Installation
Installation of the card came off without a hitch. The only hic was the multitude of drivers and software that you'll have to install to finally get the full functionality of your card. It’s a little price to pay for having all these multimedia toys at your disposal.
Multimedia Center
As mentioned earlier, the version of the MultiMedia Center provided with the card is version 8.8. Version 9 is available to download on the ATI website. The center is the heart and soul of your video card, allowing you to control all the multimedia functions included withitn from the DVD decoder to the FM tuner.
Accessing the MutiMedia Center is made simple by use of a LaunchPad where all the media options are available: DVD Player, CD Player, File Player, VCD Player, FM Tuner, TV Tuner and a listing of your available Library.
DVD Player
The Multimedia Center offers a DVD player as a standard feature. Standard controls include, fast forward and rewind, chapter forward and back, A/B looping, menu displays, play stop and pause. It also includes parental controls for those of you who want to keep their children away from DVD movies that you judge too taboo for your children to watch, bookmarks, and zoom. Each of these features is accessible through the control panel or the Remote Wonder II. Subtitles are activated through the closed caption button which displays all the available caption types in a drop down menu.
There is also the option of watching your movie in THRUVIEW™. This feature allows you to play your DVD's over the desktop, allowing you to do your "work" while enjoying a movie at the same time. All icons and applications are visible and accessible in this mode.
Finally, there is a Still Capture option that allow you to capture an image to file, save to desktop, print or enlarge.
CD Player
As mentioned earlier, the Mutimedai Center suite offers a CD player. Like many others, this player offers the same standard features such as play, pause, stop and the rest.
VCD Player
Much in the same style as the DVD player, you can play your VCDs with the Mutimedia Center. All the options from the DVD player are avaialble at your disposal.
