Problems capturing from VCR with ATI's AIW 9800 PRO

cafa · Member Joined: 24 Mar 2004

OK, there are literally hundreds of posts regarding this problem. Here’s a new one! Please HELP!

A few months ago my mother passed away. In a desperate attempt to keep her “spirit” alive, I have hundreds of hours of wonderful memories of her on VHS and Hi8 tapes that I wanted to edit into one (or multiple DVD’s) to share with my family. In looking (unfortunately I never read the forums on the AIW cards), I bought this card to capture the best possible video. Every “capture” from VHS or Hi8 produces a white flashing effect on the top of the screen. This renders any "capture" unusable for editing....or anything else for that matter!! It doesn’t happen when capturing live video. On THAT note, the card is excellent if you want a PC based DVR. I did not. ATI's advertisement states: “Great for capturing those old home movies from VHS or similar tapes and transferring them to DVD.” Is this false advertisement? Would this be a potential lawsuit? I bought the card in December and can no longer get a refund. This is what I’ve done to TRY to solve the problem with no avail.

Tried 3 different VCR’s
Bought a NEW VCR
Tried 2 Hi8 camcorders
Bought a NEW Hi8 VCR
Switched the “card” to 3 different PC’s
Bought an image stabilizer
Changed the location of my Pc in relation to the VCR’s
Tried plugging the PC and VCR’s in different outlets
Tried and re-installed SEVERAL different drivers for the “card”

…AND FINALLY, prayed and blessed my PC with holly water!

NOTHING!!!!!!

Has anyone out there found a solution to the problem? Forums suggest the problem is with the card’s sensitivity to the macrovison detection. That’s funny, since home movies have NO macrovision. I’ve also tried disabling the macrovision with several patches for older AIW cards with NO luck.

I’ve e-mailed ATI several times within the last 3 months. Basically, I would get a faster response from the White House before a tech (if there even is one) from ATI would answer me.

PLEASE, PLEASE HELP ME!! VERY DESPERATE!! (No wonder people go “postal”)

I have always had NVIDIA based cards. I own 4 PC’s and the all have NVDIA cards and I NEVER had a problem. I just ddid’nt have the capture option with those cards. Instead of forking over $389.00 to ATI, I should have gone with a newer NVIDIA based capture card. Long live NVIDIA and hopefully ATI will either shape up or maybe we’ll watch the ATI development team share a cell with Martha Stewart on CNN.

Carlos

Tommyknocker · Posted: Apr 03, 2004 02:37

I think the flashing at the top of the screen may be overscan, a phenomenon caused by the wheel inside all VCRs. It is engineered to appear at the top of the screen where most televisions do not show it. If you were able to cut off the flashing, or if the TV did not show that portion of the screen would the video still be usable?

If you can capture a sample of what you are seeing, it really could help.

Sorry about your recent loss. My mother means so much to me as well, and cannot imagine her not being around.
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Deck the halls with boughs of holly;
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thecoalman · Member Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Location: Pennsylvania

After pursuing this issue for about a month now it's my conclusion that it's the macrovision detection. Unless you have a perfect or near perfect tape it's been my experience that it is impossible to capture it using a ATI AIW 9800 card. The flaws in a video which can't be seen on a TV to VCR connection are being interpreted as a Macrovision signal by the ATI card. I've been told that a TBC may correct this, I should know shortly because anther person I'm in contact with just purchased one and he is waiting for it to arrive. Regardless of whether it works or not the point is if you can view it normally on your TV you should be able to do so with a capture card.

For more info, comparisons and links I've compiled a page on my website because I became tired of repeating myself to so many people. Besides that pictures are worth a 1000 words. http://www.coaldelivery.com/ati/ I also suggest you follow the link near the bottom of the page, it goes to a page that has two links to two identical clips that are about 5mb each. One was captured using a AIW 9000 and the other using a TV Wonder. The difference to say the least is remarkable.

Comments about my page whether good are bad are most welcome, especially if you are quite knowledgable about this. I'm kind of new to this stuff but I soak up info like a sponge. Please email me directly if you have any. Quick note about this page, I just put it up the other day and since it's the begining of the month my logs are fairly clean. You should see the servers that are hitting it presumably because it has been forwarded by my tech support. The names probably would have gotten lost in the mix and I wouldn't have noticed if was a few days later.

I'm currently in contact with a tech from my computer manufacturer and he informs me that ATI is working on a solution. Yea right.... and I'm going to win a million dollars tomorrow. When I posted the example pics on my website I sent him the link. If you could see a huge smile on a reply e-mail the one he sent me would have been the one. I wonder how many customers they had where they had to replace the board with another one.

For what it's worth here's a link to uncertified beta WDM drivers. They didn't work for me. If I remember correctly the ATI tech stated in the e-mail forwarded to me from the tech im in contact with that they addressed a different issue but to try them anyway.
http://www2.ati.com/drivers/hotfix/tv-capture-wdm-ch2-uncert-6231v1.exe

I'm kind of curious did your ATI card start smoking or melt when you put the holy water on it? I'll bet if it had a head it would have started spinning, screaming profanities and puked on ya.

Here's an example from my page, home movie to the left macrovision protected to the right:

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