The SAA7134 and Windows98. Not able to use a program that supports AVI segmenting!

[scharfis_brain]

I have a Windoze98se System with a Cinergy 400 plugged in.

I can't get Virtualdub running in no way.
it either displays a green image
or displays it at low-res in the capture...
Even the registry Key-tree that should contain the key "cappreview" is not available.

all other capture programs I know of do not support the very important AVI segmenting feature, cause win98 cannot handle files larger than 4GB.

iuVCR supports segmenting, but it always drops frames, when it starts writing to a new file. so it is useless

virtualVCR does not support this feature, like fly2000

christv needs to be bought to get the segmenting feature, but I do not pay for something I do not know about its behaviour...

so, are there some hints for me getting virtualdub runnning under win98se with my saa7134?

[vhelp]

Have you gotten your capture (via virtualdub) to work yet ?? Anyways.

You also forgot to mention that iuVCR does not lock fps (ie, 29.970)

I'm sure you know that AVI_IO supports segmentation for VFW drivers.

You could try OTHER drivers from other makers that support this card
and/or chipset. Below, are some Download examples. I hope they do
work for you :)

.
.

You can try these drivers...

Driver for: Win 95/98/ME
ftp://ftp.terratec.de/Receiver/Cinergy400TV/Update/Cinergy400TV_App_Drv_2.20_98SE_ME.exe
* driver-TERRATEC_Tv_Tuner_Cinergy_400_TV-24587-5.html

Beta Driver:
http://supporten.terratec.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=getit&lid=845
* Cinergy400TV_Drv_App_2000_XP_3.63.exe

TERRATEC Tv Tuner Cinergy 400 TV 3.23:
* ftp://ftp.terratec.de/Receiver/Cinergy400TV/Update/Cinergy400TV_App_Drv_2.20_98SE_ME.exe


I've always found that its best NOT to install (on top of) other drivers.
Such as VFW. These usually have to be CLEARED, all traces of, from hard drives
and Registries. I use Hauppage's HCWCLEAR.EXE app to do this. And I run
through ALL the options and clear all traces of VFW. Search on Google.com for app.

But, whenever I'm installing an new device, (ie, a capture card) I will always
do the following:

* uninstall all VFW drivers (as in above steps)
* uninstall (previous) Capture card App and Drivers
* reset Graphics Card to Standard VGA Driver and reboot into 640x480 mode.
* Reboot, then.. (because you want to make sure your system boots up w/out any
... issues and in 640 x 480 mode.
.
* Then, you Yank out your previous Capture Card, and Reboot
.
.. then ..
.
* install or reset Graphics Card driver to YOUR graphic card drivers (and set it
... to 1024 x 768 resolution as you had it previously) and Reboot again, so that
... things take off properly in this mode.
.
.. then ..
.
* AS AN OPTION: copy your Cap Car's drivers to your harddrive (just in case of crashes)
.
.. then ..
.
* install new Capture card into pc.
... proceed to press CANCEL (if possible) (<-- don't install any drivers yet)
* Now, use your CD-ROM disk and install your drivers using the app (of course)
... and make sure you are using the highest version of directX, which is usually
... something like directX 8.1 or higher, these days.

Note 1, the reason why I copy my WHOLE CDROM disk to my harddrive is (based on actual
experience) it's eaiser to reinstall, if issues occur or something happens and you
no longer have access to your CD-ROM drive (as I often experience)

Note 2, ..you could substute the VFW drivers for the ones I listed above, and see
if they work.

I wish I could get my AIW-9600 card or Pinnacle Studio AV/DV card to work inside
my Win98 Gold setup :( but neither one will work :(

But, good luck anyways,
-vhelp

[IanD]

Originally posted by vhelp
You could try OTHER drivers from other makers that support this card
and/or chipset. Below, are some Download examples. I hope they do
work for you :)
-vhelp
I've been having similar problems to Scharfis, although in my case it is with a SAA7134 based Flyvideo3000 capture card.

The big problem is that file segmentation support under Win98 requires VFW drivers, but Philips refuses to release their VFW drivers to the public (even though they have them) and require the manufacturer to offer that functionality (which they won't with WDM drivers being flavour-of-the-month).

Although I did manage to get the WDM drivers working with AVI_IO, the VFWWDM wrapper and registry hacks once, it was very unstable and I could not repeat it.

Unfortunately the drivers you point to are WDM and not VFW and thus will not work properly with VFW applications.

WDM drivers and applications have their own problems under even Win98SE, so there is no joy there either.

If VFW drivers were made available, these devices would be useable under Win98, but as it stands they are not.

Ian

[vhelp]

Hi IanD,

Sorry for very long post. But my other formum is down and it's very
early for me and I have lots of energy :)


I understand. I too had WDM working under vdub for a short while.., all
until I lost my mobo and some I/O cards. Don't know what happend. But
I lost lots. I had a few months of "system stability" truble for a while.
Now, I'm back up and running, but with a strange new mobo that I just
don't understand. I'm not an over-clocker person, but this board is still
strange to me. It's a BIOSTAR M7NCD Pro. Anyways.
But I no longer have wdm working inside vdub. Now, it just crashes out
and only wants VFW.


VFW and WDM...

I'm a long time fan of VFW. But, ever since my Winfast TV2000 XP card,
(WDM) its ben flawless capturing. (Well, I did have a few rough edges
w/ system mobo (above) and it's one of the I/O cards I mentioned above,
that died - this was a REV B board) Now, I have a REV C board,
which seems to be working rather fine. With this board, it allows me to
capture at NTSC 768 x 480 and when I switch to full screen (cause I like to
run to the toilet just when things are interesting to watch) it does to with
no glitches under 768 mode. Everything else just glitches, and then finally
works to full screen. It's just a little hickup I guess. Anyways.


Another Graphics and Capture card in one...

In addition to my system mobo failiour (or headackes) another one of my I/O
cards that failed was my ATI-Rage Fury Pro (graphics and capture card) This
was my main support for all my MPEG tweaks (I've mentioned this before, though
mostly over at vcdhelp) that this allows me to tweak "encoding quality" by
the technique of it's ATI Rage Theater chip's overlay feature. This feature
allowed me to look at the video source and see more accurately the color
level of the pixels. This aided me into better handling of the dark scenes.
This is not a technique that has ever been used anywheres before, but I felt
like sharing it here (case I didn't already) though I did over at vcdhelp,
some time ago. Anyways. You can only do this with the Theater chip. Believe
me. I've tried with many other graphics cards (some borrowed) and even other
ATI cards. None of them can do what the Rage Fury Pro's Theater chip can.
Anyways, thats why my darker scenes always looked clean, without any noticable
DCT blocks you'd get from encoding dark scenes.. ie, credits.., when you
encode them. Anyways.
.
With my Rage Fury Pro card, it is setup with the WDM drivers. I didn't
know at the time, that they were installed. I always thought that it was the
VFW drivers, because before all the nonsense w/ my mobo, it WAS VFW driver
based, cause I remembered using it under vdub and avi_io many times.
But, now it is using WDM.
.
I've used virtualVCR (a great program, but the developer ABSOLUTELY REFUSES
to intagrate segmentation capturing - cause he feels that we should move on
to W2K or XP or Higher, which I disagree with, because I have other setups
for thise Higehr OS's, but my main capture setup (tweaked) is W98Gold.
I still use virtualVCR, because of it's:

* zero frame drops
* audio sync (to my knowledge)
* locked in FPS (iuVCR does not lock it's fps.. ie, 29.970 will NOT lock)


Segmentations...

Yes. I agree with you. There's no better support for this feature under any
Windows 98 version (ie, Gold and SE) Mine is w98gold. Anyways.
.
Between virtualdub (vdub) and avi_io, these two were my main capture apps..,
even for my DC10+ card. I've never ben able to hack my DC10+ card to capture
beyond 640 x 480 ever. I know it can be, because if I took this card to
PAL land, I could capture at 768 x 480 resolution. So, it's there, but the
driver is restriced to 640 instead. I would love to give this card a good
720 x 480 (or even 704) a go at capturing. This card is flawless in it's
capture quality - no damn Line Noise. Captured source is crystal clean. Anyways.
.
The only WDM based software captrue app for any OS (inc. w98) that I'm aware
of (and used) are:

* iuVCR

Unfortunately, it suffers from a few bugs..

* NO LOCKED FPS (virtualVCR locks fps.. ie, 29.970 WILL lock in)
* audio sync (I'm not sure of, but given the above, probably won't)

It's segmentations were flawlessly. You can segment at exactly whatever MB
limit you set it to (unless you use a compression codec, which will throw off
the actual MB, due to the compression - each segment will have it's own total
compression ratio)
Warning.. - it's latest version has a few bugs. I highly do not
recommend installing it. Keep your older version, and wait for a fix. I had
so much problems with it. One of things that BUGGed me, was it grayed out
the "Smart Tee Filter" of my Winfast card. I could not change it. There
were a few others, but they escape my memory.
.
It's really too bad that the developer of virtualVCR refuses to incorporate
segmentation into his app. It truely would be a gold mine. But, for now
though, until iuVCR can fix the above bugs, and Lock FPS and Audio sync,
who knows what's next.
.
There's another "tiny" wdm app I saw, but I don't think it's got segmentation.
I'll have to do a search on my hd. I know I saw it somewhere's. Anyways.


@ all

I will continue my search for segmentation for WDM (but also for VFW too)
and post back, if I find anything to this forum.

-vhelp