So I went to best buy the other day and forked up 150 bucks for the ATI HDTV Wonder card. On the box it says pentium 4 1.5ghz and up with 256 megs of ram and whatnot. No biggy, I have a 2.4 P4 with 512 of ram. I did have to buy a video card with 64 megs of memory, that was another 70 bucks.

So I take it home, plug it in, TV does not work, HDTV did, TV would not start, didnt find a solution on the ati website. I actually found a solution on google. Apparantly I am not the only one having problems. So I get tv to work, but the sound SUCKS, it is so staticy that you cannot even understand the words. It is like someone is using a walkie talkie at a drive thru, it is that bad. Charlie Browns mom made more sense.

This card is a piece, DO NOT BUY IT. The remote does not work more than 10 feet away because its a radio remote. The picture is very sketchy, and it KILLS your resources. If you do anything such as move the picture, or anything on your computer the picture goes to crap. HDTV works ok, but regular cable is soo crappy its not worth it. Who wants to only be able to watch OTA channels. The picture quality of the cable is not as nice as the N6.

If anyone has any recommendation of a HDTV card for a PC please let me know.

Thanks for the review, sorry to hear about your troubles, but I'm sure that we are all better informed becuase of it. I too was thinking about getting the HDTV wonder but am now considering the MYHD MDP-120. (Link to Ebay auction) I've heard good things about this card, and I'm sure you can find it for cheaper than what this particular auction is selling it at. Good Luck.

If you still want an ATI card, get an AIW 9600 XT. I can vouch for the cable hookup and the video quality. It is a nice card.

Don't mean to be an ass, but my HDTV Wonder works great and I have had none of the issues you are having.

Have you downloaded all the new drivers and software on their website? The stuff on the CD really is crap...

Actually, you aren't gonna find them cheaper - they are THAT good. check out www.digitalconnection.com for a retailer selling the newer one. On the AVSForum you will find MANY talking about these cards. the only thing is that it wont work with MCE. I am using an HDTVW with MCE and it seems to work ok with the Kram hack!!

Explain to me what this is, I get lost in all the tech talk on AVSforums

I have heard of people having no problems, I am jealous. For me it is not worth the 150 bucks to roll the dice on getting one that works. I have updated everything with the online drivers and software, no changes. Are you able to watch tv, do other stuff on the computer and not have it jump at all? What are your computers stats?

What video card are you running it with out of curiosity?

HDTV and what other card?

some 64 meg nvida card, I do not remember the specifics (I am at work right now)

I was trying to find it. I read somewhere that a minimum 9600 XT was recommended to run the HD card.

On the ATI site it does state that 64mb DX9 is the minimum required to run it, so I am not sure what the problem might be.

When you try to luanch TV what happens? Did you get an error (system error, etc;)

I get the TV to launch, it is just that the audio is super staticy and loud, like a mcdonalds drive thru lady sounds with the volume all the way up. It is impossible to watch tv. I also am unable to rewind, the video is just static if i do so. It is just weird to me that I can get HDTV to work decent, but not regular TV.

P4 3.0C @ 3.5ghz
1GB DDR 500
36GB Raptor
9800 Pro
a 120 and 250GB storage drives
Sb Audigy 2

cows, I had the same problem with the static audio on an Asus TV tuner, but it would only start the static after 2 or so hours of viewing and all I had to do was close and open it back up.

I would check the audio passthrough settings in TV mode. Maybee turn off dynamic compression under the Programs > ATI Multimedia Center > Configuration > Audio/Video tab.

What sound card do you have?
Check up on your vid card it MUST be DX9 compatible.

About the sound, my ati tv wonder had that as well. The problem is that the line/wave channel in the mixer is way high. I can completely elimate the static by lowing my "line in" to 5%, and boostin the "wave" output to 50%.

This is on my Asus a7n8x-e dx with nVidia soundstorm mpc.

Ati f*ed up by not telling people to play with their audio channel mixer to fix the problem.

First post, cheers!

i gave up on the card and just got directv

This card rocks!!!!! I will agree that the driver/software disk that comes with the card totally sucks and makes the card to appear well......GARBAGE. Don't even use the disk, goto the ATI web site and download all the new software. I also had the TV not initializing problem but ATI tells you how to fix the problem on thier web site. The fix only too about a min. Everything works great now. Here are some Digital TV and HDTV screeen captures that I took tonite.

--------------- Digital TV---------------------------

Click to view attachment

--------------- HDTV ---------------------------

Click to view attachment

--------------- HDTV ---------------------------

Click to view attachment

Foamcows, you probably use MCE 2005. It says that analog tv will not work in MCE 2005. There's a link in the fine print of the product page.

Unable to start TV: The TV Player failed to initialize the video.

It has been noted that in systems with this symptom the DTV Player will launch successfully. Not all systems are affected.

To workaround this issue you will need to add an additional line to the Environment Variables section of the Windows System Properties.

1. Open Windows Control Panel, and double-click the System icon

2. Select the Advanced tab, then click Environment Variables button

3. Under System variables section scroll to the variable called Path

4. Highlight Path, then click Edit

5. At the end of the Variable value line add the following text exactly as it appears:

;%SystemRoot%\system32\drivers

6. Click OK 3 times and then restart Windows

7. Run TV Player

ive been pretty happy with the directv setup. It gave me the excuse to buy a nice surround sound system. It also gave me the ability to have HD in both rooms now. Plus the tivo is nice.

I am glad to hear you are having good luck with your pc card, enjoy the cheap HD.