Catalyst Media Center is in fact Cyberlink PowerCinema

[Agustus]

Another quick comparison:

TV
http://www.ati.com/products/catalystmediacenter/images/6.jpg
http://common.packardbell.com/itemnr/instr_asustv_powercinema4/cpc4_tv01.jpg
Notice how the navigation bare at the top (with home and back buttons) overlaps the “TV” letters almost giving it the appearance of the Roman numeral IV. Also 14 buttons appear in the lower-left of the PVR control bar at the bottom in each instance.

TV Recording Settings
http://www.ati.com/products/catalystmediacenter/images/3.jpg
http://common.packardbell.com/itemnr/instr_asustv_powercinema4/cpc4_tv07.jpg
The “Recording Quality” drop down menu in Catalyst Media Center really looks like it was tacked on IMO. This may be due in part to enhancements made to Catalyst Media Center (baseline PowerCinema 4) with respect to AVIVO functionality and new file options but the menus no longer look organic / natural IMO.

EPG
http://www.ati.com/products/catalystmediacenter/images/2.jpg
http://common.packardbell.com/itemnr/instr_asustv_powercinema4/cpc4_tv09.jpg

Videos Recorded TV
http://www.ati.com/products/catalystmediacenter/images/5.jpg
http://common.packardbell.com/itemnr/instr_asustv_powercinema4/cpc4_myvideos01.jpg

MakeDVD
http://www.ati.com/products/catalystmediacenter/images/4.jpg
http://www.softpedia.com/screenshots//CyberLink-MakeDVD_2.jpg
http://www.softpedia.com/screenshots//CyberLink-MakeDVD_3.jpg
http://www.softpedia.com/screenshots//CyberLink-MakeDVD_1.jpg
One important thing to note in the ATI and Cyberlink screenshots is the “MakeDVD” name, the font, and location of the letters. Also note that the CD-DVD icon in the upper right-hand corner is the same!!! I for one find it somewhat amusing that they didn’t even bother to change the icon here. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the default included image templates used for authoring DVDs (background images) were exactly the same too. They just made no effort to cover their tracks here.

Apparently PowerCinema 4 has a 3D interface as does Catalyst Media Center, however, it may or may not be active depending on your hardware:

PowerCinema 4 will supports the 3D user interface if your hardware is powerful enough. To enable the 3D UI, Pentium 4 2.4GB or higher is required. 64 MB of video RAM or higher is also necessary.

http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/support/answerbox_productfaq.jsp?FID=2075&nProdId=16

BTW, there has been one report of PowerCinema 4 installation requiring that Catalyst Media Center be uninstalled. This likely works both ways however. In all probability what is happening here is that PowerCinema is recognizing Catalyst Media Center for what it is (PowerCinema). This will probably happen with MakeDVD as well if Catalyst Media Center is already installed (or the other way around). Any Cyberlink H.264 plug-in add-on packs may have the same effect,...

 

[Agustus]

And now for another quick look:

.

These setup screenshots are basically identical with the exception of the skin. Take note that the wording is almost identical wherein only the names have been changed to protect the innocent,…..

Select 4:3 or 16:9 ratio and again note the wording.

Choose from analog or digital tuners.

Select cable or antenna

Autoscan,….

and so on,....

There really is no question as to whether or not “Catalyst Media Center” is really Cybrlink “PowerCinema”,….

Just none at all,…

 

[Trunks0]

The only real question now (in my mind that is) "Is this seemingly long devlopment time for a already devloped program because they are tweaking it to be more stable and compatable?"

I hope so because PowerCinema didn't exactly mesh well with my TVWonderPro (which I plan to replace soon anyway mind you)

 

[Agustus]

Whatever development that went in into Catalyst Media Center 1.0 probably involved the new skin, new menu system, AVIVO transcode utility integration, USA EPG and a few other relatively minor tweaks,…

All reported bugs from ATI users probably have to be collected by ATI and consequently passed on to Cyberlink before they can be addressed.

Aside from patches, any significant upgrades will likely require further development of the base product. For example, Cyberlink PowerCinema 4 was an improvement over PowerCinema 3 and PowerCinema 2. It is possible that Catalyst Media Center/Cyberlink PowerCinema will not improve noticeably until PowerCinema 5 becomes available.

Generally speaking though, public opinion of Cyberlink PowerCinema is probably very low, especially among Theater 550 Pro users that were initially saddled with it some time ago.

There were many users that wanted to see a break from MMC but PowerCinema isn’t exactly well received either and for good reason.

It would have been preferable, at least IMO, for ATI to have chosen a PVR application that was widely praised (instead of widely despised) such as BeyondTV 4.

 

[Dr. Zhivago]

Being an AIW owner (I have 3 of them. See sig.) I do need to tell you folks with AIW cards to not hold your breath waiting for support. The ENTIRE AIW team was let go from AMD/ATI. The cards are EOL and are not going to be made any more.

I knew when I bought my AIW X800XT last year that it would be the last AIW card I purchased. It was a good run for me. Over six years with the line and very few complaints. I'm sad to see them go, but at the same time, with the way the software ended up with the last 5-6 releases, I'm not missing much. I stopped updating drivers and software past 5.13 and MMC 9.0.6.1

I seriously doubt that since the team responsible for the creation and support of the AIW line of cards is gone, that ATI/AMD will do anything concerning supporting what is now a legacy product with new software.

Don't get your hopes up...

My .02

Peace.

 

[Agustus]

Interesting,…

Interesting especially if you consider ATI’s recent behavior with respect to Vista support:

The TV Wonder 200 has been promoted as having future Vista support. Essentially, according to ATI, drivers for the product will be made available when Vista ships.

The TV Wonder 650 (Theater 650) is a Vista Premium Logo part and has been functional in recent Vista builds. ATI has made no secret of TV Wonder 650 Vista support.

So ATI has been very vocal about some parts with respect to planned Vista support. It wasn’t necessary for them to volunteer this info but they did it anyway probably because it was a means to promote awareness and sales.

However, ATI hasn’t volunteered any information with respect to the AIW line in terms of Vista support. In fact, quite to the contrary, if asked directly about AIW support ATI basically stonewalls (delays, obstructs, hampers, stalls, hinders,…..drag one's feet).

If they don’t have proper support now and they have already disbanded their ENTIRE AIW team,….and they wont issue any official info about Vista-AIW support,….things don’t look good for the AIW line in Vista,...…

I guess I’m OK with no AIW-Vista support but there is no legitimate reason to stonewall and withhold info that they almost certainly already have. If they are going to support the AIW in Vista MCE then say so if not then say so. The only reason I can think of to withhold this information would be to keep sales and prices of AIW current stock up,…even if they don’t intend to keep the AIW line they don’t want to devalue current stock or hinder their ability to move said stock,…

 

[Psycogeek]

ya know agustus, there is one thing i dont understand about this NEW junk.
why does it take a HUGE requester to ask one STUPID question?
and do people think that really makes things simpler?
does a 450K set of Bitmaps (skins) really improve a program that mabey needs 72K to do the entire setup on ONE page , in 1/2 the time.

AKA : those interfaces make me BARF , people know how to use computers now, they dont have to treat us like were mentally deficient, with big buttons and huge cute pictures to make ONE single bit binary change.
if this is the future, they will never get to the moon :-)

i seen some of the junk for doing the TV on some newer computers , and its 75% skin overlapping the whole computer with buttons for the blind , it just makes me sick. its a computer FIRST, WITH tv addition, yet some programmers think that THIER program is the only thing you will have on the computer.
sure, were buying 2500$ computers to watch TV LOL.

ohh look at the pretty picture, BARF :-)

 

[Agustus]

Catalyst Media Center (AKA PowerCinema) simply follows a new set of applications in its mimicking of “Media Center Edition”. The big buttons and images are simply a trend in design that reflects what many users may actually want in a 10 foot interface.

Oddly enough, the new Vista MCE actually borrows from MMC’s EasyLook by incorporating side scrolling (horizontal) rather then simply the ubiquitous vertical scrolling.

Its not for everyone but for those who wish to use their PC with a remote at a distance it is necessary.

 

[spockers]

Who wants it?

Who wants it?

I bought a TV Wonder 650, which comes with CMC, and I can confirm that it IS Cyberlink PowerCinema. Browsing the folders on the CD and my HD after installing I found a few Cyberlink folders. It works great, except for one huge flaw: The program guide just sits there saying "connecting" forever, and this is after entering my zipcode and having it successfully find my local cable provider. Using NetLimiter I discovered it was trying to connect to 203.73.25.209 which is in Taiwan, and is apparently permanently down (tried over a several day period).

For you AIW owners, I can confirm that it works with them (at least with my AIW 2006 which has the software encoder) and I can use both tuners simultaneously with PIP, etc.

I'm so pissed about the guide not working I'm willing to send anyone who wants CMC a copy straight from the CD. Just PM me on Yahoo Messenger. Let ATI sue me, at least that will be some contact

 

[ATImeShifter]

I have the 650 and can confirm that it DOES eventually download the program guide and allow one to schedule recordings from it. It doesn't work all that well, but is does work. That site may be down now, but it wasn't when I last used it several weeks ago.

Having said that, though, I'm not that happy with CMC. It gets the job done, just barely, but has too many bugs and limitations to make it truly useful. It even makes me miss MMC in some ways! It would appear that Agustus and others are right about the ideal option being to upgrade to MCE to get a really useful TV/DVR front end.

 

[jazzsoul60]

I have Catalyst Media Center with all of the latest updates as of June 17. The most recent update I installed is Catalyst Display Driver version 9.6. I am happy with it. In fact, I installed Cyberlink PowerCinema 6, full version and determined that the Catalyst Media Center has better video quality. Maybe this is due to ATI’s tweaking of video drivers and matching the software with their Radeon video cards. I use the Radeon 4350 card. Cyberlink PowerCinema 6 does have a slightly better EPG interface, or should I say a different interface, for programming future television programs. In Cyberlink PowerCinema 6, you can program channels via a program guide that looks similar to Titan TVs program guide, whereas the Catalyst Media Center interface is done manually and you have to know what program(s) you want in advance and input the start and end times of the program with out benefit of an on screen program guide. But if your EPG has been updated properly, the Catalyst Media Center will display the name of the program in the schedule list.

 

[Agustus]

I have Catalyst Media Center with all of the latest updates as of June 17. The most recent update I installed is Catalyst Display Driver version 9.6. I am happy with it. In fact, I installed Cyberlink PowerCinema 6, full version and determined that the Catalyst Media Center has better video quality. Maybe this is due to ATI’s tweaking of video drivers and matching the software with their Radeon video cards. I use the Radeon 4350 card. Cyberlink PowerCinema 6 does have a slightly better EPG interface, or should I say a different interface, for programming future television programs. In Cyberlink PowerCinema 6, you can program channels via a program guide that looks similar to Titan TVs program guide, whereas the Catalyst Media Center interface is done manually and you have to know what program(s) you want in advance and input the start and end times of the program with out benefit of an on screen program guide. But if your EPG has been updated properly, the Catalyst Media Center will display the name of the program in the schedule list.

There are different versions of Cyberlink PowerCinema and I don’t know where ATI (AMD) is with respect to the version that they use. I think, although I’m not sure, that the newest version of PowerCinema has support for Live TV via H.264 which is a fairly advanced feature set IMO.

 

[jazzsoul60]

There are different versions of Cyberlink PowerCinema and I don’t know where ATI (AMD) is with respect to the version that they use. I think, although I’m not sure, that the newest version of PowerCinema has support for Live TV via H.264 which is a fairly advanced feature set IMO.

According to this thread they are using PowerCinema 3. Again as I have stated in my original post, I installed PowerCinema 6. The video was by far inferior to the latest Catalyst Media Center. I uninstalled PowerCinema 6 and used Catalyst Media Center. Catalyst Media Center also seems to have another advantage over PowerCinema. You can set external drives to store video. I have two external hard drives and use them to store long programs. This cannot be done with PowerCinema.

 

[Agustus]

Well,….

Yeah,…

I’m the thread starter but that was back in Sep 28, 2006 and some things have changed since then. There was a recently released update for Catalyst Media Center and I think the original release wasn’t supported in Vista. Power Cinema didn't support Vista until version 5.0 I think so Catalyst Media Center (most recent version) is probably based on v5 or higher,...

There are a number of things added to Catalyst Media Center that either aren’t present in Power Cinema or are a paid upgrade / add-in.

Either way I personally don’t much care for software myself.

 

[jazzsoul60]

Well,….

Yeah,…

I’m the thread starter but that was back in Sep 28, 2006 and some things have changed since then. There was a recently released update for Catalyst Media Center and I think the original release wasn’t supported in Vista. Power Cinema didn't support Vista until version 5.0 I think so Catalyst Media Center (most recent version) is probably based on v5 or higher,...

There are a number of things added to Catalyst Media Center that either aren’t present in Power Cinema or are a paid upgrade / add-in.

Either way I personally don’t much care for software myself.

Duh!

I have not paid for any upgrades. I just download them when they become avialable.

 

[DA1745]

Duh!

I have not paid for any upgrades. I just download them when they become avialable.

Jazzsoul60, before you become rude with a well respected member who knows his ATI & related TV tuning software; perhaps you will go back and RE-Read what he wrote.

He did not say YOU paid for upgrades: He was saying that CMC actually contains Extras, Upgrades, in it that Power Cinema 6 does not that in order to get similar functionality in Power Cinema one would have to PAY TO UPGRADE it (and then still there are some extras that ATI had them add)... CMC actually contains (2) cyberlink software packages Plus some additional transcoding and other ATI specific features. (Those are the Upgrades he was referring to). So don't be so quick to be rude. He was agreeing with you in essence that CMC has more stuff in it, yes.
I agree with him fully though, that (It's still a terrible pile of crap ...but had it worked better it would have been something really great)! Perhaps. It has so many bugs and flaws in it that it's difficult to support. For a while it was the ONLY way (for free) to get QAM, but not anymore.

As to way CMC gives you a better picture than PowerCinema 6 - could be the encoders (have you used the Decoder utility (for XP) but it does/or at least was working in Vista, if it doesn' for you for whatever reason there is an UNoffiical Vista model Decoder checker, but you'll have to go searching for it it's non-microsoft product. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...AC-0AB6-4990-943D-627E6ADE9FCB&displaylang=en

Also, programs like Beyond TV, Sage TV, Vista's Media Center are far better in both stability, channel detection and options than CMC / Power Cinema.
BUT just like what you may be experiencing with Power Cinema 6, I had to adjust a few settings in Catalyst Control Center...because Vista for example kept trying to make adjustments that made the TV pictures look overexposed or washed out. (something it did not due in CMC). Once I set that up correctly Vista Media Center is beautiful and detects all of the Clear QAM cable available in my area; CMC would only detect a fraction of them, and then it wasn't consistent. VMC is Miles ahead of CMC, even the updates are fast they take less than 30 seconds.

According to this thread they are using PowerCinema 3. Again as I have stated in my original post, I installed PowerCinema 6. The video was by far inferior to the latest Catalyst Media Center. I uninstalled PowerCinema 6 and used Catalyst Media Center. Catalyst Media Center also seems to have another advantage over PowerCinema. You can set external drives to store video. I have two external hard drives and use them to store long programs. This cannot be done with PowerCinema.

No, it hasn't been based on Power Cinema 3 since around the time of the Elite / 550's. While it's FREE (there are much better Free and open source TV Tuning programs out there). And if you happen to have Vista Premium or Ultimate VMC is far superior. I'm not a big M$ or Vista fan but VMC is a dream compared to CMC!

 

[fanbanlo]

Catalyst Media Center good for capturing?

Catalyst Media Center good for capturing?

I'm a Vista + TV Wonder 550 PCI user.

Is Catalyst Media Center easy to: Capture analog video and burn DVD?


I recently tried to convert a VCR tape to DVD. However, I ran into problems after problems...

Vista Media Center nor Vista DVD Maker nor Window Movie Maker capture analog video from Composite nor S-Video.

Cyberlink Producer capture doesn't work with 550.

Snapstream BeyondTV did the job, but required some settings in the web interface.

but then there are more problems...

Tried burning video with Snapstream BeyondTV, it took 30+ minutes to tell me it won't fit on DVD. Sucks!

Then I tried Cyberlink PowerProducer with Smart Fit option, but the DVD ends up having NO AUDIO! WTF? Opening the captured mpg with Windows Media Player reviles that Vista (with ffmpeg) can't play the mpg with the mpeg2 audio but BeyondTV apparently has no problem playing the video with audio. I had to install some codec pack and enables the MPEG PS/TS splitter (Haali Media Splitter), in order to have the mpg plays with audio in Window Media Player. But the splitter will screw up the video thumbnail preview, so I had to uninstall it afterwards)

Then I tried Cyberlink PowerProducer again, but in the preview it still can't play the audio!

Finally, I used the stupid Vista DVD Maker and it worked, but it took hours of re-encoding since it doesn't do mpeg2 transcoding like Shrink DVD.

YIKES!!! I need a better solution! Is Catalyst Media Center any better? Will the latest CMC work with 550?

Thanks!

 

[kn00tcn]

do you happen to have a camcorder with firewire, & the motherboard with firewire?

i'd just output the vcr to the camera, cap the camera to pc (with something like winDV or other dv capture apps), then you'd be free to use any prog you wish to encode mpeg2 & make a dvd

http://www.videohelp.com has a tools section with a big list of all kinds of apps

 

[fanbanlo]

do you happen to have a camcorder with firewire, & the motherboard with firewire?

No, I don't. But that's a good tip for those who do.

 

[fanbanlo]

Got hold of 650 CD and installed, the CMC works well with 2x550 I've installed.

One stupid thing is when I press HOME on my cyberlink remote, both Vista MCE and ATI CMC pops up... how to solve that?