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ATI USB 2.0 TV Wonder Tuner Review :: Features and Setup
First thing you'll notice when opening the packaging is that the TV Wonder USB 2.0 has a totally different look than its predecessor, the TV Wonder USB. The TV Wonder USB is a bit of a translucent red colored box that seemed flimsy in construction (I've had the antenna-in come out after screwing the antenna in too tightly on the first TV Wonder USB). The look and feel of the TV Wonder USB 2.0 is much solider making for an improved device. The antenna-In connector is on the front of the TV Wonder USB 2.0. Here you attach the amplified antenna or the cable for Cable TV. The connector is similar to that found on many of ATI's previous All In Wonder products and TV Wonder PCI devices. It seems like a solid connector, a vast improvement over the one found in the first generation TV Wonder USB.     The right side connectors include S-Video In, Composite Out, Audio Left In and Audio R In. The S-Video In connector allows you to connect a TV Out cable to watch the output from the TV Wonder USB 2.0 on your big screen TV. The Composite Out connector is for connecting VCRs or camcorders. The Audio In connectors are used to attach to speakers R and L to or headphones. Contents
Cables and Adapters
Setup and Installation
TV Wonder Features
System Requirements
Operating System
Pricing and Availability
Warranty
So why make a USB 2.0 version of the TV Wonder anyway? A standard TV picture is shown at a 640x480 resolution. With a 32-bit color depth that means that each frame of a TV show is approximately 1.2MB in size. Standard TV runs at around 30 fps so a single second of TV program would normally take up 37 MB in size. USB 1.0, however, has a maximum bandwidth of 12 MBPS. The solution, in the case of ATI's TV Wonder and Hauppauge's WinTV USB parts is to render TV at 320x240 then upsample the resolution to 640x480; this gives a lower image quality than that of the normal TV tuner that uses the PCI bus. The other option is to use compression but this also can affect image quality. USB 2.0 came out a couple of years back. This bus offers a maximum bandwidth of 480 MBPS which allows for the full standard TV resolution at full speed. The minimum system requirements are just that. If a system doesn't meet the requirements it's likely that the computer can't make use of the USB 2.0 device, if it supports USB at all. Windows 9X support isn't expected as all ATI drivers are on 2000 and XP support only. One thing to look at is the price of the TV Wonder USB 2.0. The $99 MSRP is competitive with the solutions from Hauppauge and Aver. The 3 year limited warranty is found on all ATI products and the one time that I've had to RMA a video card it was a painless and extremely satisfying experience. The packaging of the TV Wonder USB 2.0 includes everything you need to watch TV except for an antenna or cable. The USB cable is a standard cable that's found on many devices. The power supply is rather large necessitating two of the spots on a power brick in a lot of cases. The setup guides are useful and take you step by step through the installation process. Setting up the TV Wonder USB 2.0 was a snap. Unlike other USB devices I've used (including a TV Wonder USB, a Microsoft Explorer mouse, a Internet Keyboard Pro from Microsoft and others), the drivers for the TV Wonder USB 2.0 have to be installed prior to the TV Wonder USB is attached. Once the drivers are installed they will instruct you to restart your computer and also to plug in your TV Wonder USB 2.0 device. At this point, the setup process will auto scan the channels and you're good to go. One note, the Gemstar Guide+ Plus utility requires you to connect to the internet to operate the built-in TV listings program. Discuss This Article
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