ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT « drewhill.net

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Written by Drew

May 30, 2008 at 8:59 am

Posted in ATI, ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT, ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner, Cablecard, Microsoft, TV, Technology, Windows Vista

XPS 420 & Radeon ATI HD2600 XT – Choppy DVD Playback

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I got my XPS 420, took an image of HDD (32 bit OEM OS) and installed Vista Ultimate x64, downloaded and installed all the drivers from support.dell.com and then also updated newer drivers for the video and network cards and updated the firmware on the ATI Digital Cable Tuner. Everything that I’ve tested so far seems to be working OK, except for DVD playback in Media Center and Media Player. Playback is choppy with video getting hung and buzzing audio. CyberLink’s PowerDVD plays just fine.

It seems that the DVD playback only gets choppy if I try to move around in Media Center while the DVD is playing. But, if I maximize and/or unmaximize the window it resets the DVD playback and re-syncs the audio/video. Playback is smooth then.

DVD playback on Media Player is a different story which really doesn’t work at all.

I had previously purchased the CinePlayer DVD Decoder for Windows Vista. So, I tried that and it didn’t help DVD playback in Media Player.

System Specs:

Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Processor Q9300 (6MB Cache,2.50GHz,1333FSB)
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz – 4 DIMMs
Radeon ATI HD 2600 XT 256MB
Blu-ray Disc Combo (DVD+/-RW + BD-ROM)
Integrated Sound Blaster®Audigy™ HD Software Edition
Single ATITV Wonder™Digital Cable Tuner with Remote

Has anyone seen any issues with DVD playback with the Radeon ATI HD 2600 XT 256MB video card?

I’ve not tested a Blu-ray disk playback or digital cable yet.

**Updated 5/29/08 1:15pm - I just tested Blu-ray disk playback and it worked like a charm in PowerDVD.

Written by Drew

May 29, 2008 at 9:04 am

Posted in ATI, ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT, Dell, Microsoft, Technology, Windows, Windows Media Center, Windows Vista, XPS 420

Dell XPS 420

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I finally decided to buy a Dell XPS 420 desktop computer this weekend. Dell is running a great deal for Mother’s Day; $350 off XPS 420 systems. I’m not a mother, but who cares right? I can get the configuration that I want cheaper than I can get with my Employee Purchase Program discount mainly because I don’t have to take the 3 year warranty on the Mother’s Day deal.

This system is configured with the ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner. I really want to start recording digital/HD TV content including Premium stations with Windows Vista Media Center. With my current system I’m only able to record the analog stations and the quality leaves a lot to be desired on a 46″ LCD HD TV.

I went down to Charter Cable yesterday to talk to them about Cable Cards. They were not very helpful. Both the woman at the front counter and the technician that I eventually talked to really couldn’t answer my questions. The reason is that they haven’t hooked up that many cable cards in PCs before. They did say that I would be able to get the digital/HD and premium stations. But, I could have a problem with voltage feedback into the cable lines. After further questioning this could be an issue with any TV tuner card hooked up with a coax to the cable company.

Here’s my configuration: