How to Capture in 480 x 480 in AVI with an ATI All-In-Wonder

[Barnabas]

Hi,

I have an ATI-All-In-Wonder 128 card, and need to know how I can make AVI captures with it that are 480 x 480 or higher? Have tried MMC 7.2, and 7.5, but can't select any thing higher than X x 240. Have also tried the "wrapper", but still, the largest setting I can get to is 352x288 for a AVI. From reading these forums, I know some of you have gotten it to work, but I must be missing something.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[Digitizer]

NEVER use MMC. It 's complete garbage, like much of software that comes with hardware. VirtualDub will do the job nicely - you can capture at 640x480 and higher. Besides, MMC has a 1 Gig limit

http://www.VirtualDub.org

[Gary]

I agree that you should never use MMC--you'll be amazed at the quality differences when using other programs. VDub is very good, I also use ShowShifter, which allows you to program start and stop times and channels to record as well.

[Barnabas]

Thanks,

but even with virtual dub, the largest I can select is 352 x 288. I need 480 x 480.

[Digitizer]

In capture mode, try

Video>>Set custom format

[ratt794]

I do not agree with the previous 2 posts at all. The latest MMC does an excellent capture job at AVI or MPEG. I had version 7.1 with my AIW128 Pro card - it had some issues but was a good package overall.

I upgraded to MMC7.6 (even though it was made for the Radeon cards) and I was supprised it worked and better than 7.1 did. Tuner captures look great on my 51" HDTV set at 720 x 480 as does 480 x 480. I have not used virtual dub but I see no problem with MMC7.6. It should work with all ATI Rage 128 Pro cards as they use the same Tuner chip and capture chip.

As for 480 x 480 AVI capture you can do it by using the registry editor on a custom preset. It is available on this site under the tools section. Or you can do it manualy if you are a windows expert (I did it with regedit).

Best codec to use is HuffYUV - at 480x480 is does about 400 meg per minute and is lossless compression. Although I-Frame only MPEG at a high bitrate like 8000K works very well too and saves disk space.

[Barnabas]

In capture mode, try

Video>>Set custom format

Nope, that does not work either, "unsupported video format".

[Barnabas]

Ok,

I found the registry key to change the height to 480, but after I change it and start up MMC 7.5, the preset is gone, and when I check the key in the registry, it's gone then too. The driver must not support that size in AVI.

"As for 480 x 480 AVI capture you can do it by using the registry editor on a custom preset. It is available on this site under the tools section. Or you can do it manualy if you are a windows expert (I did it with regedit)."

[Digitizer]

Barnabas, some formats don't support the exact resolution. Which one are you using? What I do is I capture as uncompressed, and select MJPEG compression. I have TV Wonder but I see no reason why AIW has to be different. If you get an error when trying to set to uncompressed, that means that the card can't do it. I hope it works for you.

[Barnabas]

Thanks,

The card CAN, or at least COULD do AVI at 480 x 480, up until MMC 7 and up. Some one had posted how they did this with MMC 7.5 a few months ago, but I can't find that post (so far).

Thanks

Barnabas, some formats don't support the exact resolution. Which one are you using? What I do is I capture as uncompressed, and select MJPEG compression. I have TV Wonder but I see no reason why AIW has to be different. If you get an error when trying to set to uncompressed, that means that the card can't do it. I hope it works for you.

[Digitizer]

One more proof that MMC sucks monkey ass. Downgrade to v.7 maybe?

[Fred©]

Maybe some driver issue, because I have an ATI AIW 128 PRO, using the original drivers and MMC 7.1 and there is much higher resolutions in VCR options I can use... up to 720x576... I have 640x480 but have no 480x480 resolution.. If 480x480 is needed I just resized from 640x480...

Have you installed directx 8.1?
Is your drivers installed after a clean windows instalation?

Fred©

[Barnabas]

You can get 640 x 480 in AVI? If so, what version of the ATI Driver are you using?

Maybe some driver issue, because I have an ATI AIW 128 PRO, using the original drivers and MMC 7.1 and there is much higher resolutions in VCR options I can use... up to 720x576... I have 640x480 but have no 480x480 resolution.. If 480x480 is needed I just resized from 640x480...

Have you installed directx 8.1?
Is your drivers installed after a clean windows instalation?

Fred©

[Fred©]

I use the original driver that came inside CD, version 4.13.7078... I have tried the newest 7279 (something like this), the VFW ATI drivers, but nothing was better, even when tried MMC 7.6 (worked, but choppy sound)...

So reinstalled windows and now I DO NOT PLAY with ATI drivers... NO WAY!!! Everything works ok! MMC, VirtualDub, Ulead DVDMovieFactory, etc works great...

I have a mobo that uses ALI MAGIK chipset.. it is known to have a proper driver for ALI chipset, but I do not use it ... seems that the newer BIOS has fixed the issues with ATI AIW cards...

Fred©

[Barnabas]

Fred©

Are you using the VFW wrapper by chance?