Anyone get Theater 550 working on 2003 Server?

[Zod]

Has anyone been able to get the ATI Theater 550 hardware decoding to work in Windows 2003 Server? I've got an ATI TV Wonder Elite, and was able to get *almost* everything working with it using GB-PVR on Windows 2003 Server (including the Remote Wonder Plus). I can currently watch and record TV via GB-PVR, but I cannot play back the recorded files, not even using Windows Media Player (missing codec message). Naturally, I can't seem to get most of the ATI software to install correctly, as it's all made for 2000 or XP and won't install in 2003. Yes, I have tried using the latest drivers and all that jazz from their web site, and I've done extensive searching in these forums and on Google, but it doesn't seem to be a problem anyone's successfully resolved and posted about.


PS - Please don't suggest not using Windows 2003. That's a "duh" answer. I'm trying to consolidate my PVR media center with my 2003 development server, so that I don't have to leave more than one PC on all the time. Leaving a single PC powered on 24/7 costs about $10 per month in electricity alone, never mind the cost of additional hardware.

[sub]

What MPEG2 decoders do you have installed? It sounds like you dont have one.

[Zod]

What MPEG2 decoders do you have installed? It sounds like you dont have one.

You're right...as a test, I installed Cyberlink PowerDVD 6, and I'm able to play back the recorded files (thanks for the suggestion!). However, it does not seem to be taking advantage of the ATI TV Wonder Elite's Theater 550 hardware decoder (Athlon 1600+ CPU is ~60% during playback). So I guess my question should really be:

Has anyone been able to get the ATI Cyberlink decoder installed and working on 2003 server?

[sub]

However, it does not seem to be taking advantage of the ATI TV Wonder Elite's Theater 550 hardware decoder (Athlon 1600+ CPU is ~60% during playback).

This device has a hardware ENcoder not a DEcoder. You still need a software decoder to playback the files.

[Raffka]

I think you may need a DVD decoder (PowerDVD 5 or 6, WinDVD, etc.) to play the mpeg files. I have Power DVD 5 installed on my system and it can play it. Windows media player doesn't play the mpeg files I recorded with the Theater 550. Also, you may try installing Klite codec package. It's media player classic can play the mpegs.

[Zod]

This device has a hardware ENcoder not a DEcoder. You still need a software decoder to playback the files.

Are you sure? From everything I've read, I've come to understand it handles both encoding and decoding in hardware. I mean, ATI specifically advertises the Theater 550 as having a "12-bit Video decoder with hardware 3D Comb Filter" and "Hardware Noise Reduction" but that is probably referring to the TV input decoder, not MPEG-2 decoding (silly me). I suppose the only way I'll really know is by installing it on an XP machine and testing it out to see if the included ATI Cyberlink decoder software dramatically decreases CPU utilization...I'll update this thread after that.

A related link:
http://www.pvrblog.com/pvr/2004/09/ati_theater_550.html

[sub]

Yes, I'm sure. Take my word for it.

That "12-bit video decoder..." text is referring to something different. Its about taking the original analog transmission and digitizing it. It does not relate to playing back the resulting MPEG2 recording.

[Zod]

You are quite right. Setting it up in XP, with the included ATI software, showed me that the playback was certainly done in software, on the CPU. Speeding up playback increased CPU utilization dramatically, in both XP and 2003.

Unfortunately, now I'm finding it's incapable of playing back a recorded show while recording another one. Probably a CPU or disk resource bottleneck on my system...ah well, that basically renders it useless.

[sub]

Anything above a PIII 1GHz should be capable of recording and playback at the same time. The hardware encoder on these only uses about 2% CPU while recording.

[Zod]

If it's not likely to be a CPU bottleneck (which I also doubt), do you expect a single ATA100 7200rpm disk would be able to handle to IO requirements of recording while playing back, or is a RAID-0 stripe required?

I'm not ruling out that this could be just a 2003 Server thing, either. I'll give it a shot on XP again, to see if it'll work right there.