ATI delivers TV Wonder 650 Combo USB HDTV tuner for Mac

Ok, it may not be the beloved CableCARD we so quickly learned to love in our Windows Media Center PCs, but we certainly wouldn't kick ATI's new TV Wonder 650 Combo USB for Mac out of bed. We're not sure why ATI didn't just announce it along with the PC version a couple of weeks ago, but this dual tuner package does what's expected for your Mac, including ATSC and NTSC and playback via its tvPORTAL software. It'll run $150 when it hits retailers later this month.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 14th 2007 5:40AM]

ATI advertising this as a two-tuner product is rather of moot and worthless point. They are counting the NTSC tuner. Ok, so what? Who has a television that doesn't have an NTSC tuner already? And in the age of HDTV who the heck wants an NTSC tuner? In fact, my year old el'cheapo flat-panel has both an NTSC and ATSC tuner. Hey, I got two-tuners too.

Exactly who are they catering this product to? ATSC tuner cards have been out for several years and if I remember correctly every single one of them included the ability for decoding NTSC signals.

[mtkupp Posted Nov 14th 2007 8:15AM]

It's for use with a computer, not a television. None of my monitors have tuners. What's going to kill this for Apple Fanboys, is it's just plain ugly. I guess they could always hide it :)

As for the NTSC tuner, it's good until 2009. Then it's a boat anchor.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 14th 2007 10:02AM]

yeah,
I'm passing on it and waiting for one with two hd tuners. It's a waste for me to get it with a soon to be obsolete feature, and the inability to pause or record an HD channel OTA while watching another HD OTA channel.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 14th 2007 3:02PM]

Even if it has NTSC, it wouldn't matter that that part of the circuitry is a "boat anchor". I doubt it takes that much circuitry and chip area to do NTSC, those designs are long paid for.

If you subscribe to analog cable, then it would still be useful for that.

If you're looking for alternatives, HDHomeRun is Mac and Windows compatible, though I think maybe you have to buy it from Elgato to get the Mac software bundled with it. HDHomeRun is also a network tuner, so you can hide it away from your computer and even place it where you get the best reception.