Life started for Project 840EE with an ATI All-in-Winder X800 XL. Why not? All right, I really had no use for an FM radio, but a TV tuner and competent graphics card in one package (A-I-W). As it turned out, the graphics side of the card was wonderful. Good color and crisp images. Couldn't ask for more. On the TV side, however, things weren't quite as wonderful. In one post I wrote: I think I've been patient. (All right, a little loud, but patient nonetheless.) Today, at 4 hours and 34 minutes into recording the NASCAR UAW 500, the bloody little pig locked up and lost everything. (Not to fear, I am redundant.) I've had it. This is the third ATI All-in-Wonder card I've had. The first had a crappy beyond all belief tuner. This latest seems to have a great tuner but is just non-functional from my particular point of view. (The middle one, so far, has proven to be the best of all, despite a distinct leaning toward mediocrity. Then again, functionality always takes precedence over bling in my small world.)

At some point in the future, if ATI gets its software act together (and hopefully straightens out its website so one can actually find the software), the AIW X800 XL may find a home in a different computer. For right now, however, it goes back in the box and up on the shelf of stuff that isn't worth the effort. (Yes, it's a very big shelf.)

Still, I was persistent -but there are limits. In the final post about the card, I wrote: "I'm not sure if it was just a heartfelt attempt to be fair or some mixture of laziness and stubborness, but I fiddled a bit more with the ATI All-in-Wonder X800XL's software. I even thought it was working when it promptly and completely accomplished a scheduled recording -until it started the same "one time" recording 12 hours later. To its credit, ATI has a software scrubber so getting rid of the drivers and things was painless.

I replaced it with a Radeon X600 Pro from Crucial Technologies (the memory arm of Micron) and, combined with the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150, all is working well in the world.

It's actually a shame. The color rendition and image sharpness was slightly better with the X800 XL than the X600 Pro. (Hauppauge's video, however, is somewhat better.) The problem here just seems to be some really crappy, inhospitable ATI software. And after waiting four days to hear back from ATI Tech Support (now an official oxymoron in the TechNudge lexicon), there was really nothing else to do.

So, ta-ta ATI. Hello ATI and Hauppauge."

I still have hope for the X800 XL, possibly using third-party PVR software if ATI can't seem to get it's act together, but that's for another system yet to come.