ATI's new TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner is an OCUR (Open Cable Unidirectional Receiver) tuner, meaning it can accept CableCard signals and send them to your computer. Like the CableCard slots in the TiVo Series3, OCUR devices can accept digital cable signals, but cannot send, meaning you can't get advanced features like video on demand.
But you can record shows in Vista Media Center without a cable box and IR blaster.
The TV Wonder comes in internal and external varieties. The external unit is a USB 2.0 box, while the internal version fits into a PCI or PCIe slot, but actually communicates with your computer via USB 2.0, and has a separate power cable. The only real advantage to putting it inside your case is that it takes up less space.
In order to use the card, you need an OCUR compliant PC, running Windows Vista with Media Center capabilities.
1. This card solves the PVR dillema! You can now build your own PVR. I'm glad I waited to buy the All-in-one. Can't wait to build a system around this card! You may want to consider a 10,000 or 15,000 rpm hard drive. I've heard of issues with recording onto a 7200. Maybe get a smaller 15,000 for good HD recording and transfer it to a 7200 for playback and archiving.
Thank you ATI for putting this solution on the market.
Posted at 10:18PM on Jan 8th 2007 by Nic J