify somethings.
First, I am a IT Professional, have built computer systems for the past 7 years, and have been very happy with ATI video cards for many years.
I purchase this card to replace an ATI All-in-Wonder Pro card that is still working, but does not fit in the AGP2.0 slot on the newer motherboards. My system is made up of:
ECS KT600-A
AMD Sempron 2400+ processor
256MB of RAM
160GB Hard Drive
ATI Radeon 9200 Video Card
First of all, I did not install the MMC software that was included with the TV Wonder card (Although I did install the DVD decoder from the CD), nor did I use the Catalyst software included with the Radeon card.
I used the updated versions of these drivers and applications that where available on the ATI website. The installation for both went smoothly.
I had no problems with the TV tuner and was able to use the VCR feature and receive excellent picture quality from the recording. Those who have problems need to make sure that when they update the drivers and software, they remove the old drivers and software first or they will run into problems. Make sure that all necessary software is installed like DirectX 9 and/or .Net framework since this will cause problems as well.
This is an excellent card for the price, however I would not mix this card with any other video card that is not running the ATI Radeon chipset.

Just got an ATI TV Wonder Pro. First problem was that the CD had CRC errors on a lot of files in the root folder so autoplay ended up hanging my system while it tried to read the CD. Basically, "setup" didn't work. However, the driver directory on the CD was ok so I got the drivers and some of the software installed. Then I went to the web site to get and install the latest software.

Now it complains that I don't have the correct version of DirectX or drivers installed. I re-installed DirectX 9b and the drivers but it still complains that I don't have the correct versions installed.

There is a monitoring program that watches the graphics card and it continually complained that my VPU (graphics processor) was not responding and offering to restart my system.

The card does work- sort of - poor quality and jerky video.

Then I realised I didn't have the program guide, but after searching the CD (no help from the manual) I found the software and installed it. This wasn't available for download from their web site.

To cap it all off, when I went to register the card to get support, I had to provide the "102-" part number, which is only available on the card itself. So I had to open up the case again to find that number - not user friendly. Then they only offer 30 days of support for free, after which you have to pay.

All in all, I'm extremely disappointed with the card - it's going back to CompUSA.