ATI MMC v7.1

[TB Player]

I have an ATI Rage Pro 128 and have been testing various ways for capturing VHS to my HD. I have been searching the forum archives and have read that using the ATI MMC with my card should work well, and it does give me an AVI that is as good or better than using VD or vVCR. But I have also read that I should use at least an 8.1 version of MMC. However, I am not able to install any version higher than MMC 7.1 on my system... when I try to install any version past 8.x, the installation fails. Does anyone know if this is because I have an older card (I think it's a 9000), or is there another reason, or something else I should be doing. Thanks.

[non-linear]

The newer versions of MMC don't support the older cards. By the name of the card, it looks to me like your card is pretty old, I'm guessing about 5 years old.

You can either stick with the old software/hardware, or get a newer ATI card. Even something like a Radeon 7500 would be a much bigger improvement.

[TB Player]

The newer versions of MMC don't support the older cards. By the name of the card, it looks to me like your card is pretty old, I'm guessing about 5 years old.

Yeah, the card is 3-4 years old I would guess. I figured that was the reason why the newer MMC wouldn't install. But guides I have read said to use MMC 8.1 or greater, so I was wondering what the problem is using an older MMC.

You can either stick with the old software/hardware, or get a newer ATI card. Even something like a Radeon 7500 would be a much bigger improvement.

Thanks.

[lordsmurf]

That card is from early 1999.

[regular8mm]

My PC runs on 7.1 now. It was running on 6.x when it used Win98SE; the install disk was the onlyest place to get that version. None other version would work. Now that it has Win 2000 the 7.1 works. However, it took a few tries to get it to scann the TV channels. That is what makes it go. Did the TV wizzard thing and it turned on for me.

[TB Player]

My PC runs on 7.1 now. It was running on 6.x when it used Win98SE; the install disk was the onlyest place to get that version. None other version would work. Now that it has Win 2000 the 7.1 works. However, it took a few tries to get it to scann the TV channels. That is what makes it go. Did the TV wizzard thing and it turned on for me.

Are there any problems with quality or functionality using 7.1? Would there be better quality using a newer MMC?

[edsmith77]

TBPlayer,
Actually, you can upgrade all the way to MMC 7.7 without any problems. Past that forget it. Installation fails as you noticed.
I too have the same ATI Rage 128 Pro. It has served me well and does a good job. AVI captures with it rival the AVI captures with my ATI 9600 card.
By upgrading to 7.7 you can get a few newer features. However, the basic premise is that you MB needs to be sufficient as well. My problem was that I could not capture full frame D1 due to lack of horsepower in the CPU (800MHz). But at that time VCD or 1/2 D1 was good enough for me. Since then I have upgraded to P4 2.8 and of course a newer video card. And since then I have added WinTV250. This was I can capture and still do other things at the same time.
So all in all you can get some fairly good quality captures with 7.1 or 7.7 dependent upon your CPU horsepower and the quality of your source material. Remember the GIGO rule.