No more ATI WONDERs for me!

[armix]

I just have had it with ATI All-in-Wonder - and I am free now!
No more crippled drivers, MMC's, Macrovisions, sound asyncs!
I ripped this ATI crap out of my computer forever!

I went to the shop and bought a SONY Digital8 Video GVD800.
I plugged everything in it - my VCR for those old VHS tapes,
my DVD player for those new ones, my Hi8 camera for home videos.

And all that comes out DV, straight into my FireWired computer - and what a quality!!!!!!

I can't believe I once thought that I have achieved excellent results doing video with ATI AIW - I just wasted 1.5 years shitting with it!

Life is Good Again!

[Sulik]

You're comparing DV 15Mbps with encoded analog captures.
duh. DV is much better.

[Bstansbury]

Please go into a little more detail about your setup and the process/software you use to upload DV into your system. After that what do you do with it? Are you making VCD's, SVCD's, DVD's, or what. How do you do it,.. what programs do you use. What is your system, CPU, OS, perfromance, etc.

Without this info,... all anyone could say would be,... congratulations,.. glad your a happy camper.

[Outback Paul]

Can anyone help with more details on this? I'm going to buy a camcorder soon and would like to know how this is done.

Paul

[doug1937@hotmail.com]

Armix, you can buy a lot of quality for $900 or more. The ATI AIW costs under $200. What do you expect?

Me, I've had my AIW for more than a year now and I love it...I get wonderful VCD and yes, SVCD-compliant captures virtually instantly. Plus, I can record off the TV...I just finished recording Tenchi Muyo and Tenchi In Tokyo to VCD. It's extremely convenient. The GVD doesn't have a TV tuner, and while you *might* be able to pipe in a television signal via the S-video or composite inputs, that's analog. Even if you pipe it to the PC via DV, your source is analog. Plus, how would you tune it?

Yeah, anyone can put the AIW to shame if they spend enough money. Me, it's enough for my needs.

[EricB]

You don't have to spend a fortune to get into DV. Maybe a little more than a regular capture card, but you get an awful lot of advantages.

Go to ebay and checkout any of the older series Sony TRV*20 series (ie. TRV120, TRV320, etc). These are bargains and have analog in and out. The setup is just VCR / cable / any analog video in -> camcorder -> firewire interface -> computer.

The great thing about using a camcorder instead of a capture card, is you can edit your video, and save a master copy back to the camcorder. Then you can make VCDs or SVCDs now, and still have a master DV copy for when you can afford a DVD burner.

[Riccardom]

I had to capture a lot of Hi8 tapes.
Not having the analog input on my DV camcorder I used the AIW128Pro, AVI_IO and the MainConcept DV codec.
In this manner I could get the analog tapes directly in DV format, losing just 0,1-0,2% of frames (with AMD1200@133).
After that I can use the AVI files in the editing program or save them on a DV tape to process later (because I borrowed the Hi8 cam).
I found this way a good compromise between velocity, quality and disk space occupation.
I only had to change field-order in the first encoding process.
Hope this helps.
Riccardo

[Rigo]

I am glad Armix that now you had decided to change that crap of card.
The name said averything"WONDER"

All the best.
Rigo/.

[kc5hwb]

Ok, I think I might want to avoid the hassel of dealing with this new ATI card I just got. Maybe I made a mistake and I should have gone with something digital, and thats fine, I just want to be able to capture the highest quality files from VCR and DVD, but I don't want to spend $1000 doing it.

What is everyone's opinion on that Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge? I have read an excellent review on it...I'll get the link and post it in here tomorrow. I am thinking of buying one to use to capture files from my VHS tapes....IS THIS WORTH IT SINCE VHS IS ANALOG ANYWAY?????

Armix seems to think that this is a great way to go. I want to get some more info before purchasing, though.

Any thoughts????

www.aints.net

[rnwa]

Hollywood is pretty reliable, all things concidering. Mainactor, is a little hard to get used to but is able to perfom it functions quite well.