A buddy got an All-In-Wonder card in the States but the "cable tv in" does not work for him in Thailand (which uses PAL, I think). Is there a solution for him to watch Thai cable tv on his pc with this US-purchased video card? Thanks muchly.

not sure, but you might need a different driver for the video card?

I think it depends on the model... All-in-wonder has been used by ATi for quite a long time now, so covers a lot of different cards.

Best bet for getting an NTSC one working with PAL is to use the S-Video input if you can. (i.e. not use the tuner on the card, but instead use the tuner on the satellite / video / whatever...)

Unfortunately, it appears your friend can not use the ATI cards tuner to view PAL format, as the ATI Knowledge Base states:

ATI TV Tuners are specifically configured to operate in the regions where they will be sold."

Each of our TV Tuner products is designed to support a specific broadcast standard.

Before purchasing an ATI TV Tuner product, please be sure to determine which broadcast standard is used in the region where you plan to use the tuner.

(More here)

sorry

Could you post that ATI link again, please. I can't get it to work. Thanks.

If you look around on the net you can often find BIOS flash programs to reprogram your hardware to make it a different model of card with different regional compatability..

That said the tuners in the 'All in ones' are pretty junk and I would pipe in an S Vid feed and use dScaler for deinterlacing and scaling..

Edited March 19, 200521 yr by LivinLOS

i just bought myself an ati AIW 9800 and use to look tv on a beamer on my wall.

The card works great and has filters for scanning all different tv formats.

i can choose between all ntsc, pal and secam channels.

I was actually thinking of buying the AIW (the 9600 version) a while back from the US. Basically, the AIW has two portions, the TV tuner and the AV input/output. The AV input/output (connected using RCA/S-video cables) can be changed to various systems, like PAL/NTSC. The TV tuner (connected to your antenna), on the other hand, cannot. No bios/firmware change will make it any different, since the actual hardware is different for PAL and NTSC. You're basically stuck with finding one here (or in the UK/Europe), and even if you manage to find one, it will probably cost a lot more than the one in the US.

Could you post that ATI link again, please.  I can't get it to work.  Thanks.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

NewGuy - Sorry, didn't notice the link I posted was a secure site and time limited. Try the following:

1. Go to ATI's link at www.ati.com

2. Under Customer Care (top of page), click Knowledgebase in drop-down-window.

3. Enter PAL in search window (upper left) and click GO button.

4. At bottom of page, click on "ATI TV Tuner and capture products come in different NTSC, PAL and SECAM models".

There are other applicable articles in the knowledge base you may also wish to read.

cheers