Eyetv EZ vs ATI Wonder

[Chimera]

Hi all,

I'm looking for some advice on these two TV tuner units. I have narrowed down to these two as they do not encode in MPEG2 on the hardware therefore there is minor (if any) lag when I connect my Playstation.

The ATI Wonder link was introduced in January but this was replaced by the EZ link in September.

The issue I see with the newer EZ is that although it has the SVideo port I cannot see ports for connecting left and right channel audio (despite claiming it does have on the data sheet) which the ATI does have.

I would prefer the EZ because of the design and included remote, but having sound for my Playstation takes precedence. What does everyone advise? (anyone with the EZ)

 

[Chimera]

Here are pictures of the front and rear of the EZ without audio inputs and the data sheet saying that it should have them.

 

[MRU]

I bought the ATI wonder and it's no wonder it was fazed out fairly quickly.

It needs a frigging dual G4 to encode at medium and dual G5 to encode at best?

It annoys me because they advertise these systems on powerbook's or ibook and in truth you cant record at anythig other than low quality because it trips out if you ry pushing it harder. For 150 Euro they could easily have afforded hardware acceleration for encoding.

Mine is sitting in a box doing nothing, and I have the remote wonder 2 remote control with it, also doing nothing.

I would sell them to you cheaply, however you want to use your playstation on them and here's the rub. The delay / lag is bad and theres no way your going to play properly using it. Crap!!!

 

[Chimera]

I bought the ATI wonder and it's no wonder it was fazed out fairly quickly.

It needs a frigging dual G4 to encode at medium and dual G5 to encode at best?

I would sell them to you cheaply, however you want to use your playstation on them and here's the rub. The delay / lag is bad and theres no way your going to play properly using it. Crap!!!

I don't really mind about the recording capabilities as that is what the other eyetv products are specialized for. However on reviews I have seen about the ATI lag was said to be minimal if noticable whatsoever, therefore your experience is worrying. Are there any other experiences or answers to my previous questions?

 

[MRU]

THe lag on the ATI is the same both on my powermac and powerbook. It's at least a 25frames - 40 frames behind which is ok with watching TV but absolutely useless for gaming.

 

[doucy2]

a little off topic
but that ait wonder remote (for those of you who have not new imac and still have frontrow)
could this remote be configured for frontrow??
just something is was thinking of (since the remote is compatable with most modern Ati cards

 

[kwajo.com]

i really wish there were cheap TV Tuner alternatives with Mac drivers. I know they aren't very good, but you can get a cheapo PC tuner for 40 bucks or less, but the Mac compatible solutions cost several times that

 

[aussie_geek]

I have both the eyetv 410 digital tuner and the usb wonder. The 410 is used for recording / watching tv and the usb wonder is for my xbox.

I have them both connected to my G5 and I can be watching / recording with the 410 and playing a game on the wonder with no problems. The elgato app just displays 2 live tv windows. You can also record off each one separately. There is no lag with the usb wonder that I can see.

Look into getting a eyetv usb - you should be able to pick up a bargain seeing it has been superseded.

ps - what Mac do you own. As MacRumorUser poster said, you need a pretty beefy Mac to run it.


aussie_geek

 

[Madmic23]

No lag here

I have the eyeTV ATI usb wonder 2.0 , and I haven't experienced any lag. I find it very playable.

 

[MRU]

I have the eyeTV ATI usb wonder 2.0 , and I haven't experienced any lag. I find it very playable.

Damn, whats going on with mine? Tried playing IKARUGA and Gradius V as they require 0 latency, and I cant because of the small (even half a second) delay which makes pixel perfection movement impossible.

I've got the latest version of Eye TV installed but still the same.