PowerColor THEATER 550 PRO review

W

Wunderchu

Regular
MVKTech reviews the PowerColor Theater 550 Pro (which uses ATI 's THEATERâ„¢ 550 PRO chip);

In the retail market this card's MSRP is roughly $99.99. While this is double of that of any generic TV Tuner card. I can vouche that the quality cannot touch the Theater 550 Pro. The PowerColor card is exceptional and very versatile, I highly recommend this product to anyone wanting to turn your PC into a home entertainment system.
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[source: http://www.mvktech.net/content/view/1243/0/1/3 ]












(I first found out about this review from: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=21571 )
 
There's some threads in the AVS forums. Sorry I dont have the exact links right now. From what I've read so far, the Hauppauge 150/250/350/500 is said to stutter/seem choppy on fast scenes (sports/action movies), while the ATI 550 is silky smooth.
 
I've been playing around with one of these for a few days now (and another, actual review board just arrived today). The quality of them certainly is a hell of a lot better than a recording from an AIW or equivelent part. I'm still somewhat miffed that they have dropped MMC support for this particular product, relying on third party apps for standard desktop and WMC compliance. Seems that streamed encoding/decoding for timeshift viewing is running ~5%-10% CPU utilisation on this P4EE 3.4GHz.

I now have a WMC install so with the two tuners I can check out what its like with both tuners simultaneously.
 
I read (think it was AVS forums or SageTV forums) that MMC 9.06 will contain support for the ATI 550 chip-based products.
 
Well, my meeting with the MultiMedia team last week revealed that they won't be supporting it at all under MMC (at least, at this time). MMC is targetted to AIW only for the time being.
 
DaveBaumann said:
I've been playing around with one of these for a few days now (and another, actual review board just arrived today). The quality of them certainly is a hell of a lot better than a recording from an AIW or equivelent part. I'm still somewhat miffed that they have dropped MMC support for this particular product, relying on third party apps for standard desktop and WMC compliance. Seems that streamed encoding/decoding for timeshift viewing is running ~5%-10% CPU utilisation on this P4EE 3.4GHz.

I now have a WMC install so with the two tuners I can check out what its like with both tuners simultaneously.
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Re-view! Re-view! :mrgreen:

I'm looking forward to one of these.
 
DaveBaumann said:
Well, my meeting with the MultiMedia team last week revealed that they won't be supporting it at all under MMC (at least, at this time). MMC is targetted to AIW only for the time being.
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That sucks. I had hope for MMC support of the 550. I wish ATI and their partners would iron out their bumps and have a realistic support plan before they sell products.

Unfortunately the one post from AVS forums that spoke of it was posted back in Feb 10th. It spoke of MMC 9.04 supporting it, possibly. I'm trying to track down another message I read which mentioned it was delayed from 9.04 to possibly 9.06?. But it seems your information is more up-to-date.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=5158741#post5158741
I emailed Sapphiretech and ATI regarding MMC 9.04. Both say it is not available at this time, and I should wait patiently. (Sapphire says to talk to ATI, and ATI says to talk to Sapphire)

I asked ATI about MMC 9.04 release dates and if it would support the Theatre 550 chipset. I also mentioned that the Theatrix manual speaks of MMC 9.04. Their reply:

Regarding MMC 9.04:

If it is specified in the manual it is more than likely correct unless they have withdrawn support for it, which does happen.

At a guess MMC 9.04 will be out in March with our next Catalyst update but there is nothing official yet.

Regards,

[Name Removed]
Customer Care
ATI Technologies, Inc.
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