ati tv wonder pro (e-home) and videosoap

[syeager]

I am looking at purchasing an ATI TV Wonder Pro and need feedback from some people that own them. One of the main features I am looking at is the Videosoap, to clean up bad signals on the live feed (to avoid post processing time).

I tried the Compro VideoMate Gold+, which has noise removal and smoothing as part of their mpeg2 coded, but the result is very smeared. It does not effectively remove noise nor smooth. Just blurred. And it has no settings to adjust the effect. Without these adjustments, the picture is acceptable, just does not help bad signals.

I have seen several examples of ATI videosoap that do a wonderful job of cleaning up bad signals. So I need to hear peoples experiences.

Also, I hear the ATI e-home does not come with MMC and so would not have videosoap (or does it, or can it). Does anyone know about that as well?

Please, I am trying to make a decision soon, so any input you can give is appreciated.

[Sulik]

The good thing about Videosop is that you have full control over the filtering (filter type & filter amount), so you shouldn't get any artifacts unless you explicitely force the filtering to an extremely high value.

[syeager]

Which card do you have, ATI TV Wonder Pro or E-Home or other? And what type of system do you have? I have a AMD 1.8ghz(running at 2.0) with 1gb ram, 100gb hd, and ATI 9500 Pro. And what type of cpu utilization impact does the videosoap have?

I am also curious if anyone has used the ATI TV Wonder Pro with a ATI Radeon 9500/9600/9700/9800 video card. I know that the ATI AIW 9700/9800 cards use the pixel shaders to offload cpu load for videosoap? I am hoping that the seperate cards work together just as well.

[lordsmurf]

VideoSoap is nice, but limited. Depends on the error.

[syeager]

Talked to ATI yesterday. They told me that the MMC with videosoap that comes with the ATI TV Wonder Pro will work with my ATI 9500 Pro and use its pixel shaders to assist in applying the videosoap filters, releaving some of the load from the cpu.

Anyone else out there attempting this with results?

And I am still looking for some videosoap success/horror stories.

[oldsparky66]

Hey, I am running a ATI TV PRO w/REMOTE paired with a NVIDIA TI 4600 VIVO VIDEO CARD and it works well. Make sure and have a fast Processor and alot of RAM for the video soap to operate correctly. If you dont have enough of either your video when you try and add more SOAP will have sync problems but usually only in custom settings only. The pre-sets seem to do a good job already and I havent had any sync problems prior to upgrading my system hardware. Install the newer version of MMC software and drivers 9.1. This version works really well with my set up. The older versions were good but this version of MMC really is alot smoother than any other I have used.
I would highly recommend this tv capture card. The SOAP settings do work well but you will need to do alot of experimenting to get it the way you want it so plan to just plug and play.



Intel P4 2.8ghz
1.0g 2700 RAM
120gb hard drive
40 gb hard drive
ASUS P8000s Motherboard
Sony cd/rw
Sony DRU 510 DVD+/-/RW

[syeager]

I will install as you suggested, run some test captures, and post some cpu utilizations for some of the preset options for DVD and 1/2DVD so we can compare the performance for each of our platforms.

I have an AMD Athlon 2000+, 1gb 2700 ram, 40+60GB 7200 HD, ATI 9500 pro, and Lite-On 411S.

Anyone else with Videosoap experience? Preferences on filters? Add on filters or modifications to existing ones?

[syeager]

OK, with the Compro VideoMate Plus and ATI 9500 Pro:
352x480x29.97x3600vbr was at 50% cpu utilization,
720x480x29.97x6000vbr was at 100%.
With ATI TV Wonder Pro and ATI 9500 Pro:
352x480x29.97x4000vbr with VideoSoap heavy was at 40%,
720x480x29.97x8000vbr with VideoSoap light was at 50%!
And video initially looks better on the ATI. I need to do a clean OS install (which I have needed to do for soome time, but I wanted to get the card in first), then we shall see how much better, if at all, we can get it. Already great though.

My VideoSoap tests would not clear up some dramatic banding on a couple of my stations. Anyone have some suggestions on which filter(s) is best and at what settings?