Back at the end of November we reviewed the AIW X1800XL and found it to be a pretty much perfect product. It provided some excellent gaming performance and threw in some great TV functionality with digital and analogue tuners and masses of connectivity options.

The X1800AIW looks to have had a short stay at the top of the AIW product line as today we are now testing the newer higher spec AIW X1900. So for those of you who invested in the AIW X1800, you may want to look away now. The rest of you, lets take a look at just how good the newest AIW is…

AIW Software Bundle

The X1900 AIW comes with one of the most packed software bundles out there. The middle CD pictured below is the ATI software CD featuring Catalyst 5.13 and Multimedia Centre 9.13. On the left you can see Adobe Premier, the video editing software. On the right of the picture you can see Photoshop Elements, a cut down version of Photoshop which is ideal for basic image editing.

The inclusion of Premier in the ATI bundle adds real value as it has a retail value of $85. Unfortunately it really isn’t very intuitive and requires that you sit down and follow tutorials before you can even think about coming up with a final DVD. Thinking back we can remember ATI bundling Sonic MyDVD with their products in the past. Having used MyDVD 6.1 recently we believe it’s a far more suitable product for bundling with the AIW’s. Its quick and more importantly intuitive so whether you’re a novice or reasonably knowledgeable you can create your own DVD’s from AIW captures far more easily than with Premier.

“Adobe Premier Element’s main interface…not exactly self explanatory…”

Things are a lot better on the ATI software front though. ATI multimedia centre is one of the most configurable media suites out there and really is all you need to manage your system. We’ve looked at the software suite in previous reviews, including the AIW X1800 review, and as there haven’t been any major changes since then we won’t be covering it here today. In summary the suite allows you to watch and pause live TV etc. Listen to Live radio, play and convert media files and organise your media library. It’s not the nicest looking software but it does what it’s meant to and does it well.

There is one minor issue we have with the MMC 9.13 though. And that’s that pause recording is still missing. Pause recording was in previous versions of MMC and allows you to cut the adverts out of TV broadcasts with only 2 mouse clicks. This was an excellent feature and we hope that ATI do bring it back.

AIW Hardware Bundle.

As always ATI give you all the cables you’ll need with their AIW, lets take a look at what comes with the European model:

First up we have the main AIW connector, from left to right you can see the audio pass-through connector which feeds audio to the Scart(out) connector (second from left) and out to external speakers. The 3rd connector is the input connector for the external inputs and finally we have a standard VGA out on the right.

The above connectors attach to the following connector which plugs into the AIW and screws into place:

The next connector is a converter which allows you to change your DVI out into a HDTV connector and is capable of 480i to 1080i. This could well be one of the best connectors bundled in terms of future connectivity.

Next up is ATI’s input domino block. The connector plugs into the main AIW connector and allows you to connect an external device (audio and video) to your AIW.

Finally on the connectivity front we have the radio antenna.

So far its pretty clear that this is a great bundle however ATI aren’t done yet. They also bundle the latest Remote Wonder with the AIW X1900. The Remote Wonder Plus is a lightweight remote which uses radio frequency’s rather than infra red. This means that the unit has a much wider area of use, you can even use it through walls if you so desire.

For those of you who are interested in setting up a system based on Windows Media Centre Edition you’ll be pleased to know that the Remote Wonder Plus is fully compatible with that OS.