New MMC and Catalyst

[mikiem]

Installed the new ATI software after using their un-install app & ran into some prob. Just filled out the feedback report -- figured it might do someone some good if I posted here as well.

Few prob. wanted to report - doesn't seem anything serious, 'least for my most common uses.

New MMC & Catalyst installed on clean system after using cat-uninstaller from driver download page... Remote Wonder I software v. 3.03 won't complete install, showing error message:
"Error 1904.Module E:\Program Files\ATI Multimedia\RemCtrl\x10net.dll failed to register. HRESULT -2147220473. Contact your support personnel."

After attempted install & then un-install & reboot, earlier versions of remote software drivers displayed same error during install. Removing all references to remote & drivers from registry, v. 3.02 would install, but of course MMC won't start with it installed. Temporarily replaced new version of x10net.dll with version from 3.02 drivers, registered it, then put new version back. This allows remote to work, though don't know how stable it is. Without this step, registering old file, remote properties will display from start menu shortcut, but no tray icon or remote operation. Side effect is X-10 service listed which refers to non-existent x10net.exe (searched & nowhere on drives). Catalyst reports Remote Wonder II.

Guide Plus works, but won't show TV display (shows no tuner in display panel) regardless of how started. Tried removal & reinstall, including on C drive rather then drive for XP. Update app reports current version. Started via shortcut (MMC not running), double clicking on prog listing in grid set scheduled event in registry at: "[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ATI Technologies\MultiMedia\Features\Schedule]" Starting MMC showed message with check box for start scheduler now, & start scheduler with windows. After clicking OK, both boxes checked, going into MMC setup produced error message -- schedule tab showed no events -- tried delete all button -- exiting setup produced error message. MMC would not restart until reboot. Then same behavior, always requiring reboot until deleted 001 event sub-key found under above registry key.

If display is in native mode when MMC shut down, get Large display when MMC re-started (other modes *stick*).

Captioning display in video window is poor -- gets worse the longer I've been playing with settings -- LOTS of missed characters, at worst total gibberish. Recorded captioning seems OK, captioning OK on TV monitor turned to same station receiving same signal via co-ax. from splitter. Have convert case off but same display when on. Font choice limited to Courier New or WP BoxDrawing.

...\Program Files\Common Files\CyberLink\ATIDVD\ folder has duplicates of most files -- i.e. cladr.ax & cladr2.ax. Both show date of 1/06/06. Not a prob so far that I'm aware of, but multiple choices in software.

PVR seems to work well, but recording as in the help file (rite click record button) while in On-Demand mode doesn't (get 1 kb .vcr file).

Not sure if prob or not: Under choices for pass-thru decoding in audio setup tab -- just shows ati cyberlink twice, ignoring other installed options. .vcr files saved from On-Demand viewing can't be opened in File Player -- only in Library.
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Changes....

No more recording in .vcr format -- still native for On Demand -- those vcr files saved from On Demand viewing will not open except in Library. I haven't tried any archived vcr files (if I even have any) but might impact anyone who has some stored that they want to play. If you were saving vcr files because they retained CC, MMC captured mpg2 now retains CC. Have yet to play with them & see how to get the CC out, & if it's retained in DVD spec.

WMV recording gives real options now instead of just a few profiles - same with mpeg4. DVD mpg2 goes to bitrate of 15 & allows wav recording -- for some reason mpg2 doesn't, but still goes to 20.

Don't see any settings for soap - don't know if it's because I only paid $150 for a cheap 9600 aiw, or if soap's really gone.

Tuner performance seems down, & CC display is very poor. Display size now goes by % of your monitor. Seems if you use the remote nothing but a reboot will get back normal MMC display -- I have the remote autostart disabled.

Never used On Demand much before, but checking it out a bit, if you select native for display and recording, it's always on. Otherwise it's off. At some combo you get a warning if you try to record. This is all with the tuner -- S-vid also turns it off. On Demand normal recordings are a series of about 270 meg vcr files.
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Edit: besides having to reboot several times to get MMC funtions back , found that using tuner (for easier testing) PVR records intermittantly, even whilest capturing once or twice. Far as I can tell, CC stored in mpg2 is not DVD spec, but same as .vcr files from older versions -- also only MMC Fileplayer can display them.

[mikiem]

again in case it helps -- have read more then a few complaints after googling, so maybe it might...

MMC 9.13 seems anything but stable so far, & complaints about Guide plus seem universal. Doesn't seem a good way to turn off automatic recording, even with s-vid etc. where doc says it should be off. This recording seems to be at SVCD size, I suspect it might be tied into poorer display -- or could just be cable is sending SVCD signal (further down the to-do list I guess ) I'm a bit currious about that aspect of things anyway, since IVT on capture works so much better at SVCD then full frame sizes.

Captured vid itself is a bit different re: color-range. Seems NTSC compliant except for noise(?) on 4 bands in waveform display at very low levels (~1 - 9). Playback on TV out is better then old setup. Can only adjust brightness, contrast etc. for viewing however -- doesn't seem to effect capture.

I've seen many reports of audio prob -- again on to-do list. Same with prob using other capture software -- wmencoder 9 locks (need reboot) selecting ati vid & audio, but using soundcard for audio more then maxes levels.

File player seems real doggy -- can't click forward on timeline without huge delay while HD thrashes. Had something similar once related to other codecs, but eliminating those didn't seem to help so far. Why use it? Works well for 2ndary (TV) monitor.

[mikiem]

Couple of quick notes to add...

Video adjustments (brightness, contrast etc) made from or in prog like wmencoder or nero or... don't have any effect on capture either, only display during capture, & there don't seem to be any related settings in registry, though you can access quite a few for MMC capture profiles you save. If you access the mpg2 encoder in graphedit the dialog includes presets for PSP etc that are not present in MMC.

That is at least MMC with aiw 9600. From the propaganda papers at ati, my guess is that a lot of the design changes are geared towards *avio* on theater 500 & highest end aiw -- hope they don't forget everyone else owning another one of their products. Does have some nice stuff like hardware upscaling to HD. OTOH was amused that their specs say 1 gig cpu necessary for mpg2 capture, but then what I call propaganda docs claim so strongly you *need* this hardware mpg2 compression -- allegedly lowers cpu usage to 3% (from 10 to 13% with my aiw).

Format of mpg2 seems to be atsc (dvb?), & suspect other capture codecs are converted from this native or internal format. For those experiencing problems with low audio vol in MMC captures, it's still there -- levels at ~ 80% in other capt software seems close to 100% in MMC.

[swiego]

I am using 9.13 with a Theater 550 Pro capture board and am a little frustrated. As far as I can tell (and based on the posts at hexus.net) 9.13 does *work* with the 550 cards, however all the 550's fancy processing is applied only to the preview window, not to the capture stream... including the gain adjustment, denoising, etc. The video I see in my preview window (during capture) looks absolutely stunning, however the .avi actually written to disk looks much more ordinary.

Very frustrating.

[mikiem]

EXACTLY!!!

As far as I can tell, there's absolutely no way to record anything other then what the driver's want, including when not using MMC at all. The docs on the ati site say that in the future, your card will automatically adjust everything for you, that everything is there on your chip. Just doesn't hint at when that future may get here.

[swiego]

Yup. And even more frustrating, for what is allegedly one of the premier capture platforms (550 Pro) there isn't much dialogue on this issue at all. I'm nearly at the point of writing off this card as mediocre. With the filtering that I can *see* this card capable of through preview windows, I know it can exceed anything else out there. But without being able to actually *use* that capability during capture, I'm hard-pressed to call it better than the cheapo $40 options at the local CompUSA.

Very disappointed in ATI on this one.