There
are lots of companies on the market that develop hardware to
bring TV to the PC but ATi is one that stands out ahead of
the pack somewhat. ATi has been making TV Tuner cards
for many years now and their experience really shows.
Whether we're talking about their stand alone "VE" series TV
cards or the versatile "All-In-Wonder" series, which
combines a video card with TV capabilities, ATi has managed
to perfect the process better than most and deliver top
quality on screen output. Offering solid products
loaded with multimedia features is ATi's game and they play
to win. In fact, the All-In-Wonder family of video
cards have a long history that has helped them become the
benchmark by which all other TV Multi-Function cards have to
measure up to. The product line continues to evolve
with ever increasing features and functionality, to satisfy
the casual user or the dedicated gamer looking for high-end
TV capability.
One way for
ATi to remain ahead of the curve is to give their products
features that no one else comes close to. For example,
ever since the introduction of the All-In-Wonder Radeon 7500
series, each All-In-Wonder comes with a "Remote Wonder".
The Remote Wonder gives the user a slew of RF remote control
features without adding a lot to the cost of the product.
We were particularly surprised when ATi decided to include
the Remote Wonder with the budget All-In-Wonder of the time.
What one would expect to be a perk reserved for the higher
end Video/TV hybrids, ATi decided to make available to users
on a budget. ATi has kept that tradition alive with
their latest budget All-In-Wonder offering that we'll cover
for you today, the All-In-Wonder Radeon 9000 Pro.
Features
of the All-In-Wonder RADEON 9000 Pro
Something Familiar with a Little Extra
Click to Enlarge
GRAPHICS TECHNOLOGY
Powered
by the RADEON? 9000 PRO visual processor (VPU) clocked
at 275MHz
MEMORY CONFIGURATION
64MB
of Double Data Rate SDRAM clocked at 540MHz
3D
GRAPHICS FEATURES
Four parallel rendering
pipelines process up to 1 billion pixels per second
SMARTSHADER? technology
Full support for DirectX
8.1 programmable pixel and vertex shaders in hardware
1.4 pixel shaders support
up to 6 textures per rendering pass
1.1 vertex shaders support
vertex programs up to 128 instructions
Complete feature set also
supported in OpenGL via extensions
Programmable shaders
provide enhanced 3D effects in over 100 existing and
upcoming game titles
SMOOTHVISION?
Image quality enhancement
features for Direct3D? and OpenGL applications
Programmable full-scene
anti-aliasing
Supports 2 to 6 samples
Performance and quality
modes
Advanced anisotropic
filtering
Supports 2 to 16 samples
Bandwidth-saving algorithm
enables this feature with minimal performance cost
CHARISMA
ENGINE? II
High performance 2nd
generation hardware transform and lighting engine
HYPERZ?
II
Lossless Z-Buffer
Compression and Fast Z-Buffer Clear increase memory
bandwidth by up to 25%
DISPLAY FEATURES
Dual integrated
display controllers
Drive two displays
simultaneously with independent resolutions and
refresh rates
HYDRAVISION? software
provides complete control over multi-display
configurations with a user-friendly interface
Dual integrated 10-bit
per channel palette DACs operating at up to 400MHz
Integrated DVI-compliant
165MHz TMDS transmitter supports resolutions up to
WUXGA (1920x1200) Integrated TV-Out support up to
1024x768 resolution
VIDEO
FEATURES
VIDEO IMMERSION? II
delivers industry-leading video playback
FULLSTREAM? Hardware
accelerated de-blocking of Internet video streams
Integrated MPEG-2 decode
including iDCT and motion compensation:
All format DTV/HDTV decode
Top quality DVD with
lowest CPU usage
YUV to RGB color space
conversion
Back-end scaler
delivers top quality playback
4-tap horizontal and
vertical filtering
Upscaling and
downscaling
Filtered display of
images up to 1920 pixels wide
Unique per-pixel
adaptive de-interlacing feature combines the best
elements of the ?bob? and ?add-field? (weave)
techniques
Hardware mirroring for
flipping video images in video conferencing systems
Supports 8-bit alpha
blending and video keying for effective overlay of
video and graphics
GENERAL FEATURES
Comprehensive 2X and
4X AGP support
Compatible with AGP 8X
universal motherboards
High performance
dual-channel 128-bit DDR memory interface supports
32/64/128MB configurations
Fully compliant with
PC 2002 requirements
Optimized for Pentium4
SSE2 and AMD Athlon? 3Dnow! processor instructions
Supports optional
THEATER? 200 companion chip for NTSC/PAL/ SECAM video
capture
Highly optimized
128-bit 2D engine with support for new WindowsXP GDI
extensions
TV &
DVD Features
Stereo TV tuner with
125 channels
TV-ON-DEMAND?: Pause
live TV or record live broadcasts and get instant
replays.
Use the integrated
Gemstar GUIDE Plus+? Interactive Program Guide* to
view and search TV listings. Schedule and record
programs at the click of a mouse.
TV features including
TV Magazine*, Hot Words* real-time word notification,
and zoom & pan. Watch TV while browsing the web. Click
through a translucent live TV window to access your
desktop ? no more moving the TV window to get to your
work!
Control the features
of the ALL-IN-WONDER® 9000 PRO from another room in
the house with the radio frequency remote control
Industry-leading DVD
playback with AC-3 Digital Audio** output to enable
Dolby® Digital 5.1 surround sound
ATI?s VIDEO IMMERSION?
II technology integrates industry-leading digital
video features for unprecedented video quality
HYDRAVISION? software
enables you to display information on a TV and monitor
at the same time
ALSO INCLUDED
Remote
Wonder
YPrPb
Component Output dongle
Multimedia Center version 8.1
In typical ATi fashion, the All-In-Wonder 9000 Pro is a
complete multimedia package. The All-In-Wonder 9000 Pro
package contained a comprehensive collection of
documentation and hardware that aims to please with its
straight forward approach to installation and use. A
clear, detailed manual is included for the video/TV-Card,
covering all of the functionality for each component.
Another separate manual is included which covers the proper
set up and usage of the versatile Remote Wonder. To
help the novice get a clear picture on the complete set up
of the package, an excellent quick reference guide is
provided which shows how each component of the All-In-Wonder
is supposed to be connected. To top things off, a copy
of Pinnacle Studio 8 was included for handling some of the
more advanced video editing tasks some users may have in
mind. Pinnacle Studio 8 is an excellent addition to
the All-In-Wonder package, offering powerful video editing
functionality with a simple, clean interface.
All of the
necessary hardware is provided to take full advantage of the
video card's TV input and Output capabilities. While
the card comes equipped to support DVI-I, ATi also provides
a DVI-I to VGA adapter so support users with VGA monitors.
The ATi Input Adapter is included which enables all of the
video cards video and audio input capabilities. The
unit comes with four ports which connect S-Video or
Composite video, as well as separate left and right audio
inputs from an external source. Conversely, a four
head adapter is also provided for TV out capabilities,
sporting connections for S-Video, Composite Video, S/PDIF
and analog audio out. The perfect compliment to all of
this functionality is the extremely versatile Remote Wonder
which we'll cover in the pages ahead.
ATi has put
together what appears to be a package that is loaded with
multimedia features and has the promise of fair gaming
potential as well. Before we put this card to the test
in the gaming arena, let's take a closer look at the
All-In-Wonder Radeon 9000 Pro itself and the Remote Wonder.
There
are lots of companies on the market that develop hardware to
bring TV to the PC but ATi is one that stands out ahead of
the pack somewhat. ATi has been making TV Tuner cards
for many years now and their experience really shows.
Whether we're talking about their stand alone "VE" series TV
cards or the versatile "All-In-Wonder" series, which
combines a video card with TV capabilities, ATi has managed
to perfect the process better than most and deliver top
quality on screen output. Offering solid products
loaded with multimedia features is ATi's game and they play
to win. In fact, the All-In-Wonder family of video
cards have a long history that has helped them become the
benchmark by which all other TV Multi-Function cards have to
measure up to. The product line continues to evolve
with ever increasing features and functionality, to satisfy
the casual user or the dedicated gamer looking for high-end
TV capability.
