ATI TV Wonder + Video Capture = teh sUck!

[h00z]

I just got an ATI TV Wonder to use for TV watching and video capture. I went with the ATI card because of my good success with my old All-in-Wonder Radeon, but man was that a bad idea.

So far I have tried ATV2000, FlyCap, VirtualDub (with and without timer), MMC 7.1, PowerVCR II, and VirtualVCR. I have had mixed results with each program and none seem to work the way I need them to.

My main goal here is to capture TV shows (for now) at a resolution of 640x480 using the PicVideo MJPEG CODEC, timer functions are a big bonus. That automatically rules-out PowerVCR II and MMC 7.1 as I can't specify a CODEC. VirtualDub captures okay, and I can choose my CODEC, but I can't seem to set any vertical resolution over 240 pixels high.

In a few of the other programs (VirtualVCR, ATV200) I can set the vertical resolution over 240 pixels, but I'm having issues with audio sync. It seems that I just can't win.

I guess the point of this whole post is to see if anyone here has had better success capturing with this card and what application they are using. Maybe I should just return it and get something else... Capping at 320x240 is just not appealing to me at all :(

[h00z]

Okay... iuVCR seems to do exactly what I want, but I am still having audio problems! :(

Does anyone use iuVCR? What settings work for you?

[auenf]

you should be able to install MMC 7701 on the tv wonder, more info on that in rage3d forums.

Enf...

[1loser]

I just purchased the ATI all-in-wonder 7500 and since I'm new to video capturing I don't know what to expect. I got the best results using virtualdub and saving as uncompressed but that takes up about 1 Gig for 1 minute of video until I encode it into a MPEG-2. My biggest problem is I can't get the audio to work otherwise the quality when I cap at 720x480 was very good when I convert into a SVCD. A SVCD (480x480) of 54 sec used 13 mb's with no audio. When I use ATI's tv-capture-wdm-6-13-10-6125.exe program the audio works but is out of sycn when I cap as an uncompressed avi file. When I cap directly to MPEG-2 the audio is in sync but the quality is not very good.

I'm mostly interested in using this as a TV an as an upgrade from a 8mb AGP nVidia card but it would be nice to be able to cap good quality from TV.

Update: the audio is working with "VDub sync"

[QuakerOatz]

Use Linux.

I have your card (ATI TV Wonder pci) and the thing captures full 640x480 video 30fps crystal clear in mpeg2, stereo 128bit audio. If you feel like taking the plunge, I can give you my config files. I use Debian GNU/Linux.

[Mark7]

h00z:

I have the AIW 7500 and get good results capturing at either 720x480 or 640x480, 2.99 mbs video bit rate, 22 khz audio, then running the capture through VirtualDub and resizing to 320x240 using (typically) a +15 or +20 Smoothing filter then saving the resultant file using DivX5 compression. The DivX5 Codec results in very nice full screen playback under either XP Pro or Win98SE using Media Player 8, Media Player 6.4, or DivX Player2 or Sasami.

I had become very frustrated trying to wind up with a high resolution final file that looked very good - it always seems a bit more "grainy" then the method above.

[1loser]

Originally posted by h00z
My main goal here is to capture TV shows (for now) at a resolution of 640x480 using the PicVideo MJPEG CODEC, timer functions are a big bonus. That automatically rules-out PowerVCR II and MMC 7.1 as I can't specify a CODEC.You can specify the PicVideo MJPEG CODEC with ATI Multimedia Center 7.7.0.1. This picture will show that.

http://home.san.rr.com/oneloser/ati-multimedia-center-7.7.0.1.jpg

[hoozdapimp]

i use this card also, and i find that the ati digital recorder does the best job. i use 2.3mbps and capture straight to mpeg2 format.

now my question to you all is what (if any) filters do you use to smooth the video file up? (im recording at 480x480 tv)

[Herske]

Okay... iuVCR seems to do exactly what I want, but I am still having audio problems!

What kind of problems? Check the audio level, check whether the mixer settings are right.

If the capture is out of sync, then just set "master stream: audio" - quick'n'dirty, but it works :).

[evilhomer]

I have 7.0 on there using the method from rage3d, but there's no instructions (that i found) to go to 7.0.1. Do you have a method auenf?

method: http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33620420&pagenumber=1

I've been thinking of trying 7.0.1 just by substituting it for 7.0 in the instructions, but 7.0 is working right now, so I don't want to mess it up. (of course I have a problem with audio I described in forum post http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32337 it takes a workaround, but it works for now...)

[auenf]

if its not broke, dont fix it?

i should take that advice, when mmc 7.7 first came out i installed it on my radeon VIVO, of course that completely broke capturing, altho it worked on AIW's.

Enf...

[evilhomer]

read my other post :(

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32337

[TE_X]

Originally posted by QuakerOatz
Use Linux.

I have your card (ATI TV Wonder pci) and the thing captures full 640x480 video 30fps crystal clear in mpeg2, stereo 128bit audio. If you feel like taking the plunge, I can give you my config files. I use Debian GNU/Linux.

I use a ATI TV Wonder PCI with iuVCR. When I capture at 640x460, I get little horizontal line artifacts during fast motion in both capture and in preview. iuVCR seems to be the only program that will allow this card to even capture at 640x480. Is there anyway, Linux or otherwise to get a clear capture at 640x480 with this card?

QuakerOatz: can you send me your config, I've almost given up on XP...

[ima2hd]

I mainly purchased my ATI aiw 8500 for it's good graphix capability and to watch tv. I had a ATI aiw 128 Pro before. I never could get the digital vcr to work with the old 128. I'd have video, but no audio. And now that I have the new card the same problem. Quite frustrating. Also the tv tuner is not as good as the old 128. I have some laserdisks I'd like to capture using this card and put on svcd. It sounds like it is just a lousy capture card. But if anyone knows why I get know sound when I use the digital vcr feature please let me know. Best Regards, Will

[JeromeERome]

I have an ATI AIW Radeon 7500. I too had problems capturing quality video using the programs you mentioned without dropping frames a lot or ending up with crappy quality video. Until I tried Ulead's Video Studio 6. I now use that for all my captures and have eliminated framedrops or artifacts or anything. Im capturing to uncompressed AVI at an avg of 16MB/sec on a 7200RPM drive.