| ati Interview with Stephen orr- conducted by Stephen "shrink" white |
Stephen Orr
Stephen "Shrink" White – welcome to this Q & A session. Over the past month I have been collecting questions from users at Driverheaven and Rage3d to pose to you. I have chosen those that seem most relevant or that have not been answered fully in the past. Thank you very much for agreeing ahead of time to field the questions that I have prepared for you. So, starting from the top, here we go!
Stephen Orr:
First, I’d like to thank Stephen and Driver Heaven for giving
me the opportunity to speak to the ALL-IN-WONDER user community through
this interview. I am no stranger to the Rage3D discussion forums, but
sometimes a nice organized list is a more effective way of reaching
a broad audience.
Stephen "Shrink" White: EAZYLOOK in its’ first incarnation in MMC 8.5 looks to have a great deal of promise. What improvements or added features can we see added to it? What plans are there for the EAZYLOOK interface to be more customizable so that it can be used as a front-end for other multimedia applications such as in the freeware myHTPC and such as exists in Windows XP Media Center? Stephen Orr:
We have quite the roadmap planned for EAZYLOOK. MMC 8.6 added a few
refinements to EAZYLOOK, mostly polishing things like confirming that
people really want to eject the DVD and such. The big addition to EAZYLOOK
in MMC 8.6 is supporting Channel Surfing, something we just didn’t
have time for in version 8.5. MMC 8.7 will have some other additions
to EAZYLOOK including some specifically for our European customers.
Stephen "Shrink" White: The incorporation of the EAZYLOOK interface in the latest web-released MMC isn’t yet compatible with MULTVIEW – how will that be addressed in the future? What sorts of enhancements can combined AIW + TV Wonder users expect as this was a much-vaunted feature when the AIW 9700 was released. Stephen Orr: MULTVIEW and Channel Surfing are two features that didn’t make it into the first cut of EAZYLOOK. Channel Surfing is in MMC 8.6. MULTVIEW is planned for version 8.7 (oops – was that a leak?)
Stephen "Shrink" White: ATI’s own .vcr encoding format is currently limited in that it seems to not be readily editable. When it is converted to an mpg file through the Multimedia Library, the resulting file still has compatibility problems (for example with Windows Media Encoder 9). While capture format is user configurable at present, considerable effort needs to be expended by the user to get decent quality divx/mpeg4 captures so many users opt for using other applications such as virtualdub. What plans are there to more fully support encoding in other popular and more universal formats such as mpeg4? How about adopting a different default encoding format such as Windows Media 9? Stephen Orr:
ATI is working to enable importing of .VCR files directly into Video
Editing packages, so this is a problem we are working to solve. In addition
when we export from VCR to MPEG2 we generate 100% industry compliant
(often DVD compliant) streams that are compatible with a wide range
of third party MPEG editing applications. If a user prefers to use a
different format as the default for recording they are more than welcome
to. The Initialization Wizard includes the ability to configure the
default with four settings, ATI VCR, MPEG, AVI, and Windows Media 9.
Stephen "Shrink" White: While on the topic of encoding, one user asked whether it is possible to add a deinterlacer in the MMC that support divx and wmv9 and will ATI support the upcoming High-Mat format which will allow wmv9 files to play on some of the upcoming Panasonic DVD players? Stephen Orr:
ATI has gone to a lot of effort to enable all of the codecs that our
customers want to use. We enable third party codecs through their published
APIs and allow them to access our hardware through similar, industry
standard, APIs. Further we focus our efforts on ensuring that our own
codecs can fully exploit the abilities of our own hardware.
Stephen "Shrink" White: Are there any plans to allow users more control over overscan options? Stephen Orr: Actually this question is out of my area of expertise, so I asked both the marketing and engineering groups who handle these issues. This is what they had to say… “ATI has examined over scan support from a traditional implementation point of view and as a flexible user configurable option. Ongoing development will provide both options in a future driver release.”
Stephen "Shrink" White: Observant users have noted that MMC 8.6 is being released with the new AIW 9600. When will it be available for other AIW users, how can an upgrade cd be ordered, and will anyone qualify for a free upgrade (e.g. AIW 9700 Pro or AIW 9800 users)? Stephen Orr: The plan is to Web post MMC 8.6 as part of a Catalyst update. It will be a free upgrade to people who have purchased the original upgrade CD, or who have purchased a recent ALL-IN-WONDER. I can’t say exactly when, but it is not too far in the future.
Stephen "Shrink" White: While we’re on the topic of MMC 8.6, it appears that a DVD burning plug-in is being included in the MMC. Will the option to burn VCD and SVCD be included as well? Many users would like a simple record and burn function – how complicated will this be in 8.6? Stephen Orr: This feature isn’t one of those things that can be added as a free upgrade. MMC’s burning capabilities use Sonic Solutions’ AuthorScript authoring engine so we will not be Web posting this support. Our support does include VCD burning in the first release; we do not currently include SVCD. The approach is not a “direct to disc” one. We feel a better user experience is to allow the user to select a number of files and burn them all at once, as such MMC 8.6 supports burning from the Media Library, select the media type, add content, and burn.
Stephen "Shrink" White: Are there any plans to include a function in the MMC to skip commercials or to allow users to configure how many seconds is automatically fast forwarded when the FF button is pressed on the MMC? Stephen Orr: This is not a feature in the MMC 8.6 file player (or 8.7 for that matter) but I agree that the file player should be able to navigate ATI VCR files in the same way ATI’s TV player can do while in TV-ON-DEMAND. The TV player of course already supports this with settings of 1 frame, 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 & 2 minutes (right click on the skip forward / backward button).
Stephen "Shrink" White: Does ATI plan any alternative to the Guide Plus scheduling software that it has traditionally bundled with its’ cards? Stephen Orr: I’m afraid I will have to resort to a “middle of the road” kind of answer here. ATI believes that MMC needs a very tightly integrated EPG, more tightly than it is today. In addition it need support in all of the major geographies we ship to. We are actively investigating options to meet this requirement.
Stephen "Shrink" White What is the status of digital 5.1 output and encoding support in the MMC? Stephen Orr: The AIW cards include S-PDIF output that is currently used exclusively for DVD playback. We can pass-through Dolby Digital, DTS, and LPCM on that port. We do not make the AIW port available to the system as a generic output driver. In addition ATI’s DVD player is built on top of the Cyberlink DVD decoder and navigator that provides excellent support for sound cards that support S/PDIF. As far as encoding in multi-channel, this is not something that we support. As television is at best stereo we don’t really see a demand for anything more than stereo encoding.
Stephen "Shrink" White: Fullstream has only been adopted by Real Media and in the DIVX player. Can you speculate as to what is interfering with it being adopted more broadly and what we can look forward to seeing in the future? In a related question, one user asked whether or not Videosoap can be applied to the tv image as it is displayed. Stephen Orr: What is not understood (I think) is that the technology we call FULLSTREAM (which is used to improve picture quality on playback) is specific to each individual codec. DivX (which is essentially MPEG-4) uses a different algorithm to REAL, which in turn would be different on say WMV9 or some other codec. It is not a “generic” thing. As a result, enabling a particular streaming technology requires considerable engineering effort both by ATI and by the vendor of the specific codec. We are looking at ways to improve the VideoSoap feature, both through new, more powerful filters and enabling it for live TV.
Stephen "Shrink" White: As more and more pressure is coming from the RIAA and MPAA to build anti-piracy protection into software and the TCPA’s move towards hardwiring this protection into computers, what can we expect from ATI when it comes to ongoing attempts to protect digital media rights? How is ATI balancing the rights of the producers of this media with those of the consumers who want to insure fair use of the products they purchase? Stephen Orr: ATI makes money by delivering products that people want to use. At the same time we must, as an international corporation deliver products that comply with all regulatory laws whether that is FCC emissions requirements, or DMCA laws. Currently ATI’s video software is designed to work only with content that can be recorded by a VCR. We do not record protected content, nor do we protect the content we record. In the future, if we choose to deliver a product that works with protected content, we will, of course, protect it. We have people in various areas of ATI monitoring the directions the industry is moving as well as working in various industry associations to make content generally more accessible as that is better business for ATI.
Stephen "Shrink" White: What plans are there for the Multimedia Division of ATI to start developing software which can be used in non-Windows environments, particularly on the various Linux distributions? Stephen Orr: From the driver side ATI is quite involved in the Linux community in both the Open and Closed source areas. We are not however currently working on developing the Multimedia Center for Linux.
Stephen "Shrink" White: When MMC 8.5 was released and people wanted to purchase an upgrade, they needed to order a CD from ATI. Many complained about having to do this and, though they were willing to pay for the upgrade, found that it was not possible to order it because they were outside of North America, or simply wished to have a more convenient way of obtaining the software upgrade. Are there any plans to provide users with the ability to pay for major upgrades and then download the software? Stephen Orr:
ATI’s policy of free upgrades is well known. Unlike many companies
the hard work that ATI puts into adding functionality to the product
over time is made available to our customers at no charge. EAZYLOOK
is a prime example of ATI adding a major new feature and giving it to
our customers for free.
Stephen "Shrink" White: Now that a new revision of the Remote Wonder is being sold with the AIW 9600, what can existing Remote Wonder users look forward to in terms of further customizability/programmability? Stephen Orr: That’s an interesting question. When the Remote Wonder II proposal was put on my desk, I thought “great, another remote to support, and a year from now we might see yet another one” so I put it to the development staff to go back and ensure that the ATI software that manages the remote be developed so that a single binary could be used across multiple different hardware solutions. They did it. Indeed if you plug in two different remotes (a Remote Wonder I and a Remote Wonder II) at the same time, they both work... brings new meaning to the idea of remote wars…. To answer the question, this means that enhancements to one remote will (in most cases) be delivered for both. The exceptions will be where a newer remote has abilities that the older one lacks (new buttons for example).
Stephen "Shrink" White: Speaking of programmability, has any thought been put to permitting user-defined keys in the MMC (one user reported that he liked using the +/- keys for channel changing rather than the down and up arrows). Stephen Orr: The change to the channel controls, which has frustrated some, was done in MMC 8.1 as part of a general “unification” across features, however at this time we do not plan to support editing of the custom key maps for MMC.
Stephen "Shrink" White: I know that you can’t comment on unreleased products, but in a general sense, can you comment on plans for the TV Wonder line of cards and what ATI’s vision is for them in the future vis a vis hardware encoding, HDTV, and digital tuner support? As you know, there are many users out there who love the multimedia capabilities of the AIW line of cards but want to keep up to date on the latest GPU advances for gaming. A line of TV Wonder cards that would more closely match the multimedia capabilities of the AIW line would be a welcome addition. Comments? Stephen Orr: Certainly it’s true that I cannot talk about unannounced products (unreleased is a different matter :-) and we certainly have not announced anything in the area of PC DTV. As to the TV Wonder, I already indicated that MMC Web postings will support TV Wonder going forward so we clearly support the TV Wonder. The rest I think I answered in the first interview question.
Stephen "Shrink" White: How long will ATI continue to support users of older AIW cards (cards predating the AIW Radeon)? Can users of these older cards expect any updates to the MMC that will benefit them or is it time to upgrade? Stephen Orr:
This comes down to what the definition of “support” is.
To ATI “supported” means that we actively test and fix bugs
against the product. This is already not the case for the Rage128 versions
(and older) of the ALL-IN-WONDER. Unless there is a specific technical
reason we do not block the installer (or the features) on the older
cards, but with an unsupported card the software must be taken “AS
IS”. (Note that EAZYLOOK requires a RADEON class GPU.)
Stephen "Shrink" White: Should users give up on any hopes that the Vivo line of ATI cards will be resurrected in the Built-By ATI series of cards? Stephen Orr: Given that there are “Built by ATI” RADEON VIVO cards out there, this is still a card we are supporting. I know that recent versions of MMC have had an issue with VIVO cards, but I believe that has been resolved. As far as new VIVO cards, I honestly can’t say, partly because I don’t keep track of the VIVO plans and partly because I can’t talk about our unannounced roadmap.
Stephen "Shrink" White: A frequent complaint I see in the forums at Driverheaven and Rage3d is that, when they enable Timeshifting mode, their TV display zooms in on a quadrant of the tv image and is unusable. This bug has cropped up repeatedly since the feature was first offered in the MMC but not everyone appears to be affected by it. Can you explain why this happens and what is/can be done to rectify it? Stephen Orr:
This is an example of where forums like Driver Heaven and Rage3D are
helping to improve ATI’s product. This was not something that
is easily reproduced. Some people see it (and can’t avoid it)
while still others never see the issue. The web postings often allow
us to narrow down to specific hardware configurations and then allow
us to reproduce and resolve the bug. We think the issue is resolved
in MMC 8.6, and will be watching the forums to confirm that when the
next MMC goes live.
Stephen "Shrink" White: Users have reported compatibility problems with the MMC and a variety of sound cards/chips such as the audio accompanying the nForce chipset and the Revolution 7.1 line of audio cards. Is this related to different implementations of the AC97 codec such as Creative did with the Audigy line or is this due to some other problem? While it appears that newer drivers from NVIDIA may have addressed the nForce problem, is ATI aware of the ongoing audio compatibility issues with many of the sound cards/onboard sound solutions and are their any fixes in the works? Stephen Orr: As I believe you know we try to work as closely as possible with sound card vendors to resolve these issues in a way that is beneficial to end users. This is not always a simple thing to do, and the development cycle means that when these issues do crop up, they often take more than one release to resolve. It seems that AC-97 as a specification is fairly open to interpretation which is leading to “unique” solutions, and that leads to incompatibilities with MMC. We are looking at some long term solutions to this issue, but in the meantime the best thing you can do is report the problems and we will investigate them.
Stephen "Shrink" White: Finally, can you share any enticing information for current and prospective ALL-IN-WONDER or TV Wonder users concerning the future of the Multimedia Center suite of applications? C’mon – give us a scoop here. ;-) Stephen Orr:
There is so much stuff going on here, what with new chips and new technologies,
but what can I leak without getting into trouble? Well one thing I know
I can get away with is the fact that starting with version 8.6 we formalized
the MMC release cycle. As a result we will be producing a new version
of MMC every 2 months (about every other Catalyst) and it is our intention
to Web-post all of them! We are just getting over the hurdles of this
new release process so it may take a couple of releases to get the steady
pace established. Stephen "Shrink" White: Thanks for the invitation! I will take you up on it the next time I am in Toronto. Just make sure that you have the lights on and some Alberta beef on the barbecue ?. On behalf of Driverheaven, I would like to thank you and ATI for your straightforward answers to the questions posed and in making yourselves available to end users in the way you have over the past year. I think I can speak for all videocard enthusiasts when I say that it is much appreciated and we look forward to it continuing!
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