TVSquad

It must be CableCard week. Gizmodo got a good look at Niveus's new CableCard receiver, and the folks at AnandTech got to try out the upcoming ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner -- with mixed results, to put it mildly.

For starters, it took 2 days to get the CableCards working with a Dell PC. And that's with the help of representatives from Dell, Time Warner Cable, and several phone calls to Microsoft and AMD. Most users aren't going to have to sit through all of this, because the TV tuner is an OEM-only device, and will come preinstalled with selected devices. But since Dell and other computer manufacturers can't control everything, you might be on a first name basis with the cable repair guy shortly after you order an ATI CableCard system.

When the new tuner works, it does what you'd expect: allows you to receive digital cable channels on your TV. This is a one-way data stream, so no video on demand or electronic program guide for you. But since you can only install these cards on Windows Vista systems with Vista Media Center, that's probably not a problem.

Right now, the tuner is a little buggy. Sometimes it has trouble picking up digital cable channels, but that should be fixed before AMD officially releases the product. The bigger issue is whether AMD can guarantee it won't take at least two days for every users to configure the system.