The size of a credit card but slightly thicker, a CableCard acts as a digital cable decoder and lets you replace your digital cable set-top box with another device. Now, AMD's new ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner is the first CableCard-compatible tuner for PCs. It's a noteworthy announcement because it supports all US cable providers and you'll need such a product to record digital cable HDTV on your PC (it also handles NTSC analog and ATSC terrestrial digital signals.)
The TV Wonder comes in the form of an external USB 2.0 device (pictured) or as an internal board that fits into a PCI or PCIe slot. Due to restrictions imposed by the cable industry to protect content, it will only work with Windows Vista's revamped Media Center interface and only be available with new computers from the likes of Dell, Toshiba, Sony, HP, Gateway, Alienware, NiveusMedia and Velocity Micro. Such systems are expected to start shipping towards the end of January and AMD says the TV Wonder should contribute around $300 to the overall price.
Because the TV Wonder is a unidirectional receiver, you won't be able to use it to access on-demand content or pay-per-view movies. Also stifling will be the inability to burn recordings onto a DVD or even copy them onto a portable media player. However, AMD did point out that a PC equipped with the card can stream high-def (up to 1080p) or standard-definition content in realtime to a TV via an Xbox 360 serving as a Media Center Extender.
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