ATI TV Wonder 650 Combo PCI Express
ATI TV Wonder 650 PCI Express
The most obvious physical change to the ATI TV Wonder 650 PCIe is of course the fact that the card now uses the PCI Express interface. The ATI TV Wonder 650 PCIe has kept its half-height PCI design, which allows it to fit easily into low profile HTPC systems. Although a PCI Express model was inevitable, browsing the halls of Computex this year we noticed that many barebones HTPC manufacturers have dropped PCIe x1 slots all together in their barebone systems, replacing them with standard PCI slots due to the lack of PCI x1 hardware on the market today. It’s been over three years since Intel first introduced PCI Express with their 925 and 915 chipsets, and we’re only barely starting to see PCI Express x1 products enter the market.
When looking at the I/O plate of the ATI TV Wonder 650 PCIe, we can see the four I/O options the card brings to the table. The first from the left is the ANT IN, which is the RF input for digital TV antennas (ATSC). This is where you plug in your over the air HDTV antenna or digital TV antenna. Next to that is the S-Video input, which is used to transfer videos from analog video cameras or to take video in from other video sources. To the right of that is the TV IN input for analog TV or FM radio. And finally there is a stereo Audio connection for audio input.
Unlike ATI's PCI-based TV Wonder 650, this new PCI Express version features a pair of tuners, which give users the ability to record one channel while watching another.