DAZZLE DVC2 + ATI RADEON 85000 AIW DV question(s) !

[dc']

LONG story here, ive pasted it from another one of my posts from another forum.. but this basically explains my problem for anyone who can bare to read this novel...

ok, basically my DAZZLE CARD USED TO WORK FLAWLESSLY then ive had problems after a few reformats, heres a long post explaining what ive done over the past few days.. (if you havent got time to read this then scroll down)

"Vincent, i really need to speak with you about this card, i was on someone elses computer when i write that last post, so now i have more time to explain, its a pretty long story, but if you have the time to read then id be very greatfull..

ok, first of all i got a Dazzle DVC II hollywood bridge (i think thats the name) and it was working really well on XP, i could cap for hours without errors, but more recently it started playing up, i know there are ALOT of reasons as to why it could of been doing this, but i didnt check them all at the time, so i reformatted on windows 2000 and made sure the dazzle card was on its own IRQ etc, but i still had the same problems, i was using non ACPI, but not from a complete fresh reinstall of windows, i reinstalled windows over the top without ACPI, it seemed to work fine(the reinstall of windows, but the card was still [playing up) and i could then assign most things on there own IRQ, but because i still had the same problem (dazzle card playing up) i just didnt know what to do, so I decided after reading reviews like this on it to just risk it and get one, but i notice the quality isnt as good, i dont know if im just being fussy but its clearly visible that the quality of the radeon 8500dv capping isnt as good as the capping was on my dazzle card(when it was actually working) ive tried it with the provided ati software, updated the drivers, updated the capture drivers, disabled the firewire port on the card to make sure it had its own irq, and even tried it with virtualdub but i just cant seem to find the quality i have tried it with SVID out straight from the back of my sky box to the hub off the ati card, and tried it straight from composite out aswell, both gave me dissapointing results, so i decided to go back to my dazzle card and TRY and get it working (this is like literally the 50th time ive tried to get it working, because when it captures from the TV every 10 secs or so the mpeg its recording to goes distorted or pixelated) i decided to make sure the hard drives had there own IDE irq but the raid drive which my 2 LARGE hard drives where on, it reported that the ISDN modem I have and the RAID drive where sharing IRQ 11, so i decided to take my 2 large hard drives off RAID and I then assigned them to the secondary IDE channel which had its own irq, i am still testing on the dazzle card as i write this, i dont know if its going to play up or not, but i would definetly say that the quality on this dazzle card is better than what i could get on the radeon 8500dv, i would be VERY gratefull if you could add me on MSN and send me a sample of your capping on your radeon, because even though i think ive got my dazzle card fixed (finally) im not sure if its going to play up again, ive spent several hundreds of hours trying to get this sorted, but if i could get the quality on the radeon then i would definetly use it instead of the dazzle card, because i spent almost 200 quid on the dazzle card, then because it started to play up i spent another 200 quid on the radeon card, so i would like ideally to see your results of capping on the radeon card, and if they are BETTER than what i get then maybe u can give me some guidance, and i could maybe recoup some of my money by selling my dazzle card, i would much rather use the radeon because it is AGP, the dazzle card is a PCI card that connects via a parralel port to an external HUB where u connect the cables.

The end! lol.. sorry its a bit long and i might of lost u there JUST A BIT.. but please can you message me or anyone who could send me a sample of there capture results on the radeon 8500DV, my email is yodj1@hotmail.com

THANKS IN ADVANCE!!"
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i even tried fixing a fan underneath the actual chip on the dazzle card to make sure it didnt get hot.. it still did blodgy pixels on part of the screen or flickered even in preview mode..

i wondered about it being 'faulty hardware' but when i first got it it worked fine, and i havent damaged it at all so i have no idea why its doing this..

and now onto the radeon.. it captures ok using the multimediacenter but the quality just isnt as good as the dazzle, now ive seen a sample from someone else using a diffrent radeon and a diffrent tv card in the radeon, but i dont see why it should be better than mine, it was only a 7200 radeon capture clip i saw off someone else, and it looked great, but on my 8500 when i capture on ANY mode straight from my sky, weather it be from ARIAL cable, Composite cable or S-video, the quality just isnt as good, i wish i knew how to make it better, if anyone can think of a way to improve quality or fix my problem then can they please post or give me a conclusion of there results on the AIW 8500DV, when i watch OR playback MPEG2's i see black horizontal lines (very thin) which are the main concern that i dont like and they ruin the quality, now normally on my dazzle card it would play these back in perfect quality if i used the nvidia codec using the 'blend fields' option , but the radeon seems to cap in this mode, and you can see how fuzzy the picture quality is compared to the dazzle card by looking carefully around the edges of the channel logo's in the corner of the screen..

if anyone got this far reeding it then you are probably bored out of ur brains.. i could go on for more complaining.. but i wont

help !!

[dc']

oops, meant to type 8500 not 85000 in thread! nevermind :P

[Ergo]

I, too, used a Dazzle card that had the exact same symptons you described. Solution? Throw out the Dazzle and get the AIW Radeon 8500 DV (or wait for the AIW 9700)--the captures are much, MUCH better quality.