![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , July 28, 2005
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
VisionTek XTASY Theater 550Pro
Needing an all-in-one multimedia solution for TV broadcast and personal video capturing and editing? We examine what the VisionTek XTASY Theater 550Pro brings to the table for multimedia enthusiasts.
Introduction:
Computers are versatile and allow you to accomplish many tasks. There are several set-top-box type devices out there to allow you to accomplish specific things for digital media. For example, there are Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) available for your TV. There are some very well known DVR devices that you have probably heard of before such as TiVo and ReplayTV systems. These specialized systems let you encode and decode digital video from your TV signal onto a hard disk in the device. They let you pause live broadcasts and record programs for later viewing. While these things have revolutionized the way we can watch TV, a computer can allow possibly offer you even more flexibility than a DVR device.
Home Theater PCs (HTPCs) are becoming increasingly popular these days. A HTPC is nothing more than a simple computer combined with the multimedia hardware to connect to your TV that lets you accomplish tasks that you can’t accomplish with most DVR set-top boxes alone. Usually these computers are located close to your TV as part of your home entertainment center, but they can also simply be your primary desktop computer located in another room. With a HTPC, not only are you are able to customize the hardware components that fit your needs, but you also have software features such as video editing software available to you. This hardware and software flexibility combined makes computers the most versatile multimedia solution for whatever your needs are.
In the drive to push computers as the ultimate multimedia machines, ATI has created a new processor for add-in cards to accelerate multimedia functionality. VisionTek is one Add-In-Board (AIB) manufacturer who has picked up on this technology and is offering an add-in-card based around this chip.
The ATI Theater 550 Pro:
ATI’s Theater 550 Pro is a new multimedia chipset that offers many integrated features that used to be performed by several chips. On board are many features for audio/video decode and encode capabilities, as well as image quality enhancement features in a package that can reside on a PCI or PCI-Express bus.
ATI employs a very small tuner chip that is matched to the feature-set of the Theater 550 Pro. It allows high quality terrestrial and cable TV reception as well as FM radio reception.
What really makes this chip unique is that it has a 12-bit video decoder. Most add-in-card solutions only offer a 10-bit video decode solution. The Theater 550 Pro itself can perform 60 billion operations per second meaning smooth video frame rates employing image quality features to clear up the image. Part of the 12-bit decoder is a high quality 2D comb filter that exceeds other filters by offering 5 lines instead of 3. The 2D comb filter is beneficial when your input source is of composite material such as a standard TV broadcast through the RCA (Yellow) connection. This higher quality filter on the Theater 550 Pro allows for more detail and brightness from your video input signal.
Uniquely, the Theater 550 Pro supports a 3D comb filter for almost perfect luminance and chrominance separation eliminating dot crawl and rainbow swirls for images that remain constant. Normally, only very high-end televisions offer 3D comb filters, but the Theater 550 Pro has one built right in.
The Theater 550 Pro includes a full MPEG-2 hardware encoder. This hardware encoder will encode both the audio and the video at full DVD resolution and quality. The engine itself is programmable and the hardware and software can perform noise reduction on the video. Noise reduction means that the algorithm searches for noise in the signal, such as snow, blurriness, and other artifacts, and can weed them out reducing the file size needed for an encoded file.
There is another feature built into the Theater 550 Pro known as Automatic Gain Control. As your video is being displayed, the Theater 550 Pro will be able to automatically control the gain to recover from quick changes between quick high and low gamma changes in the video so the image doesn’t appear washed out. All of these features combined into one chipset on one card make it a complete HTPC audio and video solution.