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ATI Technologies All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV Graphics Card
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Electronics > ATI Technologies > Item 3
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ATI Technologies All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV Graphics Card
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Sales Rank: 63
Our price: $90.00
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Features
Powered by the RADEON 8500 GPU
64 MB DDR memory
Connect a digital camcorder to a PC
Digital and analog video capture & editing
Stereo TV-tuner
Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
This graphics card is one of the most advanced graphics cards around. The things that really take this graphics card far above the competition are: 1) Includes a programmable RF remote control, not an IR remote like most other brands have. This means you can control your PC from another room anywhere in the house! I use it to control the playing of my MP3 music collection. It even works with WinAmp (if you download the WinAmp plug-in from ATI) and can work for any program (make sure you get the latest drivers from ATI). You can even use the remote as a mouse! The programmable buttons can be programmed to do almost anything from launching a program to shutting the system down. And the new plug-in architecture (download the updates for this) is great. ATI even has an SDK for developing custom plug-ins available on-line! However, there are two drawbacks to the remote. One is that you cannot control anything other than the PC because its an RF remote, not an IR remote, so you can't use it to control your TV for example. The other is that there is no light feature to see the buttons at night. But this is still by far the BEST REMOTE I've seen for the PC. 2) Built in hardware DVD quality MPEG2 playback (using an on board MPEG2 decompressor). This is the equivalent to having a dedicated MPEG2 decoder card for DVD playback, but its built in. The quality is excellent. 3) The included TV and digital VCR allow you to watch TV shows, and record them in DVD quality. You can even pause live TV shows, and continue watching the program from right where you paused it, in real time! There is even a TV guide that is updated in real-time. With two clicks of the mouse you can program the digital VCR to record any program listed in the TV guide! No need for a real VCR anymore, no need to enter times, dates, or anything, just point and click the mouse and program recording will be scheduled automatically for you! This is a powerful feature that will impress most users. The quality of the digital VCR is DVD quality (unless the stuff you're recording is not good quality), and its easier to program than a real VCR! And if you don't need DVD quality you can specify many other formats and even custom ones. 4) Includes many different types of video and audio connectors. DV and analog video inputs allow you to record from either digital or analog video devices to DVD quality MPEG2 in real time using the 8500DV. So if you have a VHS video tape you'd like to preserve on DVD, its a snap. VHS tapes degrade with time, DVD lasts far longer than VHS and the quality is higher, so what are you waiting for? Put those important tapes on DVD before its too late! 5) Many video and audio formats are supported by this product, including DVD (MPEG2), VCD (MPEG1), AVI, MP3, WAV, etc. 6) Supports the use of two separate monitors. Each monitor can be configured separately. Overall, this card is a bit pricey but its worth it. Now, I have not used this card to play games much, because I have a PS2 for that, but the card's 3D performance is pretty impressive. If you only need a card for games, this isn't the card for you, because while it can do games well, you'll be wasting your money if you don't use the built in TV, MPEG decoder, digital VCR, DV, analog video connectivity, and remote control. But then again, if you buy this card only for games, I'll bet you'll end up using the other features quite often enough that you'll really appreciate the purchase.
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ATI Technologies All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV Graphics Card
Available from Amazon
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