Installation:

Don't be discouraged by the sheer volume of accessories and extra cords and cables when it comes to installing the X800XT. It looks like a lot to manage, but ATI includes a detailed quick setup guide as well as an even more detailed installation guide in the manual. The hardest part of the install is deciding which components you'll need.

Installing the card itself is like installing any other card with the one exception being you MUST plug it in to a power source. Included in the bundle is pass through cable that has 2 molex connections (one male and one female) and a 4 pin connection. The molex connection for one of your HDD's is plugged into the female connection on the cable provided and then the male molex adapter is plugged into the HDD, then the 4 pin connection is plugged into the X800XT. The 4 pin connection for the video card looks identical to the 4 pin floppy drive connection on a power supply, however I tried using the floppy connector and the PC would not display any video, switching back to the pass through cable resolved the no video issue.

The main focus of this review is going to be the AIW's multimedia features, although this is an excellent card gaming it's main function is as a multimedia card.

For the multimedia features of the card I tested it by converting a couple of old VHS tapes to digital as well as capturing directly from live TV. Output was tested on a variety of monitors including a standard 19" CRT, 19" Viewsonic LCD and a 27" Television.

Since this is a multimedia card for my first test I wanted to see how difficult hooking my test PC up to the TV was going to be. Much to my surprise I had it hooked up and running in about 5 minutes time. The dongles make hooking up ANY device painfully simple. Each connector is clearly labeled in or out TV or FM etc. You also have your choice of output sources, either composite or svideo, I am using an older TV so I chose composite as my output source. There are basically three steps to connecting your X800XT AIW equipped PC to a TV, first connect your coax cable from your cable box to the TV in connection on the back of the AIW, connect the video out dongle (the connector is labeled with an arrow, it is also the one that has the audio out plugs for your sound card) to the AIW, then connect either your composite or svideo out to the composite or svideo in on your TV. That's it, three steps and you are done. You can also connect the input dongle and place the connection block somewhere easy to access, this way you can plug in devices like a camcorder or DVD player without having to pull your PC out, or crawl under your desk to get to the back of it.

I did make one mistake when getting everything set up, and that was with the remote, you will want to make sure and install the software and drivers for the remote first and then plug it in. Once successfully installed there will be a remote wonder icon in the taskbar. The Remote Wonder II is more than just an extra accessory, lets face it without the remote you just have a PC hooked up to a TV, with the remote you have an entertainment center that you can control from pretty much anywhere in your house. While I was hooking everything up to my TV in the living room, my wife said "great, another remote that's just what we need" but, the Remote Wonder can also control other devices, so it might even replace one or two of your remotes.

Our first test was simply chanel surfing, In my eyes if you are building an HTPC it shouldnt be any harder to operate than your normal TV you are used to. With the TV tuner open, chanel surfing is as easy as puching in a number, or hitting the up and down arrow keys on the remote. ATI also included Guide plus in the software bundle, Guide plus is exactly what it sounds like, it's a TV guide. It lists chanels and showtimes in a scrollable format, with a preview of the selected chanel in the upper left corner. I wasn't impressed with Guide plus, it seemed sluggish and locked up on a few occasions. Guide plus is not required to be able to watch TV, it is just included as a bonus, so what didn't work for me, may work great for you. I tried Beyond TV, which basically does the same thing as Guide plus and it worked flawlessly for me.

Capturing video from a 5 year old copy of a copy of a copy of a VHS tape I was surprised at the results. I tried about 4 different VHS tapes, all of varying age and quality. On older lower quality tapes there was significant frame dropping in the transfer process. This results in the audio not matching up with the video. With better quality tapes the dropping of frames was less frequent and barely noticeable when the audio and video was synced. The software ATI bundled with the AIW makes video capture extremely easy, anyone with even basic computer use skills could capture video from any source.

Here is a short clip taken directly from that 5 year old VHS tape I mentioned above.

When capturing from live TV there were no frame dropping issues, and the sound and video quality was excellent. The included Pinnacle software makes capturing video from any source a snap, you simply change the source by clicking on set up and your instantly switched to the new source. Below are a few shots of the Pinnacle Studio interface, as you can see it is very clean, there are not a lot of confusing options for you to try and figure out what everything does. The program is very user friendly and works great with the AIW card.

Video clip captured from TV

I have only scratched the surface of what you can do with the X800XT AIW, As mentioned previously ATI does include some other great software with this card, but I think Pinnacle Studio is what will get the most use. Paired up with the AIW card it is perfect for converting your home movies to digital format, capturing live TV etc. Visual Communicator could also see a lot of use, if you have kids in school it is perfect for making a video for a school project, or used to make a presentation for work.

You can tell that ATI is on the leading edge when it comes to multimedia cards, they have been producing them for years and each new cards brings more features and usability than ever before. One thing I was dissapointed with is the lack of Windows Media Center Edition support. I think this card would make an excellent addition to an MCE box.

Editor's Note: At a recent gathering, ATI has informed us that all All In Wonder products post-9600 will indeed be supported by MCE.

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