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This board remind me of LOTR: one ring (board) to rule them all. It’s basically a ”do it all” kind of product. Video In, TV-Tuner, full software package for editing, viewing, capturing, awesome 3D performance etc.
The full monty in other words.
Time for a different
type of videocard preview here at NordicHardware. We’ll be looking at the
AIW 9800 Pro from ATi. As we’ve already covered the 3D aspects of the 9800
Pro boards in numerous articles by now (look in our archives) and this board
is no different we’ll solely concentrate on the multimedia features of this
board. The only performance tests we’ll be doing is some overclocking.
This board remind
me of LOTR: one ring (board) to rule them all. It’s basically a "do it
all" kind of product. Video In, TV-Tuner, full software package for editing,
viewing, capturing, awesome 3D performance etc.
The full monty in other words.
Before I continue
I must admit that ever since I first saw an All In Wonder product a few
years ago I’ve been wanting to get my hands on one. On the paper this product
seems incredible, we already know the 9800 Pro is (incredible), so let’s
find out how the multimedia functionality of this board performs.
The board came
in a cardboard box since it’s not a retail board. Retail boards from ATi are
only available in USA at the moment. Here in Europe ATi’s partners such
as Sapphire, Hercules etc. will have AIW solutions for us end users. ATi
enclosed two pictures of retail boxes: check out Club3D and Sapphire’s
boxes.
Chip:
R350
Manufacturing process:
0.15-micron
Transistors:
~115 mil.
Core clock speed:
380 MHz
Memory clock speed:
680 MHz / 21,25 GB/s
Pixel Shader:
2.0
Vertex Shader:
2.0
Pixel
Pipelines/Pixel Fillrate:
8
/ 3040 MP/s
TMU’s/Texel Fillrate:
1
/ 3040 MT/s
RAMDAC:
400 MHz
Amount of memory:
128 MB
Type of memory and interface:
256-bit, DDR-SDRAM (Samsung 2.8 ns)
In- and outputs:
DVI-I (VGA), S-Video/Composite In/Out, TV In, Audio line Out, Audio
RCA In
Extra
peripherals:
DVI-VGA
adapter, Video In dongle, Video Out dongle, Component Out dongle
Software:
RealOne,
DivX Player
Full version applications:
Muvee
Producer, Multi Media Center 8.5
Recommended price:
449 USD
As we can see
by the specifications this is a "normal" 9800 Pro.
Front
Back
The PCB layout
is quite different from the normal 9800 Pro boards, the added Phillips
TV-tuner takes up a lot of space and thus the core was "moved".
The memory was
not equipped with any kind of cooling on this reference board from ATi,
however third party manufacturers are free to add whatever cooling they
see fit.
Cooling
The fan is the
same low noise fan that you’ll find on any ordinary 9800 Pro, on this board
it’s struggling with more heat though since the TV-tuner generates a lot
of it (heat that is).
Input/Output
Here’s a pretty
non standard I/O configuration. To the left we have the connector for the
Video (and Audio) In dongle. (Purple dongle in picture below.) Next to it
is the TV antenna or cable connection. Next up is the Video Output connector
for the black or red dongle in the picture below. The red dongle is for component
output. And to the far right we have the DVI-I output which also serves as
VGA output through the adapter included in the bundle.
Accessories
This reference
board also shipped with an S-Video and a Composite cable as well as some
rough manuals and a reviewers guide.
We all know
about the Radeon 9800 Pro and it’s DirectX 9 architecture, great 3D performance
and so forth. This time we’ll concentrate a bit more on the multimedia
and 2D capabilities of the board.
THEATRE 200:
The chip handling
video and audioprocessing on the AIW 9800 is called THEATRE 200 and is
the successor to the Rage Theatre chip. It enables the board to capture
stereo audio and a wide arrange of video formats.
VIDEO
IMMERSION II:
Adaptive
De-Interlacing – ATi has been touting this feature for
quite some time. Basically De-Interlacing is meant to reduce the artifacts
which
are a result interlaced playback on a progressive output (Ie CRT or TFT
monitor,
progressive
HDTV,
projectors
etc.). In order to eliminate this interlacing there are two major methods
of De-Interlacing: Bob and Weave. On most hardware/software you’ll have
to settle for one or the other. ATi however has employed adaptive per-pixel
(while others have implemented adaptive de-interlacing on a per frame
basis) selection of what method to use in order to maximize image quality.
Bob is used
on parts
of
the
video
not in
motion
and
weave
is used on
the
parts
in motion. In the example below you can see Weave, Bob and Adaptive (Weave+Bob)
De-Interlacing compared side by side. Please note however that this
image comes from ATi and as such it might represent a more optimal
result than you’d usually see. (Click on the image for full size.)
Temporal
Filtering – This is a method of filtering used to counter the
stuttering or tearing playback that might occur when playing back video
on an output with a higher refreshrate than the video source. For an example
playing a NTSC movie on a CRT monitor with a 85 Hz refreshrate or a PAL
movie on a NTSC television etc. If the refreshrate of the output does not
match the the video source we’ll get somewhat similar artifacts to the
ones we get when we don’t use Vsync in 3D rendering. Temporal Filtering
enables a smoother playback of video files than one would normally experience
on a PC.
Hardware
Accelerated Motion Compensation – Hardware acceleration of motion
compensation is achieved by feeding video stream directly into the videocards
back end scaler and overlay modules. By letting the dedicated video hardware
work with the video less CPU cycles are needed to keep video streams fully
fluent.
iDCT –
Inverse Discrete Cosine Transform is a method used in video encoding and
decoding. By having video hardware dedicated to the task of processing
these formulas even more strain is taken off the CPU.
Once upon a
time these were all very exclusive features but nowadays most videocard
support
some form of hardware motion compensation as well as adaptive de-interlacing.
Temporal Filtering is still an ATi-only feature to my knowledge
though (ATi-only on videocards that is). Further all of these features
have been supported since the Radeon 8500 (Temporal Filtering was not supported
in earlier Radeon boards) and has "only" been improved with the
Radeon 9×00. iDCT might also be an ATi exclusive feature but I’m not really
sure since I simply can’t find enough information on nVidias hardware.
Time for some
benchmarks. I’ve used PowerDVD 5 to evaluate the peak and average CPU utilization
during playback. I watcher one chapter of Saving Private Ryan (fairly high
bit rate), one of Mulholland Drive (fairly low bitrate) and added up the
values and then split them into two.
The ATi advantage
is clear when looking at the peak utilization (whcih happened during the
OMAHA beach scene in Saving Private Ryan on both boards). Having
low CPU utilization spells better multitasking of course. Personally though
I find it less interesting: if I play a DVD on my computer that’s what I’ll
do, no more no less. So judge for yourself how meaningfull these results
are. In fact using the ATi DVD Player yielded even lower CPU usage by 1-3
%.
On to some more
ATi exclusive stuff:
VIDEOSHADER:
Videoshader –
Videoshader is a general term for the type of effects ATi can produce with
videostreams by passing them through their pixel shading pipeline.
All sorts of effects such as inverting colors, ripples, rotating etc. can
be applied to a video stream in real time without any substantial performance
degredation. Currently Videoshader is realized through two specific features:
Videosoap and Fullstream. Though Videoshader could potentially be used
in video editing and playback to a much greater extent we still haven’t
seen software taking real advantage of the functionality. (For some reason
ATi has chosen to take their VideoShader Demo of their webpage so I can’t
show you any pictures here.)
Videosoap –
This technique let’s you use the pixel shader pipelines of the board to
reduce flickering, speckles, noise and other types of distortion/artifacting
during real time video capturing (encoding). Videosoap is a bit hard to
configure in my humble opinion. Currently Videosoap is supported in ATis
Multi Media Center 8.x and though MMC offers quite a lot of options neither
of them are described throughly anywhere. One thing that’s really positive
is the fact that a noise reduced video is much easier to compress. This
is especially true when talking variable bitrate. So in effect you do not
only get increased image quality but also smaller file sizes. Check the
image below to see an example of Fullstream. Actually this picture might
indicate a less obvious difference than you would notice if you have a
really noisy signal. On the left is the "Videosop:ed" picture and to the
right the raw signal. (Click on the image for full size otherwise you won’t
see the difference.)
Fullstream –
Fullstream is sort of the counterpart to Videosoap. It removes blockyness
and other types of artifacts often associated with streaming video. The
process works in real time during playback (decoding). At the present only
a few applications support Fullstream, one of them is RealOne. The results
are really a mized bag in my opinion: somtimes it makes things
look better,
sometimes
it just
makes
videostreams
look really blurry and washed out. The post processing options in DivX
Networks DivX Player 2.x is also utilizing Fullstream to clean up video
(both streamed and off line contant) though with a much better result than
what RealOne achieves. Check the image below to see an example of Fullstream.
Please note however that this image comes from ATi and as such it might
represent a more optimal
result than you’d usually see. (Click on the image for full size.)
ATi said many months ago (almost a year now) that an upcoming update for
Windows Media Player would support Fullstream but as of yet no such plugin
or update is available.
All
in all these features are here to ensure maximum quality and performance
in media playback. Video Immersion II might not include very exclusive
features anymore but the implementation of the features is very solid,
more so than any other GPU manufacturer at the moment I would say. As for
VideoShader ATi are still the only ones to employ such technology that
I’m aware of.
Before it (Videoshader) can become a major selling point we’d need more
application support though. The promised patch for Windows Media Player
is what I’d
consider
a must. I also think they should implement it in their own media player
suite in MultiMecia Center. I find it very ironic that even ATi don’t support
their own tech. Let’s just hope it doesn’t die the slow and unworthy death
that struck Truform, another high potential, ATi exclusive, tech that never
quite got the application support it needed.
ATi
MultiMedia Center 8.5
DivX Networks
DivX Player 2.0
RealOne
Muvee Auto
Producer DVD Edition
Demos and Screensavers
I’ll save the
info on the MultiMedia Center for the following pages, in short it’s an
All In One application for playback and capturing of media files.
The DivX Networks
DivX Player 2.0 is a DivX Player optimized for ATi hardware brining full
post processing acceleration through Fullstream to ATi Radeon 9×00 owners
(Radeon 9500 and above). This will reduce CPU cycles stolen by watching
DivX content by quite a substantial amount. (Download from the author is
free.)
RealOne is shipped
in a special edition form. This edition supports Fullstream technology
which removes blockyness from streaming video. (Download is free, though
I think this special version is only available through ATi at the moment.)
Muvee Auto Producer
is a Video Editing application of the simpler sort. It supports a wide
range of Video and Audio formats and is able to produce DVD compatible
content.
The Demos and
Screen Savers show off the DirectX 9 capabilities of the board. Pretty
neat stuff but of course it’s a free download from ATis website for those
interested.
Other than this
the install CD also came equipped with the latest version of ATi Catalyst
drivers WDM capture files, the latest DirectX version and so forth.
Remote
Remote
The remote features
42 buttons where 6 are per-application programmable. The remote is also
the only way to launch EAZYLOOK that I’m aware of. It’s
radiowave driven in contrast to regular IR driven remotes. This means that
the signal passes through walls and other solid object. You could for an
example have your PC connected to a TV in another room and control the
PC remotely in your living room where the TV is etc. I could even pass
two rooms standing in the other side of my apratment and
it would
still function
properly. Unlike some other PC remote control solutions there’s no delay
at all when inputting commands here.
The remote also
works like a mouse for normal Windows duties. In some more slow paced games
it can even double as a joypad. It’s wonderfully integrated to EAZYLOOK
and it’s the factor that makes a PC feel much more like a multi media "hub".
When using it in conjunction with EAZYLOOK there’s no more point and click
or typing with the keyboard, you just control the PC with the remote sort
of like and advanced DVD player.
Front
Back
The Remote Wonder
is faily large, I wouldn’t call it clumbsy though. The buttons are
soft and you have a very firm one hand grip. It needs normal AA batteries
for its operation, which were included in the package. The reciever plugs
in to a free USB 1.1 port.
Another great
thing is that ATi provides an SDK for anyone who wants to write plugins
for the remote. The 1.5 software ships with profiles for Winamp, Office,
Multi Media Center and so forth and plugins for Windows Media Player etc.
are available as free downloads. It’s simply a great tool and absolutely
worth a look even if you don’t intend to buy a All In Wonder product (ATi
and their partners sell the remote in a standalone package too). As a matter
of fact nVidia also use the same type of remote for the All In Wonder countermeasure
called Personal Cinema.
ATi MMC 8.5
consists of several sub components. One of the major features, the Gemstar
Guide Plus+, is not available outside USA/Canada so I won’t go into much detail
there.
DVD Player
File Player
First up is the
DVD Player. This player supports all DD related hardware functionality in
the Radeon boards of course, and as such it provides great image quality.
It’s built on a customized version of Cyberlink’s DVD codec (Cyberlink is
the company producing PowerDVD). Functionality is good and it supports some
cool stuff that I haven’t seen in other DVD players, such as dual subtitle
support. The one thing I do find a bit lacking is the multi channel audio
support. While the version I have has a control panel for multi channel audio
I couldn’t get it working properly, nor was ATi able to help me.
Next up is the
File Player, this is a multi format player which supports most of the stuff
I can come to think of. It works just as expected though offer somewhat limited
functionality, or rather limited possibilities of customisation.
VCD Player
Audio CD player
On to the
VCD Player. Personally I don’t really see why anyone would want a separate
player
for VCD specifically. Integrating it into the File Player or DVD player
seems like a better idea in my opinion. One thing that that the player
doesn’t
support is SVCD playback. A major flaw in my opinion and seemingly strange
as ATi’s own capturing software has SVCD profiles. ATi explained the
reason for this to me: As SVCD is a very "open" standard that has numerous
variations ATi simply found that the effort to support all available
SVCD "versions" simply was a bit too time consuming. Earlier versions
supported some forms of SVCD playback but since it didn’t support all
forms that resulted in a lot of support calls. In the end they took out
the feature and decided to distribute that workload to other parts of
Multi Media Center.
Then we have
the Audio CD player. Again: I don’t really see why they would want to make
this feature separate from the normal File Player. When it comes to functionality
it supports all the normal stuff you’d expect. One thing that I do think
ATi should consider supporting is CD ripping.
That concludes
the player part of MMC. To sum it up I do like the looks and feel of the
package but it does have some flaws that kept me from using it as default
player. First of all, all four applications should be integrated into one.
WMP, PowerDVD, WinDVD etc. support all this functionality and more and yet
they’re just one single player (executable if you will). Secondly all players
lack settings or customizations. And the third point is the lack of SVCD
playback. Another point that I haven’t yet investigated thoroughly enough,
is that Windows Media Player didn’t seem to recognize the ATi DVD decoder.
All in all
it’s a good solid package for most of your playback needs, though if
you already have PowerDVD or WinDVD I think you’ll be sticking with those.
Media Library
ATi’s media
library is kind of like an advanced playlist editor. I found it especially
useful when used in combination with EAZYLOOK. Speaking of EAZYLOOK, shall
we take a peek?
TV
Media Library
EAZYLOOK is
the full screen interface in MMC 8.5. As mentioned it enables easy access
to the functionality of the board while still maintaining a feeling that
reminds you of a standalone player. The one thing I’d really like is
a sort of a root menu where I could switch between the different applications
(those mentioned above on this page that is).
Last up is
the Gemstar Guide Plus+ which is an interactive TV-tuner program. It
sports
a very intuitive click and play/click and record functionality and even
supports nice stuff like scheduling recordings of TV series etc. Very
nice
but not available in Europe. The problem here is localization, it would
simply be a too large task to support all countries and service providers
here in Europe though ATi are working on solving it somehow.
Speaking of
unsupported features in Europe, the MultTVview feature is not currently
supported due to the fact that All In Wonder VE isn’t available here as
of yet. MULTVIEW enables you to have Picture In Picture viewing. (Ie multiple
TV Tuner windows with separate channels.)
The analogue
TV tuner provided by Phillips supports 125 channels.
TV Tuner
Apart from functioning
like a digital VCR, ATi’s MMC support some rather nifty features like
time
shifting, pausing live TV that is. Pause a TV broadcast, go to what you have
to do, when you get back start playing again and choose 1.2 times the
playback
speed for an example and soon enough you’ll catch up with the live feed.
You can also save the pauses TV to MPEG2 or VCR format if you wish. One of
the nice features with TV On Demand is that the ATi installer examines
your hardware and suggest settings optimized for your platform in order
to maximize quality but not putting a too great load on your computer.
The
TV player also supports capturing of still, either directly onto the
HDD or
into a gallery where you can choose which pictures to save and which to discard.
You’ll also
find a Teletext browser and boy let me tell you, it’s faster than anything
I’ve seen. Pages pop up instantly no searching at all. As mentioned you
can also access teletext subtitles though currently the implementation
is a bit crude in my opinion.
The TV Tuner
application also doubles as a Video In application for S-Video and Composite.
One cool thing that you could do for an example is record while your playing
X-Box or Playstation 2 etc. Or even a DVD movie in fact but of course you
won’t be doing that since it’s illegal.
When you first
launch the player you will be guided through some basic settings regarding
TV On Demand (Time Shift/Pausing live TV), channel searching etc. Searching
channels takes quite some time.
TV Tuner settings
In the settings
page for the TV Tuner you can rename channels, specify per channel settings
(like teletext subtitles page number or stereo/mono sound etc.), search
for new channels and so forth.
In short the
TV Tuner application does everything I’ll ever need and then some. Improvements
are needed for teletext subtitles but other than that I think it’s pretty
damn spiffy.
Any card out there
can offer media playback, fewer support media recording, even fewer via a
TV tuner. This is where All In Wonder steps up to the plate. ATi offers a
pretty intuitive system for video capturing no matter if the source is S-Video,
Composite or the TV-tuner (they’ve skipped the firewire that the AIW Radeon
8500DV supported). ATi also gives you a lot of presets to choose from when
you want to capture your video. Here’s choices for those who want ultra high
quality and for those who just want to take up as little HDD space as possible
etc.
Choose resolution etc.
Beyond the four default presets you can also browse into Map Presets to create
your own profiles or choose from a wide range of other ATi presets in all sorts
of formats.
For those of you
who are interested in tweaking the settings on your own I’ll show the step
by step guide to recording with your own settings.
Choose format
Choose resolution etc.
Step one is
to choose what type of recording it is that you wish to do. You can record
to ATi’s own VCR format which is basically an enhanced version of MPEG,
AVI (with the whole range of available codecs), WMV which is Microsoft’s
own video codec or even frame captures for movement triggered capturing
(useful for security cameras for an example). I chose MPEG here since
it has
the
most options that I can show you.
Next step is
to choose system (PAL or NTSC) and resolution. If choosing a non native
resolution, deinterlacing is needed. You’re also able to choose the audio
format here (in the case of AVI you can even choose say WMA or MP3 codecs).
Choose frames
Choose bitrate
Next up is
the frame setup, choose to capture I frames only, etc. Then it’s on to the
bitrate and motion search. In a single pass recording (like any live recording,
especially from a noisy TV signal) you’ll need a fairly high bit rate if
you want decent quality. A variable bitrate is certainly recommended for
most purposes as it will save some space on your HD while still maintaining
high quality.
Choose VideoSoap
Configure VideoSoap
One of the
last steps in the process is to choose VideoSoap settings. VideoSoap
is used
to
clear up any artifacts that is present in the video signal.
It can reduce noise, blockyness etc. ATi doesn’t really provide any detailed
information here and since there’s a lot of options you’ll just have to
experiment, which will take quite some time. This is one of the few things
that annoyed me with this product (the fact that there’s basically no
documentation for VideoSoap that is).
Choose subtitle recording
Configure file size
The last two
steps involve choosing subtitle recording (teletext subtitles) and the file
size limit. I actually don’t really like the implementation of the teletext
subtitles in ATi’s MMC. The black border around the white text is simply
way too large and often there will be three rows of text covering a lot
of the screen. Beyond that the current version of MMC doesn’t support the
Swedish letters Å, Ä and Ö and will instead replace them
with lines of code. So for me subtitles is currently a no go. It is however,
if implemented correctly, a rather unique and nice feature.
Last up is the file size, here we can choose at what size the recording
should stop and start saving to a new file. As I intend to burn the project
to a CD I choose a 700 MB (80 min CD) limit. As you can see ATi provides
lots of profiles for different types of media here.
Now you just have to wait for your favourite show and then press record.
After you’ve
recorded your movie you can edit it in muvee:
muvee
The application
is very easy to use though not as powerful as I’d personally like.
All of the options
and functionality in the world wouldn’t help a product like this unless the
captured files looked good. Fortunately they do. The picture below is a screenshot
of a live badminton game (how exciting huh?) in native PAL resolution. The
reception through my analogue antenna isn’t the best in the world though.
In order to take full advantage of such a product I really recommend a digital
cable feed for an example.
Snapshot
Next up is a movie capture sample, it’s the same game and I captured in
the SVCD format. I slightly modified the ATi preset (raised bit rate, raised
motion search and toyed around a little bit with VideoSoap).
I strongly recommend
you using some sort of DVD playback software to view this as it’s quirky at
best in Windows Media Player. In order to make it a bit more realistic a good
idea might also be to watch the sample through TV-out if available. In short
you can’t really expect super high quality from a broadcast that wasn’t high
quality to begin with. This is self explanatory but I’ve heard people complaining
in the past so I though I’d make it as clear as possible.
If you’d rather
download an SVCD image to burn and watch on a standalone DVD/SVCD player
click here. (Use Nero or CDRWin to burn.
I’ve tried it with two standalone players and it works flawlessly in both.)
I do also have
a Macrovision free DVD player and capturing the feed from it through the S-video
cable produces very nice results. So signal quality is a major key to getting
good captures (again: self explanatory but needs to be pointed out.)
All in all you
can basically capture movies which look identical to the original broadcast.
Sometimes worse and sometimes actually even better due to the cleaning up
that VideoSoap does.
As I mentioned
in the introduction of this preview I had really high expectations when I
received this product. Even though I only had the board for a very limited
amount of time I must say that it met basically all my expectations during
that period. On the other hand I do feel that I would have needed more time
to fully evaluate a board as feature rich as this one. (Which in itself is
actually a very positive comment.)
The
name of the board really sums it all up. It’s an All In One solution: great
3D performance, Video and TV in, a fully fledged software and accessory package,
the Remote Wonder etc. I actually tried to figure out some stuff that is available
on other videocards but isn’t on this one. The only thing I could come up
with is the Firewire connection that, to this date, only has been supported
on one videocard and that’s AIW 8500DV. But then ATi released AIW Radeon 9600
Pro with two major new features that are not available on this one. First
of all it has got a Radio tuner which would be pretty nice to have, it has
another feature that seems even more useful and that’s CD burning. On top
of that the 9600 ships with a updated and improved version of Remote Wonder.
In
my humble opinion this is THE most impressive board you can get today. The
only thing that’d put me off is the price, but considering what you get for
that money I would in no way call it unreasonable. Apart from lacking the
new features introduced in AIW 9600 Pro and some quirks like not supporting
SVCD playback and a slightly immature EAZYLOOK this the board to get for all
you multimedia and gaming buffs out there.
One
last thing I’d like to mention is overclocking. When I first got this board
I expected worse overclocking than "normal" 9800 Pro boards. When it comes
to the core it seems as if I was right as it only reached 400 MHz (a measly
20 MHz overclock) the memory went all the way up to 760 MHz though which
is in line with the better overclocking 9800 Pro boards.
Too
bad I couldn’t talk ATi into letting me keep the board though. 😉
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