Brightness Oscillating with AIW

[Shingar]

Greetings all,

I have an ATI AIW 8500DV and I am attempting to capture some fansub anime I have on video tape. When I play the tape on the television, it looks fine. When I play the tape on the computer with the AIW, the brightness tends to oscillate between bright and normal. I have used two different VCR's (JVC and a Sony SLV-N81), both exibit the same behavior. I have tried turning all the "auto tuning" features off, but to no avail.

I am using composite connections.

My system specs:
ATI AIW Radeon 8500DV, with ATI MM 7.7
Dual 1 GHz P-III
1G RAM
Windows 2000 Pro
1 Western Digital 60G HD, 7200 RPM (OS Drive)
1 Promise Fasttrax IDE RAID Controller Card
1 Western Digital 120G HD, 7200 RPM, 2MB Buffer (Capturing Drive)

I'd like to see what happens using S-Video, but sadly, neither VCR has S-Video out. Would it make a difference?

Any ideas would be most appreciated. I will try some of my other tapes in the series and post any different results here.

Thanks!

- Shingar

[Mirror_Image]

Macrovision, most likely.

[Shingar]

Mirror_Image,

It does behave like Macrovision, except these are fan sub anime tapes. I have made copies of them in the past with no ill effects, so I think its something else.

Thanks for the response, though!

- Shingar

[Nelson37]

I agree with mirror_image, this sounds EXACTLY like macrovision. How did you copy them before? Some older VCRs do not respond to the Macrovision signal.

There is also a Macrovision-removal patch available.

What the heck does fan sub mean?

[Shingar]

Nelson37,

Back in the day before anime became as mainstream as it is (ie very few American companies releasing them commercially), anime fans would subtitle them using their own equipment (acutally, it was usually film students at universities using the university's equipment), hence the term "fan sub". Generally, the only "protection" a fab sub tape had was a message that reads, "Subtitled by fans for fans. Do not sell or rent!"

This is why I am dubious of the Macrovision theory, although I agree it does sound exactly like what it does. I did make the copies using older VCRs. Maybe I should dig one up. Hmm...

- Shingar

[energy80s]

This sounds like the "fake" macrovision detecting that ATI is famous for. Make sure you get the latest drivers for your card. That's what finally worked for me (after 6 months of messing about).

[Shingar]

energy80s,

I did try installing the very latest video drivers, but when I did Windows 2000 "detected" six unknown devices, all relates to the AIW. When I attempted to point Win2k to the .inf files provided in the AIW driver set, none of them seemed to work. So I set them to "ignore" and moved on. Problem is, none of the video capture features would work after that. To resolve the issue, I installed the previous version (407, I believe)

I figured I'd just sit tight until there was another release of the drivers.

When you updated to the newest driver set, did you encounter the same problem? How did you overcome it?

Thanks for the reply!

- Shingar

[zap91284]

Hmmm, I'd say some sort of Macrovision too, but I have the same problem. I have an AIW-7500, and whenever I try to record Pilot Candidate (another anime) off from TV, the brightness is still way off. I could seem like on and off, but it seems to only be noticable at bright places. And I don't belive my archaic cable TV connection would be able to carry any sort of Macrovision signal, could it?

[Nelson37]

The correct ATI drivers WILL implement Macrovision because they are supposed to. Remember that Macrovision does not screw up the signal, it INSTRUCTS the recording device to screw up the signal. (thank Congress). There is a Macrovision patch, which is intended for NT, and I have used on XP PRO. It works to remove the DVD problem where the film stops after 20 seconds, and seems to remove the solid white line on VCR tapes, BUT it did not remove the brightness slowly increasing and then snapping back to normal on VCR tapes. It did seem to minimize the effect to just more than barely noticable and slightly less than really annoying, but this is subjective.

I'm not sure if the old VCR will pass along the signal or just allow recording on that unit by ignoring it. Are you recording the previously made copies or the originals?

SFAIK, the only certain way to strip Macrovision is a TBC, such as Sima Copymaster or other brand; these can also correct audio synch problems(which is what they are actually meant for) and some models can improve picture quality somewhat.

[Shingar]

Greetings,

I finally did get the new AIW drivers to work - it was the Nimo codec pack that was giving me all the trouble. After uninstalling it, everything was fine.

Except...except the Macrovision problem persists. Bummer!

- Shingar

[Raen]

Search for and rename atitvo32.dll

That's the ATI/all in wonder macrovision file(at least for the AIW 7500)
Just rename it to atitvo32.bak(incase you ever need it) and try again


Hope you appreciate that.... took me 2 weeks to find the right file and isn't posted on any site I could find

Been using it awhile with no ill effects

[Willy]

hi...
ild like to know if that tapes r pal or ntsc.
is that bright happens during all movie like falshes?
if u dont solve this and the tapes r pal ...maybe i can help u...


let me know about it

[leebo]

I don't belive my archaic cable TV connection would be able to carry any sort of Macrovision signal, could it?

The Macrovision signal (don't you just love those marketing people? The name sounds like you're getting something really special) is embedded in the blanking portion of the video sync signal. If your cable connection can pass an NTSC signal, it can pass macrovision (though I've never heard of any cable company doing so).

It's designed to confuse the VCR's auto gain circuit. On a pro VCR, you can shut off the auto gain circuit and Macrovision is powerless.

You can sometimes actually see the Macrovision signal at the top of your screen (depending on the monitor) when you hit either PLAY or FF/RW on your VCR, but only for a second.
It looks like random lines or dots: - - -- - --- - -- - - --

Any device that can replace the sync signal with it's own will also remove the Macrovision signal.

I would try either a JVC VCR that has a built in TBC, one of those $50 macrovision busters (be sure you can return it though), or even copy the tape to an 8MM camcorder if it has a built in TBC (Many Sonys do).