Two months ago we reviewed the ATI All-in-Wonder X800 XT AGP which features the ATI Theater 200 Analog video decoder. After reviewing the Theater 200's performance we were quite happy with the quality of the video that was captured. Today, thanks to VisionTek, we have the opportunity to try out ATI's latest Theater band chip. The 550 Pro, found on the VisionTek Xtasy Theater 550 Pro add-in card, claims the title of the first PCI Express (x1) compatible chip making it an excellent candidate for ATI's next round of All-in-Wonder cards. It is also PCI compatible which is the platform the card we are testing today runs on. The 550 Pro sports a nice array of features such as having a 12-bit video decoder with a 3D comb filter as well as a 5-line 2D comb filter.

The Xtasy Theater 550 Pro requires either Windows XP SP2 or Windows XP Media Center Edition to run. Being geared towards the Media Center OS hints at the desired use of the Theater 550 Pro as a part of a HTPC or Home Theater PC. HTPC's have made a recent surge in popularity as they allow for a wide range of uses in home entertainment and add-in cards equipped with ATI's Theater 550 Pro fit right into this niche.

Some extra features of the 550 Pro:

• Advanced personal video recording capabilities and lower-bitrate MPEG-2 encoding enabling more video content to be recorded to a single DVD-R/DVD-RW disk.
• Built-in digital audio capture enables perfectly synchronized video and audio
• Intelligent noise reduction algorithm cleans up snow and other unsightly artifacts from the video source with dedicated hardware