Registered: Jan 1999
Location: Gilbert, Arizona
Posts: 9932

Guest 2-25-01:Godfrey Chang and Stephen Orr, ATI

THanks again to forum member Tom Strade for again lining up some wonderful Special Guests, this time ATI. I admit I'm not real familiar with computers for home theater - but Tom is. So Tom, please give an introduction to our new Special Guests and their company and products, and please start out with a few questions for them.

Since they won't guest until Feb. 25th, I request that forum members hold off on questions until a few days prior. Thanks.

------------------
Steve Bruzonsky

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Cupertino, CA
Posts: 873

I hope that 6 days prior is within the "few days prior" that Steve has requested.

Since I haven't yet upgraded to a Radeon, other Forum members are probably more interested in Radeon's 10-bit DACs, drivers for custom timing, direct component output, third party DVD players, etc. So I'll let someone else frame those questions.

One question that may not have hit everyone's radar screen is about an ATI HDTV decoder product. ATI showed a such full-rate, DTV decoder at the Intel Developer's Conference in April last year. It was allegedly able to handle all 18 ATSC formats. Press coverage reported cooperation between ATI, Conexant Systems Inc., NxtWave Communications, and Ravisent Technologies Inc. The core was the ATI Rage 128 Pro.

Can the guests offer any more information about an ATI DTV decoder product? Will the cool PVR-like features of MMC 7.0 be included with the product?

Since I have an ATI Rage 128 All-In-Wonder, I wonder (no pun intended) if there'll be a way to use my existing hardware to receive HDTV broadcasts.

For some background and references, see the HTPC Forum here.

Thanks,
-yogaman

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Registered: Nov 2000
Location:
Posts: 279

Hello and Wecome to our Guests,

A couple of months ago I began putting together a dedicated HTPC. This was being done in preparation for the installation of a new JVC D-ila G20 projector.

For my graphics card, I followed the advise of members of this forum (at that time) and got an Elsa board. But, because I have enjoyed ATI products in the past, I also purchased a Radeon 64. Alternatively I installed each board and I was immediately startled by how much better the image was on the Radeon compared to that produced by the G-Force while playing DVDs. Alas, I returned the ATI Radeon for one simple reason; I could not set custom resolutions to match my D-ila projector. The day you allow me to achieve that task, is the day I purchase a Radeon card for myself and two of my clients.

Regards

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 415

Welcome to the Forum.

Just a moment ago I did a little exercise. I asked the search engine to look up all topics in the Home Theater Computer Forum that mention the name Radeon within last 30 days. I got 99 threads (just from last 30 days). This may give you some idea about how frequently members of the HTPC Forum discuss the benefits and limitations of the Radeon based graphic boards and how important this issue is to all HTPC users.

I'm sure other members will have a lot of questions to ask. I'm also sure that the question most important for me is also one of the most desired by the majority of the Forum members:

When can we expect the Radeon driver update supporting custom resolutions and timings ?

To me all other improvements would be just an additional benefit. However, custom T&R is the only issue that made me purchase another video board, based on nVidia MX chip. I still have the Radeon 32 DDR in my computer, but it will have to be replaced soon, although I'd hate to do that.

My best regards,
Leszek.

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Registered: Jun 1999
Location: Toronto,Ontario,Canada
Posts: 2741

My question concerns the Video Recording features of your AIW-type products.

Are there plans to expose a more advanced set of recording options, similar to recording tools like VirtualDub or AVI_IO? I'm think of things like:

- custom resolution (including 480x480)
- exact frame rate (Like 29.97 Hz)
- exact bitrate for MPEG2 (this may already be there)
- etc etc

Also, what is the ETA for recording drivers for Windows 2000 that do more than 320x200?

Andy K.

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Registered: Sep 1999
Location: tumbling down the rabbit hole
Posts: 5456

I would like to welcome Godfrey Chang and Stephen Orr to the forum.

• How do the 10 bit DAC's of the Radeon affect image fidelity (while watching DVD's) versus the 8 bit DAC's of cards based on Nvidia's Geforce?

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Hi,
I am a real newcomer to the concept of PC home theater. My first projector is arriving next week.
I currently own a RAGE 128 All in Wonder.(Great card)And my first question is what advantage would purchasing a Radeon card offer me?
My second question is what exciting features are anticipated in the next generation of cards that could will whet the appetites of home theater enthusiasts?
Robin

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I have another question now after visiting your website.
I see you have something that resembles a motherboard with an HDTV chip. Is this something I can buy and add a DVD player and ATI or other Video card? What is the cost? Can a standard VCR be hooked up to it and benefit from enhanced scanline elimination?
Robin

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ATI has publicly stated in the past that while they have an HDTV/AIW solution ready, they decided not to market it because "there is no market for it".

Now that there are HDTV cards available, and there is clearly a market for it, will ATI bring out an HDTV solution of their own? If so, what configuration would it be? A standalone tuner, an integrated AIW board? Both?

Thanks.

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: indianapolis
Posts: 647

welcome to the forum. definitely a lot of interest in radeon here lately. i have read your white paper on video processing.
http://www.ati.com/na/pages/resourc..._rel/atirdv.pdf

one thing that is not ever mentioned is 3:2 pulldown detection. most of us agree that this is a preferred technique for processing video that was originally film. people here use dvdo's, quadscan's, faroudja's or htpc's running a program created by forum members to do this. do the radeon cards have this ability or might they get it soon?

other question is that i notice your white paper refers to svideo inputs on the radeon but it does not seem to have them. what gives?

thanks for participating.

greg

[This message has been edited by indygreg (edited 02-24-2001).]

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: New Jersey, USA
Posts: 319

Thanks for taking the time to join us in the forum.

My question relates to the component video output support of the Radeon. Many of us Radeon users connect our Home Theater PC's to our TV's using the s-video output or a separate RGB->component video transcoder such as the Audio Authority 9A60. A direct component video connection would obviously provide a far superior image. ATI has officially touted that the Radeon has component video out capability. Many forum members use a program called Powerstrip written by Ashley Saldanha, who has tried to access this functionality but is unable to due to lack of full driver support. Can we look forward to an enhanced driver that fully supports this feature soon, fulfilling ATI's claims?

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Registered: Feb 1999
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 803

Welcome to the forum Godfrey and Stephen,

I've been using the Radeon 32ddr in my dedicated HTPC for about a month now. IMO it has the best image quality of any video card out there right now. While image quality is fantastic I have not been able to get the ATI player 7.0 to pass Dolby Digital out the spdif port with either an SBLive or M-Audio Delta Dio. This makes the ATI player useless to and requires me to use WinDVD instead. By doing this I lose the adjustments for gamma, contrast, stauration, and hue which are only available in the ATI player.

Could you please provide the overlay adjustments in the control panel of the video driver versus the ATI player. Only the brightness control currently exists in the control panel. Other video card makers provide this which allows the flexibility of having access to these adjustments using other software players like WinDVD and PowerDVD.

Another suggestion is to have a numbered scale with the overlay adjustments for reference. Right now there's just a slider with no numbers which makes it difficult to remember.

Thanks,
Steve



------------------
Our Home Theater

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Markham, ON, CAN
Posts: 253

To the AVS Forum

ATI is happy to be this week's guest member on the AVS forum. Our intention in participating in the forum is to listen to the members of AVS, take back requests, and where possible answer your questions. We hope that you understand that ours is a very competitive business, and as such it is often not possible for us to discuss features of upcoming and unannounced products.

My position at ATI is as the Manager of the Convergence PC Software Group. In simple terms this means I am directly responsible for the "Multimedia Center" software. I have been involved with ATI's Multimedia products for more than 7 years and will be able to give quick answers to many questions around the Multimedia suite. For other questions, I will forward questions to the relevant people within ATI and the response time will likely be a little longer. So if I don't respond immediately, I am likely looking for the answer.

It's 11:20 on Saturday night (so I'm early) but I will hold off on any answers until the morning.

Stephen Orr
ATI Technologies
Feb 24, 2001

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Registered: Dec 1999
Location: San Juan Capistrano,CA
Posts: 154

Welcome Stephen, I'd like to echo Steve Smiths comments about the inability to output Dolby Digital AND DTS audio through the SPDIF, in my case a Guillemot Fortissimo sound card, another popular card for HTPC use.
Therefore I'm unable to use the ATI DVD player with my Radeon card and take advantage of the iDCT etc. I'll continue to use WinDVD until ATI can fix the audio issues.
Thanks, Rob

[This message has been edited by robhicks (edited 02-24-2001).]

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: CANADA
Posts: 433

Welcome sirs Godfrey Chang and Stephen Orr to the AVS forum. I have a couple of items based on questions and answers from your website and was hoping you could clarify or update them.

Q24: Can RADEON™ output directly to a high definition television? How?

A24: Component output (also known as YprPb) is the connection used by Digital TVs. While the RADEON™ chip supports component output, this feature has not been implemented in our boards at this time.

Do you have any time frame of when you might implement this feature. Most of us are tired of having to use external hardware(in my case a Key Digital transcoder) to view the remarkable imagery this card can deliver to a Component Input RPTV. Implementation would mean a software update, chip swap or card replacement?

Q22: What does ATI mean when they say that the RADEON™ is "HDTV
ready"? What can a user do with the RADEON™ HDTV decode
capability?

A22: RADEON™ is capable of decoding all of the HDTV formats with
reduced CPU utilization and of directly driving both analog and
digital high definition displays. RADEON™achieves its decode
capability through motion compensation and iDCT and without the
need for any external hardware. When RADEON™ is used with the
appropriate DTV tuner and DTV demodulator software, the user will
be able to view HDTV on their monitor or TV.

Also from one of your press releases: http://www.ati.com/na/pages/corpora.../2000/4295.html

"Patent pending adaptive de-interlacing algorithms which result in unparalleled video quality for interlaced TV and HDTV video streams"

Lets say I do a clean install of Windows 2000, or Win9x and install the latest video and multimedia drivers from the ATI CD for the AIW Radeon. I turn on Smart Select in the ATI Multimedia Centre, will the IDCT engine function and will the card be doing 3:2 pulldown which I believe is the same as "adaptive de-interlacing algorithms". Their have been numerous reports in Radeon forums that IDCT is not turned on by default, but rather has to be enabled in the Registry.

Q16: Does RADEON™ support monitors with a 16:9 aspect ratio?

A16: Yes, including 1920 x 1080 and 848 x 480 on Windows® 98, Windows®
Me, and Windows® 2000. The complete list of resolutions depends
on the driver version and operating system. Please note that
resolutions are limited by the performance of the attached
monitor.

I don't know about other members of this forum, but I have not been able to implement 1920x1080i resolution on my Panasonic RPTV. However with my General Instuments HDD-200 hi-def decoder I have no problems showing this resolution. I would gladly purchase another Radeon that would ditch gaming and be tested by you for proper resolution output on most current RPTV's. It should do direct component output and have HDTV predefined resolutions. I would suggest you gentleman contact Ashley Saldana, if it wasn't for Powerstrip3 I would not be able to watch ATI generated HDTV imagery on my Panasonic RPTV.

I have never had any other video card than ATI in my PC's, but with this version of the Radeon I fell we have to work to hard to get pictures on our big screens.

Thank you for time,
Dan Gryn


[This message has been edited by hdtvguy (edited 02-25-2001).]

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Houston, TX, USA
Posts: 5594

Stephen,

I would like to say thanks for coming and I would like to echo a sentiment that many of us have.

We feel the Radeon has the potential to be the best piece of hardware for the PC based home theater.

However, It hasn't reached that goal. We feel with a little more focus on some of the key issues such as Custom T&R's and Digital pass through, we can make the Radeon the choice for everyone not just those with very specific hardware.

I don't know if its your scaling algorithms or your proper gamma control (or your 10 bit dacs ) but the Radeon has DVD playback that beats big buck systems.

We desperately want to be your advocates, but we can't until there is a complete package that meets most of AVS members needs. (We're so close!)

In short, I am dieing to say: "Radeon, Game, Set, Match."

Thanks for your time.

-Mr. Wigggles

------------------
The Mothership is now boarding.

[This message has been edited by MrWigggles (edited 02-25-2001).]

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Registered: Feb 2000
Location: Orchard Park, NY
Posts: 1405

Hi Stephen. I'm sorry we couldn't connect this past week but I was traveling. Anyway, thanks again for making an appearance here at avsforum. As you can see our members are VERY exctied about the Radeon card and the potential for HTPC use. Since many of the questions I emailed you earlier have been asked up here publicly I'll toss a few more your way.

1. Would it be of any help for us to send you the specific timings for resolutions that we would like added to the Radeon? I think that custom T&R would be best to tweak the Radeon for the specific display device, however, there are some pretty well honed timings that work with D-ILA that I'd like to see added. I like the way Elsa has implemented custom T&R in their drivers.

2. Along those lines, I cannot get the ATI 7.1 DVD player to fill my 1360x768 resolution as it thinks it is 1024x768. CM99 works just fine though. Is there a registry entry or something to permit the ATI player to use the full resolution of the desktop?

3. In the HTPC forum there is a discussion regarding dolby digital and DTS passthrough using our MAudio soundcards. I've been able to get DD/DTS using Cinemaster 99 and DD using ATI 7.1 with some help from DVDGenie. How quickly could the audio setup section of the MMC be expanded to improve setting up DD/DTS pasthrough using S/PDIF without DVDGenie? Is there any version of the MMC that is in the pipeline that does DTS passthrough already?

4. I tried using the CD player from the MMC last night with the MAudio card and was unsuccessful. Therefore, I'm not sure of its capabilties. But many of us enjoy using PowerDVD to playback Chesky/Classic 24/96 music encoded DVD-Vs and DTS CDs. Is this something that could be added to the CD player list?

5. One last minute question. Is there an SDK available that some of our member-programmers could use to write some applets to permit more granular control of the Radeon? For instance, enabling YPbPr or tweaking hidden HTPC-relevant settings. Does the SDK document all of the possible registry settings?

Thanks again,

Tom

[This message has been edited by tommyboy2 (edited 02-25-2001).]

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Markham, ON, CAN
Posts: 253

To All,

Here is the initial response to the backlog of questions as of Sunday A.M. I likely will not be back on today, but will continue on Monday. Look for your name to see a directed response to your issues, in addition I will end each posting with an ?outstanding issues? list of things that I know I have not answered, but plan to get to later in the week. I hope this approach works for everyone. Where possible/appropriate I have grouped responses.

============

yogaman, Eric F

Last April ATI showed a technology demo of HDTV decode. The demo included 1080i and 720p content being decoded to an AGP Rage 1`28 Pro. All 18 formats were possible in this configuration, although admittedly just barely. Because the Rage 128 Pro was not designed to be an all format decoder, the overlay was not quite capable of sourcing the 1920 wide source lines required for 1080i. As such the image was slightly clipped left and right. Also, we close to the limit of the chip in processing 1080i. For these reasons, while capable of decoding all 18 formats, ATI will not bring to market an HDTV product based on the Raeg 128 Pro. On the other hand, thew Radeon is more than capable of decoding the worst case HDTV bitstream and displaying all of its pixels. Any HDTV product from ATI will be based on the Radeon or one of it?s successors.

A couple of related notes. (1) The core that makes the Rage 128 Pro and Radeon HDTV capable is the iDCT block that is used for DVD. All three of the major decoder vendors are llicensed to use the ATI iDCT API and as such could bring to market there own DTV solution that works with the existing and future ATI graphics solutions. (2) ATI has at this time not announced any retail HDTV products, so, even assuming we are developing such a thing I wouldn?t be able to go into details.

=========

Sore Eyes, Leszek, tommyboy2, Mr. Wiggles, Dan Gryn

The issue of custom resolutions and timings is clearly a hot one. I don?t have the information at my fingertips, but sometime this week I will publish some information which should help on this issue.

=========

Kromkamp

There are several questions in here with regards to our MPEG encoder. From the last question in the post I assume that you are either using an older ATI card or a TV Wonder. With MMC 7.0 ATI moved to using an internally developed MPEG encoder (replacing the Ligos VFW encoder used in MMC 6.3). This encoder supports an wide range of encoder settings (including GOP, Bit rate, etc..) With MMC 7.1 (soon to be released) we have added a wide range of encoder presets (including VCD) that can be selected, or upon which you can base your own custom settings. MMC 7.1 will release in the very near future on the Rage 128, Rage 128 Pro and Radeon based All In Wonder cards, with follow on releases for the TV Wonder and All In Wonder Pro products. MMC 7.1 supports Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, and Windows 2000.

==========
Robin Mc D

Why is the Radeon better that the Rage 128? ?Cause it?s newer? Not good enough? Okay, here is some of what we can do.

- Faster, more feature rich 3D
- Faster iDCT (MPEG accell)
- Adaptive de-interlacing for the best in the business overlays (and yes a lot better than the 128 had)
- Enough horse power to decode all 18 HDTV formats with room to spare
- The richest Dx8 implementation on the market.
Also, with the All In Wonder Radeon you get GemStar?s interactive program guide for free.

There is more but that?s the highlights.

As to the HDTV chip that you found by browsing our Web site. That chip is a SetTop chip, intended for use in home Digital Cable boxes and the like. It is not a ?Desktop PC? part and so cannot be used in a Windows (or other VGA) environment.

==========
indygreg

Your question regarding 3:2 pulldown is a little vague - for DVD playback we do include a 3:2 pulldown detection and then play the content back correctly. For live television as well as for video encoding we do not currently support 3:2 pulldown detection. We are aware of the value that is implied both in video quality and reduced need for bits in the encoded stream, but our current products do not include this technology.

Note that the current Radeon does have ?Adaptive De-interlacing? which intelligently decides between BOB and Weave on a per-pixel basis. This technology produces an astounding improvement in overall video quality for both Television and DVD. Adaptive de-interlacing is fully enabled for all operating systems in MMC 7.1 and D7.2 both of which will be released shortly.

To answer your other question. The Radeon 64 Meg DDR caard supports Composite in and Composite / S-Video out as well as VGA. Only the All In Wonder support S-Video as well as Composite and CATV input.
============
Steve Smiths

I will be addressing the issue of Dolby and DTS passthrough a little later in the week. Please be patient. As to overlay controls, I will pass your request along, however this issue is two-fold. The overlay controls are a standard feature of DirectX and as such ANY DVD application should be able to control them. Placing settings in the control panel may be a place to set the default overlay values, but that would be on a system, wide level and would effect anything which opens an overlay. Also, when an application does control the overlay, and the system also tries to assert control, often the wrong settings will take precedence, this is the main reason why we have avoided placing these settings in a single global place in the past.

As to your suggestion to add numeric feedback to the sliders, I will take that one back to the applications team.
============
Dan Gryn

I will address the issue of Component out later in the week, please be patient.

By stating that Radeon is HDTV ready we meen that the overlay is capable of displaying without clipping or downscaling all 18 HDTV formats (up to 1080i). That the card supports resolutions large enough to display 1080i. That the overlay can downscale (if needed) the content to fit on screen. That the frame buffer is large enough to decode 1080i, and finally that the iDCT engine is more than powerful enough to decode all formats with enough CPU left over for audio decode, demux, and other house keeping. To use this, one would need an HDTV tuner card and SW which interfaces to the ATI iDCT interface on the card. See also my early (in this posting) replay to yogaman and Eric F.

As to adaptive deinterlacing. This is NOT the same as 3:2 pull-down. Indeed, when playing back DVDs which are 3:2 pull-down, the content is such that adaptive de-interlacing does not need to improve the image all that much. On the current released display drivers ?Adaptive de-interlacing? is only available under Windows 9x and only for DVD, in addition the default is to turn it OFF due to some issues with VideoMark 2000. With D7.2 (soon to be released) Adaptive de-interlacing is enabled for both Windows 9x and Windows 2000 and for both DVD and TV. Further it is on by default, and for TV cannot be turned off (it works that well).
============
Issues Still To Be Addressed

- Component output with Radeon
- DTS pass through on DVD
- Custom timing and resolution with Radeon
- Tom?s questions on DVD full-screen, CD playback, etc...

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Oregon Coast, USA
Posts: 283

Stephen,

I woke up this morning to your lengthy reply, to all the questions on this thread. As a probable-new-customer, I want to _thank you_!! Having someone in a position to know, answer questions directly (even by name of questioner) is like a breath of fresh air. Congrats!

The "open questions" list is also a great idea. Those are key questions for me, so I'll be following this thread.

One question I have concerns DFast/HDCP encoding, apparently required by MPAA and being assembled in products by the 5C and others; products to be released this year. Many forum members are dedicated to the proposition that an HTPC (with ability to add new video cards, hard disks, sound cards, etc.) is the ideal device for home theater; and this belief/market seems to line up very well with ATI's core video card business. But we've read threads here pointing to MPAA/5C efforts to defeat the HTPC when it comes to HDTV - if there are any digital or analog outputs in a device, the HDTV encoding will come up with a message and switch to 480p. Over 500,000 people have purchased HDTV ready sets or even more expensive front-projectors.

What will ATI be doing with its PC cards (like Radeon) to process and pass HDTV images through our PC's, to these HDTV-ready sets/FProjectors?

Will you be encoding same as other HT hardware manufacturers?

Please explain what you can about ATI's view and role, and how PC's will be usable in the future arena of HDTV signal replication.

------------------
Stew
The search for excellence is unending . . .
Your HDTV purchase may become unusable tomorrow - help STOP DFAST and DVI/HDCP.
Do not purchase CPRM and HDCP devices from Intel, IBM, Matsushita, JVC and Toshiba.
For more info, see discussion at: http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum11/HTML/010112.html

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Registered: Feb 1999
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 803

Stephen,

Thanks for the response, I look forward to seeing the DD fix.

The system wide overlay controls would be the welcome. That's the way both Nvidia and Intel have implemented them. Some of the overlay controls would be difficult to do by the application. Take for example the Gamma adjustment. The implementation of this would vary depending upon the video card. It's not practical to expect the different software players to support features that are specific to a particular card.

Another feature that is sorely needed in the ATI player is aspect ratio control. This allows viewing of non-anamorphic, 4:3 and 1.66 material without having to mess with the displays controls and maximizes raster area usage. Many of us are using WinDVD with a freeware aspect ratio controller called YxY. Unfortunattly it doesn't work with the ATI player http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/htpc/yxy_windvd.html

Is adaptive deinterlacing supported with the ATI player? I'm still seeing a lot of combing artifacts with video sourced DVD's.

Steve

------------------
Our Home Theater

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