Winfast 2000xp Tvtuner...btwdm sourceforge drivers

[kastro68]

Hi,

I managed to get the winfast 2000xp tv tuner to work with it's origianl drivers and software...however, I read on this forum that the bt sourceforge drivers give better quality and more options.

However, after installing the bt drivers under windoes I get a bluescreen and memory dump. Could it be because I am choosing the wrong tuner option during setup...I selected "Philips Pal" for the tuner option.

I tried rearranging the tuner by putting the cards in different slots because at first I thought it was an IRQ conflict.

I checked the list of supported hardware and btwdm drivers says that it supports the winfast tvtuner.

I am certain that the card uses the bt878 chip...can anyone confirm this?

Winfast TvTuner also came with a remote...would I be able to use other software with the remote? Eg. is it possible to set the remote to control winamp, or media player classic?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[BruceL]

Yes, the chip is an 878. As for the remote, check out Girder at http://www.girder.nl Among other things, I even use it to remote my ATI AIW Radeon. :-)

[kastro68]

Thanks for the Girder info...this is the first I have ever heard of it.

However, I still can't install the Btwincap drivers without getting bluescreened under winxpeee...it crashes while installing the 'crossbar'

[BruceL]

Before installing Btwincap, did you use it's first screen option to "Uninstall any previously installed driver associated with the Bt8xx hardware"? If not choose that option first. Then reboot but keep canceling when Windows says it has found new hardware. Then start the Btwincap installer again selecting "Install this driver".

[jggimi]

If you read the installation instructions very, very carefully, you'll see somewhere in there that the devices need to be set up as "Other" devices -- with the big yellow question mark -- prior to install.

My system that has my BT878 card runs WME; and to install the driver, 1) I first run the install application to remove any other driver, 2) reboot, 3) Windows find the two devices, 4) I allow it to attempt to find drivers and fail, to 5) ensure that they appear in the Device manager as Other / Unsupported.

(Pressing CANCEL or the Escape key doesn't do that for WME -- it won't put them in the device list, and will rediscover devices at every boot.)

The exact procedure to get the devices in the device list may vary depending on your Windows OS. I don't have XP on any platform, so couldn't give exact guidance.

[kastro68]

I got the the btwincap drivers to work with your help.

However, I realised that the Winfast PVR software is not supported by those drivers :(

I was too lazy to have to program the remote for some other software, so I had to revert back to the old drivers... with great difficulty too, windoes refused to recognise the old drivers-->reformat, reinstall windoes.


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For those who are contemplating getting this card, here is my opinion:

The winfast tv2000xp tuner is a great card, and very cheap too. It doesn't work well with virtualdub, but works excellent with virtual VCR. I still can't get this tv/cap card to capture at a resolution other than 320X240 with the bundled drivers...however, you can cap at 768x576 with VirtualVCR. You can also cap in Mjpeg and huffyuv as well.


The bundled PVR software also lets you save in Mpeg2 format, which produces decent results for a smaller size (since audio is captured in MP2 and not PCM)

For capturing TV programs, the bundled software is great because all you have to do is press the record button. However, I recommend using Virtual VCR for composite or svideo input.

My only qualms are that the drivers can be a real bitch to installl and uninstall... make sure you read the readme's that come with the card.

The cap quality is also very good, but I think this is because I get really good reception in my area.