ATI's Visit to AnandTech: All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV Preview & more

Your questions are answered

On the day of ATI's visit to AnandTech, I made a post to AnandTech Site News asking for any questions you all might have had for ATI.  ATI was kind enough to answer a handful of those questions while they were down here.  We'll conclude this short preview with a quick Q&A list using the questions you all sent in and ATI's responses. 

Thanks for reading, we hope you enjoyed this little preview. We'll be sure to have a full review of the card and a comparison of it against NVIDIA's Personal Cinema as soon as we receive final hardware.

The Questions

Will there be an OEM version of the All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV?

No.  Multimedia boards are only sold in retail packages/configurations.

When will the All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV be available?

The All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV will be available in the US and in Europe before the Christmas holidays.

Was there any loss of audio/video sync during time shifting or regular video capture with the All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV?

No. (We confirmed this).

Is there going to be an add-on card that features a HDTV decoder?

Not at this time.

Does the new Multimedia Center DVD Player support DTS?

No, the DVD player only supports AC-3 pass-through.

Why doesn't the All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV support Windows 98SE?

ATI will only support the latest 3 Microsoft OSes.

Does the All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV support HydraVision?

The All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV only features 1 DAC which allows it to power a monitor and a TV out port.  Other HydraVision feature support remains unconfirmed at this time.

Can the All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV record TV while playing a DVD?

No.

What is the highest desktop resolution that can be displayed (without scrolling) through the TV output of the All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV?

1024 x 768.

Does the All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV still use the same Rage Theater chip as previous All-in-Wonder products when capturing from an analog source (e.g. non-DV)?

Yes.  (AT: The analog video capture quality should thus be no different than previous AIW cards).

What happened to the HDTV decoder that was supposed to have been implemented on the All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV?  It is clearly visible in the pre-release diagrams but not mentioned as a feature in their release notes.

The decoder is there, it is simply not used.  The demand for it is simply not great enough.  There is a need for a front end for the decoder before it can be used.