The AIW R8500DV
has a comprehensive array of ATi "home grown" software tools
and utilities that provide user control and interface to its
impressive A/V capabilities. Here's a look at of few
of the toys at your disposal.
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Software and A/V Features |
It's got it all |
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ATi
All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500DV - Tool Bar, CD Player and Video
CD Player:
ATi's tool-bar
and audio players have buttons and controls that are very
intuitive. Users are treated with a sleek high
tech look with easy to read controls. However, we hope
that ATi will consider the possible addition of "skins"
technology to their player interfaces. Not that we
didn't like the look of these, actually they were some of
the nicest we've seen to date from any OEM, however it might
be nice to be able to change up the look and feel once in a
while, just to keep things fresh on the desktop.
DVD Player and
TV Tuning, Programming, and Capture Features:
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Gemstar Guide Plus (click image)
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The DVD and TV
Players utilize the same basic interface as the CD Player.
There are various video-centric features that are
implemented here obviously, like screen aspect ratio and
still captures. We should also point out that ATi's
version of "TV On Demand" time shifting technology, worked
flawlessly. It automatically records video data from
the TV Tuner in MPEG 1 or 2 format. For reference, you
can get 7 hours of MPEG1 or 3 hours of MPEG2 video on about
5 Gigs of storage. It worked very well and we were
more than impressed with the simple one touch pause and play
interface. Another nice touch was the integration of
Gemstar's "Guide Plus" software for programming guide
functionality driven via an internet connection. Users
can look at the programming guide and when a show is clicked
on in the window, a small preview picture in picture window
is displayed of the program in progress. Users can
then switch to the active program of their choice.
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Channel Surfing (click image)
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The channel
surfing feature of the AIW R8500DV, is a fairly standard
issue nicety found in most TV Tuner offerings in the market.
ATi's version is comparable to this. There is also a
Stills Image Gallery control panel (top left) that allows
you to work with various screen captures you may have taken
from TV, DVD or other input sources like Camcorders etc.
Video Editing
Software:
Finally, Unlead
Studio's Video Studio 5 is the chosen Video Editing software
in this package. This suite is fairly powerful and
easy to use. It provides the tools required for most
Digital Video Editing tasks. Once again, ATi didn't
skimp on the trimmings.
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