ati 650 XP or Vista ?

[smartel]

I have two pcs , one xp home sp3 and one Vista home premium (compac) , both 32 bits

my card is a theatrix sapphire ati theater 650 pro pci , came with no cds

my ultimate goal is pvr fonction with mpeg2 hardware encoding ( from tuner AND s-video)

i only tried with xp and well virtualdub sees it but for mpeg i'm lost ...

can vista's media center do mpeg captures ?

i know about the AGC (automatic gain control) ,
and i have a panasonic dmr-es10 and a datavideo tbc-1000 for vhs captures ...
i don't have a vcr with onboard tbc

so , xp or vista ?

[jman98]

I don't know why you'd want to use Vista instead of Win 7, but I certainly understand why don't want to use Win 8!

VirtualDub doesn't work at all on some cards. There are technical reasons for this, but I don't remember them. Your card is probably such a card.

Can you look into MythTV? It runs under Linux and can be used for what you want, but you have to look and see if your card is supported.

If you want to use Windows, I guess I would use Vista. XP has a lot of security problems. You may need to get ATI drivers for your card if you want video capturing to work though. Here's a link to Vista drivers
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/tvtuner_vista.aspx?type=2.5.1&prod...6&lang=English
Looks like if you install these you have no choice but to use Media Center to capture video.

I'll warn you that Media Center is terrible if you want to record video from a non-TV source. I'm not sure if it's even possible to do so. I thought about trying to make it work on my ATI card but in the end it was just easier and better to buy the Hauppauge Colossus for recording video.

[smartel]

well mythtv is a no go , i'm on windows and i'm not a programmer

anything simpler ?
or shoud i really go with mythtv with all the frustration and aggravation it may give ?

[jman98]

MythTV is just a suggestion. I mean, couldn't you try it and if you don't like it, use Windows? I have never used it but I have Linux experience and I'm sure I could solve any problems I ran into. People who use it love it, but again, I can't offer person insight here.

I don't know of a better idea than to use Media Center unless maybe you want to go with XP and see if ATI makes some kind of capture program that works under XP.

[usually_quiet]

I have two pcs , one xp home sp3 and one Vista home premium (compac) , both 32 bits

my card is a theatrix sapphire ati theater 650 pro pci , came with no cds

my ultimate goal is pvr fonction with mpeg2 hardware encoding ( from tuner AND s-video)

i only tried with xp and well virtualdub sees it but for mpeg i'm lost ...

can vista's media center do mpeg captures ?

i know about the AGC (automatic gain control) ,
and i have a panasonic dmr-es10 and a datavideo tbc-1000 for vhs captures ...
i don't have a vcr with onboard tbc

so , xp or vista ?

Virtualdub has some issues with the ATI TV Wonder 650 HD cards. I used to have one, and I decided that other capture software was easier to use with the card.

Use Vista if you want to record with Media Center. It is possible to use Media Center to record video from a set-top box or other source with an S-Video or composite connection. I'm certain of that because I have done it. I will admit that setting up the program guide for a satellite receiver or cable box can be a lot of work. Also, there is only a choice of good/better/best type profiles for MPEG-2 encoding. The main problem is that you have to install a remote control with an IR receiver/IR Blaster. If you are only going to do manual recording you must still set up WMC as though you are going to record from a cable box or satellite receiver and install a remote control and IR receiver/IR Blaster. There is a Vista driver that supposedly simulates an IR receiver/IR Blaster, but I never tried that since I had a suitable remote. You can read about how to use the driver here http://youonpictures.com/?p=123

[smartel]

but the 650 has it's own tuner , i still have to set up a IR blaster thing ?

and i don't really care about program guides really

i know it's sopposed to work with catalyst media center .. that seams ti be a pain to get

[usually_quiet]

but the 650 has it's own tuner , i still have to set up a IR blaster thing ?

and i don't really care about program guides really

i know it's sopposed to work with catalyst media center .. that seams ti be a pain to get

If you have analog cable or ATSC channels via an antenna, then you do not need to install a remote control with an IR receiver/IR Blaster to use Vista's Media Center as a PVR. If you want to record the output from a satellite receiver or cable box using Vista's Media Center then you need to install a remote control with an IR receiver/IR Blaster, or you can try the driver for a simulated IR receiver/IR Blaster. If you want to record digital cable channels without using a cable box, you are out of luck. Because you live in Canada, there probably are none to record. Canadian cable services typically encrypt all digital channels.

You need to have the CD originally sold with the TV Wonder 650 HD to install Catalyst Media Center. It was never available for download because it was written for ATI by a third party (Arcsoft?) and based on one of their standard software products

[smartel]

CMC is supposed to be a clone of cyberlink's powercinema i think

[jman98]

CMC is supposed to be a clone of cyberlink's powercinema i think

One of our members in Brazil has reported that one of Cyberlink's Power products can actually record TV with most video cards, but I don't remember which one it was. You can check. I've never tried this.

[usually_quiet]

Cyberlink PowerDirector is supposed to work with many capture devices. I'm not sure if hardware encoding is supported. Your ATI TV Wonder 650 also supports software encoding, so PowerDirector is a possible option either way.

[usually_quiet]

CMC is supposed to be a clone of cyberlink's powercinema i think

Yes, now that you wrote that I remember, but the customized version written for ATI was only made availble in the CD packaged with the device.

[smartel]

i got it opened box with no cd in it

[usually_quiet]

i got it opened box with no cd in it

I found something for you. lordsmurf has the complete driver CD for the ATI TV Wonder 600 USB available to download here: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-capture/3136-ati-600-usb.html It includes Catalyst Media Center. You have to become a member of the site to download it.

CMC's interface is awkward to use. If you don't like it, you could try Cyberlink PowerDirector, and Magix Movie Edit for MPEG-2 recording. Otherwise, if you need something free then your only good option for MPEG-2 capture is to build filter graphs and capture using GraphStudio, which you may not find as convenient as a normal capture program. I don't think there are Linux drivers available for the ATI TV Wonder 650 cards, so the Linux version of MythTV is probably not an option.

[smartel]

biggest one done with disable pre-processing ticked with mpeg settings pushed (CMC)

Cyberlink and Magix could scan with no picture

[smartel]

i can go up to 15 000 kbps , no b frames , but i can't tell if i drop frames

[usually_quiet]

Cyberlink and Magix could scan with no picture

What do you mean by that statement? Do you mean that Cyberlink and Magix could find analog channels but not display a picture from any of them? ...or do you mean that they could not find any analog channels or capture from the TV Wonder 650's composite or S-Video connections?

i can go up to 15 000 kbps , no b frames , but i can't tell if i drop frames

Yes, as I recall CMC didn't have an on-screen dropped frame counter. I uninstalled CMC some time ago, so I can't look to see what it does myself, but maybe it keeps a log file somewhere to record various errors like dropped frames.

[smartel]

Cyberlink and Magix found the tuner app , i scanned the channel looks like it was detecting but black screen

CMC will be my way to go (i'm testing now under XP)

is their anyway to test the signal pre-processing fonction ?

i'll try it with a noisy channel to try to find out what it does

[smartel]

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/737-25618HowtoConvertaVideoUsingCatalystMediaCenter.aspx

can be used for converting local videos .

can anybody feed me some test videos to see it's performance ?

[jagabo]

Watch out for wandering video levels with the ATI 650. It has a bad automatic gain control that can't be disabled. It's visible in your ad clip. Here's an example:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/326560-Which-is-better-usb-stick-vhs-cap-or-hd-pvr-...=1#post2023227

[smartel]

so what does the disable pre-processing do ? is their anyway to test this ?

the option is available for converting local videos

is their any sample video i can download to test this ?

[smartel]

just re-onstaled xvid4psp and got a visualcc security (ati) update or something ,
hope i don't screw things up

[smartel]

turn out that way , looks ok

http://youtu.be/_1vbMzq3wKA


i used HDRAGC() to fight the 650's own AGC

[smartel]

Ended up using vista's Media center , only thing i tried that really worked fine

the scheduling within media center was quite easy for tv recording

i'm now using MC-TVConverter and Mpg2cut2 for basic editing

the good thing with mpg2cut2 is
if the AGC goes crazy it has basic color controls to help me
(sometimes goes really dark , it's rare maybe 5% of the time)