Creative labs VBRT300 - my new 9 year old ISA vidcap card

[PidGin128]

Hello , a Friend of mine recently gave me [ with no explaination at all , or previous notice / request ^^ ] a 9 year old Creative Video Blaster RT300.
Now this is a cool looking capture card with 3 composite , and one s-vid ports to capture source video from - and i have succesfully installed it into my win98 machine along with the drivers i found on creative's website[ my old machine, since this card is ISA and my pc new[er] pc only has PCI ><; ]. the card will show in the systems device list , but on an attempt to get any video from it , the pc will freeze [ probably because i set jumper to bad memory range , tying up system ], or not see anything at all [ 'cept a black source ] when using MS's "vidcap32.exe".

my question i suppose , is some help with the jumper settings , which i am completely helpless with - i need to set the jumpers to read
~~ ~~
IRQ: 10
I/O: 02E4h-02E7h
~~ ~~
now when i said i was completely helpless with jumpers i meant i didnt know howto determine which to set , i got the irq figured out fine , but since i have no manual , ive been looking online but what i found didnt help me , becasue i couldnt interpret it correctly.
i have 12 jumpers to set and i am uncertain howto make them read as [ or between ? ] "02E4h-02E7h".

thank you in advance for your help, and perhaps maybe you can help me with this problem ?
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=152006&highlight=pink&sid=7bcc61daf98164...d598fa7711d5e5

[Nelson37]

It might be easier to just set Windows to recognize the IRQ and IO that the card is already set to, see if you can determine what the default settings are and if the card is set that way. A link to the online manual and a pic of the card might be helpful.

There is very likely proprietary software bundled with the card, problably not downloadable. See if the info specifies a generic cap program or something Creative Labs produced.

I'm pretty sure I remember reading that it is a very good card, hardware MPG-2 enocding, etc.

[PidGin128]

hmm , didnt think of that , but i uh , been moving the pins all round >< [ for i/o settings ] .

it sez comes with adobe premiere [version unknown , since i didnt get any floppys with this ] but for win3.1 you can guess .
i was able to DL the drivers and a diagnostic app , but the app hasnt produced anything helpful - freezes when accessed with bad pin setting [ same as vidcap] and didnt say anything with good [ not freeze ] pin settings.

as far as an online manual , ill give you what i found , not really a manual though
~~ Start of File ~~

CREATIVE LABS, INC.

VIDEO BLASTER RT300

Card Type Video card
Chip Set Creative Labs
I/O Options Composite video input, S-Video input
Data Bus 16-bit ISA
Card Size Three-quarter length, full-height card

[Image]

CONNECTIONS

Function Label Function Label

Composite video input CN1 Composite video input CN3

Composite video input CN2 S-Video in CN4

BASE I/O ADDRESS SELECTION

Setting JP1 JP2 JP3 JP4 JP5 JP6 JP7 JP8

0h On On On On On On On On

4h Off On On On On On On On

8h On Off On On On On On On

Ch Off Off On On On On On On

10h On On Off On On On On On

» 2E4h Off On On Off Off Off On Off

3ECh Off Off On Off Off Off Off Off

3F0h On On Off Off Off Off Off Off

3F4h Off On Off Off Off Off Off Off

3F8h On Off Off Off Off Off Off Off

3FCh Off Off Off Off Off Off Off Off

Note:

A total of 256 base address settings are available. The switches are a
binary representation of the hexadecimal memory addresses. JP8 is the
Most Significant Bit and JP1 is the Least Significant Bit. The switches
have the following decimal values: JP8=512, JP7=256, JP6=128, JP5=64,
JP4=32, JP3=16, JP2=8, JP1=4. Turn off the switches and add the values
of the switches and convert to hexadecimal to obtain the correct memory
address. (Off=1, On=0)

IRQ SELECT

IRQ JP9 JP10 JP11 JP12

9 Open Open Open Closed

» 10 Open Open Closed Open

11 Open Closed Open Open

12 Closed Open Open Open

~~ End of File ~~
i dont know why the one line was " » " , but it didnt seem to crash so much with those settings , since i moved my pins around so much , im gonna set to those.

then there was this
http://www.agocg.ac.uk/reports/graphics/capture2/videob.htm
that kinda helped
and heres were i found my drivers from
http://www.americas.creative.com/support/files/download3.asp?centric=34&descID=330&mai...&OS=1&subcat=3


as for apicture , i could scan the box / card but im uh , kinda lazy - ill do that if you really wanna see it
~~ ~~
oh yeah this is the edit - i forgot about this

it captures in indeo format avi [ onboard i750 video processor ]
320x240@30fps
160x120@30fps
doesnt even mention mpg X'D

but this was a /gift/ kinda , so i dont complain , and its not absolutley neccesary to get working , i just think it would be cool [ i havent any other vidcap cards ] and i could hav some fun ^^ , so i appreciate all the help ive gotten so far - and ill try to set window to meet the card settings , after i set to the >> one

[Nelson37]

The lines with the >> are showing default settings, those numbers are giving the jumper pins in a row and specifying cap on or off, you don't need to do a Hex conversion, just follow the settings on the default lines.

As you may now know, one rule with such old stuff is always right down original jumper settings before moving them.

The resolution settings look fairly low, maybe it can do better. Sounds like it was intended to work with generic software, though.

That web site indicates it only does 256 color????? With component input??? Wierd, and to me at least, unacceptable. Though it does say it may be fixable, and seems to be an old review.

You will also probably need a "VFW to WDM wrapper", I had to do this for an old ATI card, don't recall it being hardware- specific, so it should work for you. This is needed because Windows now uses a different software structure for video capture, using Windows Device Manager rather than Video for Windows, as your card does.

[disturbed1]

What kind of graphics card do you have?

Most old capture cards won't produce an overlay picture with AGP graphics cards, and reset the computer like you described.

There should be a setting to disable overlay.

[PidGin128]

when i recieved the card , the pins didnt match the >> so i imagine the previous owner had there own settings which didnt apply , although - i did forget to record them somewere at all , oh well .

the computer im trying this in has an onboard pci video card [s3 virge stuff i believe , its off atm so ... ] , this machine has 3 ISA , and one PCI slots .

my current PC , also has no AGP slot , but no ISA .

this card is 9 years old so i certainly dont expect anythign from it , i only want to see it work , thinking about droping some money for a decent pci VidCap card for new pc , but most my money routed to disk space.

i wouldnt imagine anything higher than 256 color from 9 years ago , but i wasnt really aware of PC hardware then , and it is _composite_ input and one s-vid , not component .

i appreciate the help , but im kinda in the beginning of a move [ across a couple states , so i havent had much time to try it again , and yeah , thats just my lame excuse , ive been too lazy too hook up a moniter to it again :igh::

the pc this going into , is 300mhz, 4gb hdd , 10/100ether taking only PCI port , and has only a cdrom , i fried the burner , stupid me doing stupid stuff , before i got new pc [ floppy of course too ,who can live without one ? many normals i assume .]

i stopped into the MPAA forum on the new , and i cant write / read that much , let alone follow a forum that long >< . oh well just tallking with my fingers again

i appreciate the help , ill letyou guys know more when i get back to it , and if anybody knows howto get my dell 2350 to see two hdds one the primary IDE channel , or boot *nix , linux , or freebsd , i would appreciate that too , 'cept thats more the idea of other pc forums :P , oh well night all

1:12AM gmt - 5

edit
~~ ~~
hey , i didnt want a graphic emot , i wanted my : P , damnit ><

edit 2
~~ ~~
oh yea i meant ot say this earlier too .
about the hex and pins i was talking about -
the text i pasted above , indicated to me that i could determine what pins to set based on my desired memory range

that range being 02E4h-02E7h , i was asking if i could use the seeming rule to take that and find my appropriate pins , i wasnt sure how to go about this , but i think ill try to make the pc bend to the card 'stead of making my card bend to the pc.