Reviews for ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Worth the trouble (so far)

Strengths: Price, features

Weakness: Installation

I got one recently (used), and after reading the reviews I decided not to do the installation from the original CD, but to download the manufacturer's most recent drivers. I've got two desktops, similar configurations, both recently purchased from DELL. No problems with the first one, fast setup and everything works fine. Not with the second computer. I could not make it work no matter what I did. Every time I tried to turn on the TV I got the error message "the TV player failed to initialize". After several hours of trying I finally gave up and decided to call the customer support. Not having to wait for long, I was given a link to download another set of installation software and since then everything works fine. The interesting is that the drivers were older that those I put on the first machine.

The picture and sound quality are satisfying, I like the features it offers (especially the GUIDE+), and all together I think the tuner is worth the price. It gets worm after some time though.

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Strengths: everything .. audio clarity thru single USB2.0 Connection. great tool - guide plus, give you a great way to plan upcoming tv events. Totally loving the formfactor, & quality.

Weakness: no remote control, wud've liked one. But most of the time i'm viewing stuff off the ati box, im on the keybd. gets a tad-bit hot after 15mins of viewing -i would like to see more people's reviews here

i had tested quite a few external USB20 tv tuners:
- Airlink+ Tv Tuner (airlinkplus.com)
- AverMedia Ultra TV USB
- Hauppage USB External
- Pinnacle PCTV USB2
- Leadtek USB TV/FM Tuner Box REMOTE Model WinFast TV USB II

and the only one that came up next best to this ATI was the Airlink+ Tv Tuner.

Every other one had a little delay when play audio/video back even when changing stations. The ati has a little bit of this, however, very minimal.

My config: 2Ghz Intel M, 256Mb RAM.

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Strengths: Good quality of Video/Audio. No latency on USB 2.0 ports.

Weakness: The unit gets hot after use of 1 hour

This is a fantastic TV tuner for USB 2.0 that I've seen in the market. I use to connect to my laptop. This is like having a TIVO at home, for less than half the cost. Recording quality is also very good.

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Strengths: Price, ease of Use

Works Great !!! Composite use to convert VHS to Picture then to DVD is high quality. Would strongly recommend. Have a DVD Recorder which does not work as well as this product and it cost significantly more.

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Strengths: Good Idea

Weakness: Doesn't worK!

I could not get it to install on my laptop.

Config: Compaq Presario 2105 with AMD Athlon XP 1800, 512 MB RAM, 64 MB RADEON 320M graphics.

Hardware installed and checks O.K. in system. The programs supplied by ATI do not recognize it. I used the CONFIGURATION option to check PC and it would not recognize my Graphics card. It said that a RADEON card is the minimum... did I mention that I HAVE one! Also it said I failed the DirectX test. It recommended I reinstall DirectX 8.1 or higher (I'm running 9.0c)! Very frustrating!!! After reading all the other problems that people had with this product I think that I will return it. Sure it'll run on my desktop - but I bought it for my laptop!!! And I exceed the minimums on my laptop but it still won't work. The unit did get hot. It does look and feel cheep. Support from ATI was not helpful or easy to get (no FAQ or valuable online help).

Piece of trash if you ask me - I'm very disappointed and expected more from ATI!

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Strengths: easy hard ware installation, better than average graphics

Weakness: Clunky sofware interface, installation instructions useless

It does what they claim it will do, once you get it installed properly. I inserted in the CD and the software installed with very little hassle, The TV picture was right on, but no sound. I spent several hours trying every possible configeration. After several frustrating visits to their web site I found a well hidden note that stated that windows updates for windows XP SP2, Media player 9.x and Active-X 9.x must be installed prior to the software update. I uninstalled the software that came on the CD, updated windows and loaded the software directly from their web site. Bingo let there be sound. So in short, to install this device, Pour yourself a glass of scotch, take the CD that came with the TV Wonder and use it as a coaster. It's good for that purpose. Then go to their web site and dig into their sotware download section. Also the upgraded software has an item not on the original CD called TV share, I haven't tried to figure it out yet, but it seems you can broadcast the TV stream over a network.

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Fun little piece of equipment if you can install it

Strengths: Nice picture, good controls, good recording features. Cool effects like see-through "video desktop"

Weakness: In my hands it did not play well with WinXP Pro SP2 for some reason. I dual boot with XP Home SP2 and I got it to work with the original installation CD. Resource hog. Warm operating temperature.

I originally installed this unit on a Dell Dimension 8250 with 1 Gig RAM and 2.8 Mhz Pentium 4 under Windows XP Home edition, using the included CD, and it still works fine under that configuration. Later installed it from the CD on XP Pro SP2 and although it initially worked I started getting error messages similar to the other posts, and the last few weeks I just got an error message that the program would not start at all - the Microsoft error reporting service message only indicated that this was ATI's problem and that they had no other information to offer. I tried reinstalling using the available programs from the ATI website but had no luck, got the same error messages.

Tonight I had a few hours to sit down and figure it all out, and from other user reviews and the ATI website I gathered enough information to get it to work in XP Pro. To install the new software for the TV Wonder USB 2, one has to have the newest DirectX preinstalled, and one must also remove the old ATI software, and I mean REALLY REMOVE THE OLD SOFTWARE! It is not enough to just go to your control panel and uninstall the software. In order to get the instructions from ATI, "737-20905: Uninstalling the Previous Multimedia Center Software", you have to register your product on the website and log in under a user name and password. The instructions for completely purging this software printed out on five pages, and involved not just uninstalling the software but also deleting several entries in the registry and deleting several program folders and Windows temp files. This process also involves several restarts.

AFTER all of that you have to install four separate programs in sequence to install the updated software, and this also involves at least one restart. The new set of software programs does not include the sort of TV Guide software that was on the original install disk, but I don't miss it since such information is readily available online. THEN, it does indeed finally work, and it works well.

I don't think all of this time and hassle would be the sort of thing the average consumer would want to go through - this is more on the level of a serious computer hobbyist - I found the installation of the updated software more time-consuming and complicated than a reinstall of Windows or Linux. If you are like me and enjoy such tinkering, however, it is quite possible to get the TV Wonder USB 2 to work. It has its own power supply, and although my unit is definitely warm it is not too hot to touch, and that heat and power drain is external to my PC's case.

If you don't like to mess with things like altering the registry, though, you definitely are taking a gamble whether or not this device will properly install from the included CD.

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Strengths: extensive and well integrated software features. great video quality all around. lots of video encoding formats. small device. integrates well with my multimedia wireless keyboard

Weakness: can be time consuming to install. takes time to learn how to use everything the software has. the usb device gets pretty warm.

it was tricky to install, i kept getting an "program must shutdown error" even though the TV was working as it should. asked ATI support, they got back within a couple hours but with a generic answer of "problem is probably conflicting video/audio codecs". turns out they were right, had to uninstall the k-lite codec pack 2.27 on my computer. guess i got lucky there.

user manual is pretty thorough though you have to find it on the included software CD if you don't want to be prompted to install acrobat. the software has a lot of extra stuff to sort through. i read that there's an option to integrate the TV window into the web browser for multi-tasking. sounds cool but haven't tried that out yet.

live tv, tv-on-demand, and recorded files all are great quality. smooth transition between live tv and tv-on-demand modes. i'm using a logitech wireless multimedia keyboard and all the important tv functions are accessible via the controls (volume, channel switch, starting up tv-on-demand, etc.)...rather convenient

specwise, i got a p4 2.4 mhz, 760 mb ram, ati 9800 graphics card, turtle beach sound card, kds rad-5 15" lcd and i'm liking what i have.

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Strengths: Small in size, inexpensive, works as advertised...TV on your computer

Weakness: Grainy picture, large filesize for recordings, software that comes with it

I bought this so that I wouldn't have to buy a TV for my dorm room. It also saves much needed space in my 12 by 15 foot cubicle. I got it for $86 at chiefvalue.com, which is considerably less than a flatscreen 16" television (instead of my laptop). I also bought the RemoteWonder, which comes with more features than I'll ever use. It's very handy though if you like watching TV without being within reach of the mouse to change channels. Installation was rather simple but there was an error during one of the processes. Everything seems to work but I may reinstall it to see if I can correct the error. The picture is a little grainy if you're up close to the computer and white lines show up on the recordings I've made. The software includes GUIDE PLUS+, a TV guide, but it only covers 12 channels for some reason. These three flaws may be due to my cable service, however, because a friend in another city told me his worked perfectly. If you plan on using the TV Wonder as a TiVo, be sure to have plenty of hard drive space for your recordings. Each hour is about 3 or 4gb of space. That goes for any TV tuner you'd find however. Overall I am satisfied with it and would recommend purchasing it. It is smaller, cheaper, and more durable than a TV. I have had to buy a USB hub because I only have 3 ports on my laptop and the TV Wonder and RemoteWonder take up 2 of them.

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Strengths: would be useful IF it worked

Weakness: does not work because the audio is just a long drawn out tone

I used it for like 2 days. I suppose it got too hot and the sound turned into a long drawn out tone that got really annoying. The picture was nice, but that was about it. I asked for an exchange because I have already opened the box and all I could settle for is for an exchange. 99 bucks gone.

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Strengths: easy set up

Weakness: Few occasional drivers instability (regardless of downloading updated drivers) but acceptable; however. No S-video output (but then, that's why it's a USB, right? Only S-video input and RCA input.

Installation was a breeze. I suggest surge protection for this connection specifically via its RF connection. Use a good surge or preferably a UPS with RF in/out connections. The remote had to be ordered separately. It will behoove you to spend the additional cash for next day delivery. Video images are excellent and very sharp despite my analog cable service. Very flexible and strong calibration settings for color, contrast, and brightness, and tint controls. Unfortunately you're limited to only three types of connection settings (Analog TV Tuner, Composite, and S-Video). I will be happy with at least component connections, hence this tuner "may not" be able to produce HDTV. TV Guide is impressive with accurate tuner Autoscan features. Will upgrade with a better tuner with HDTV capabilities, but for now, it's a reasonable USB tuner.

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Unsatisfactory product. Software would not install.

Strengths: None. The software would not install.

Weakness: The software would not install. Specifically, the "Multimedia Center" software would not install. Got the error message "Unhandled Exception, Error Number 0X80040705, Setup will now terminate."

The "Multimedia Center" software would not install. I went through the install/uninstall process four times and each time got the following results: "Unhandled Exception, Error Number 0X80040705, Setup will now terminate." Plus, for good measure, the software messed with my desktop settings and rearranged all of my desktop icons. I have all of the proper software and hardware pre-requisites installed (Windows XP Pro SP2, DirectX 9.0c, etc.) and have been supporting PCs since 1996 - so I am not a novice. Since getting my Dell XPS Gen 3 system with Windows XP Pro in October 2004, my system has been bulletproof and any reputable hardware/software has gone into the system with no problems. After looking at the ATI website, and trying to use the most current drivers and software from their site, I still got the install error, "Unhandled Exception, Error Number 0X80040705, Setup will now terminate." So using the drivers/software on the supplied CD didn't work, and using the most current drivers on the ATI website didn't work, so after 5 hours of screwing around with something that should have installed and been operational in less than an hour, I returned the product to Best Buy and got a full refund (I paid with American Express and would have contested the bill if I didn't get a full refund). In addition, when I unplugged the TV Wonder after 5 hours of trying to install the software, the unit was VERY hot. That can't be good. This is an unsatisfactory piece of hardware/software. I do not recommend it. From various posts, I see that ATI is not being very helpful with this particular problem. On their website I could not find a single reference to the error code I was receiving.

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

FWIW: The error message "error on install 0x80040705 string out of bounds". Is not specific to ATI. I received this exact error while trying to un-install the Dell TrueMobile Wireless Manager from my laptop. I have NO ATI products on my machine....

Regards,

-ijn

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Strengths: Lightweight, simple looking

Weakness: Nightmare Install

TOTAL GARBAGE Software, bugs, crashes during install, tons of restarts, blue screens of death and just a total nightmare, never got it working. USES TONS OF CPU usage

I have windows XP and a very clean very well maintained laptop computer, Compaq presario 2100.

AVOID THIS LEMON FROM ATI

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Strengths: None, if it won't load, then it cannot have any strengths.

Weakness: Software will not load. ATI seems to have a lot of issues and bugs in their software.

All I get is generic replies to an "error on install 0x80040705 string out of bounds".

The problem is with ATI's MMC 9 software, and I believe it is a common problem that ATI will not address..

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Strengths: USB2.0 speed. S-Video and Composite inputs. Video on Demand.

Weakness: Known bug which causes video jitters with certain video cards. Unable to record clean video due to the video jitters.

I bought it, tried it, and returned it. First thought that the jitters when watching TV was due to a bad coaxial cable from the cable line. But also saw jitters when inputted S-Video from the camcorder.
Wanted to convert home videos to MPEG-2 before burning to DVD, but the jitters would be recorded along with the video and that would be annoying.

ATI better fix this bug of video jitters soon.
(Product is probably on a stop ship due to this issue. Guessing since I am an engineer.)

Don't buy until this gets fixed. See their website.
I will try Plextor TV PVR USB product.

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Strengths: a lot of power, easy to use

Weakness: Guide Plus looks a bit clunky

Don't listen to the people giving this product bad reviews.... 99% give it a bad reivew because they are not competent enough to get the product installed.

If you are bright enough to read the prerequsites and system requirements, the product will work perfectly.

So... if you have enough brains to make a grilled cheese sandwich while scratching yourself, you will enjoy this product.

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Strengths: Don't know

Weakness: I could not load the software.

An e-mail to the Mfgr. (twice) netted a generic response which was of no help. I never did get a human originated response.Loading the software resulted in a total crash that could be cured only by using the power switch.
I returned the unit to the vendor for a refund , which I received 100% after enlisting the help of my bank.

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Strengths: None ... The software did not load correctly on 1 computer, and the picture did not display correctly on 2 others.

Weakness: Could not successfully install it on 3 different computers. No information about what is or what is not compatible. Says it works with NVIDIA chips but it doesn't. Runs too hot.

How could ATI release this product without full testing of compatibility? What are they thinking. Wasted too much time on the phone finding out that the software may be fixed in the future.

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software bugs...i have a PCI model from a differnt...

Strengths: works better than my other TV-Tuner. Records programs OK, in fact, records better than live broadcast viewing which can shudder on both my IBM T40p 1.6Ghz ATI 9200 and Dell D820 2.1Ghz Core Duo Nvid

Weakness: color is bland, important software updates work only with newer ATI cards installed, it over heats!!!--really.

How can anyone use a PVR that over heats after a few hours of just being plugging in---not in use? This is very bad. Also, new software updates greatly improve this products performance but check the support section of there website because the updates don't work with non-ATI graphics cards and older ATI cards. This product does not perform nearly as well out-of-box as it does with the latest updates. It works best with my mini-tower with an ATI X1300, works just ok with my 4 year old IBM T40p with ATI 9200, and has software issues with my new Dell D820 Nvidia NVS 1100. It is better than my budget PCI TV Tuner on my mini-tower. There is a new model called ATI TV Tuner 200 usb 2.0 and support for the problems with this model may come to an end soon.

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It does work and works very well!

Strengths: Very portable unit, good software package, easy installation

Weakness: gets a little hot if on for several hours

I had to update my video drivers and also my ATI Mobility Fire GL 9000 Video Adapter in my IBM Laptop had a bios update for my video card that I installed. I also updated DirectX as well. I found that when I installed the ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 device w/out all of the video updates, it was a little glitchy on the tv capture; however, after I installed all of the updates and then re-installed the ATI TV Wonder software it worked Beautifully! I've had it for about six months and haven't had a single issue. This is truely a great capture adapter. Be sure to make sure you have all your video updates, etc...

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ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 TV Tuner Model 100703156

Strengths: Only good for watching tv.

Weakness: The unit gets hot. Picture has jitters. Game systems lag so dont even bother.

Most Ati software in general is terrible! The unit itself gets very hot after about an hour or two of use. Dont even try hook a game system up through the RCA outputs, huge mistake. Over all the product is not very usable. I boght it tried it out then took it back. thats about it.

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