ATI TV Wonder VE says it capture AVI, MPEG1, and MPEG2 but..

[alandla]

I have this card and was going to capture directly to MPEG@ to burn SVCD's but I notice that the best reolution is 640x240. Is this MPEG2? I thought that it had to 480x480.
The AVI is only 180x120
The MPEG1 seems to be normal.

[telemike]

Try a different software package like WinDVR or PowerVCR.

[spiderman2k1]

My ATI does 480*480 and if you use the windows 2000 and XP software and driver's it has the SVCD template in there I do not know why you do not have it might be a bad install. If your useing windows 95 98 or ME forget about doing SVCD or any MPEG2 ATI did a bad job on there capture software best thing to do if your win95 95 or ME capture to MPEG 1 and encode to MPEG2 with TMPG

[incognito]

how are the quality of the captures in VCD/SVCD mode?

What kind of processor do you have and can you use your machine
while you're recording?

Do they include software like virtualdub to edit out commercials?

If you edit out commercials, do you need to re-mux the audio?

[Gazorgan]

IUVCR is infinately variable in it's capure. Any resolution, any Codec. You will want a fast CPU, since the VE card does it all with software. I hit 40% cpu capping in MJPEG at 90% oat 480x480 on an Athlon 2000. This means if you 98, you want a 1 Ghz CPU to avoid dropping frames in hi-res.

Personnaly I cap in MJPEG or Huffyuv, edit, filter, and then frameserve to TMPG or encode in XviD.

[alandla]

I have an AMD Duron 650MHz with Windows 98SE. I have captured 10-30 second clips from the TV tuner and my 8mm camcorder in MPEG1 and it looks good. I haven't tried a full hour long capture yet but I did get the card to convert my 8mm to VCD
I am still not sure how you can really convert MPEG1 to MPEG2 and get the higher resolution associated with MPEG2 since it was never captured in the first place.
I am not familiar with MJPEG or HUFFYUV. Are they software programs?

[dcsos]

The All In Wodner can capture in many modes
If You have WDM drivers ot DIRECT SHOW drivers, you can captur in
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2
The frame size, and bit rate are fully user controllable (480x480, 720x480 or 640x480 are common)
The ATI capture utility will also alow several kinds of MPEG-1 and 2 audio.
It MUXES on the fly.
The resultant file will sometimes refuse to play exept in ATI's own player, but will import into most editing programs that handle these file times
ULEADS 6 or higher
Premiere 5.1 or higher (higher than 6 for MPEG-2)
or
VEGAS 3.-

You may have the following problwems:
1. File extension from capture doesn't allow the captured file to IMPORT, or remains invisible in dialogue:
solution: rename the steam captured to .MPG and remember which kind it is (one or two)
2. Some editing programs don't like captures with audio compression..recapure with only MPEG-2 or 1 compression

Or:
the Allin Woneder also works with another set of installed drives (an't have both at opnce) these are the VIDEO for WINDOWS older drivers.
Then you capture in m-jpeg OR YUV, OR HUFFY ETC...THIS FILE MUST BE RE-RENDERED INTO mpeg..USE PREMIERE OR VEGAS

CAVEATS the ATI drivers all suck..please use another entire machine if the drivers repaetedly refuse to load correctly or interact with other apllications (very common with ati)
a motherboard with all intel chipset is ther best way to go for ANY VIDEO work..
Adobe still won't certify there software to work on those ATHLON or VIA infested systems....

Also, I believe this is the only way to go from FAT 32 to NTFS without losing all your data..
but its one way only!!!
HOW TO: Convert a FAT16 or FAT32 Volume to NTFS
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q307881

[vcdforme]

I'm with telemike.
Forget using the ati software,
its terrible. They lied about
about that package being Mpeg2
capable with WIN98.
I'm sure WINDVR will give you better results. I use WinVCR,
which I believe precedes WINDVR.
But frankly, I'd just get rid of
the card, and get a new one that's
bundled with the better software.

[aerohokie]

I also have the same card (TV Wonder VE) for about a year and have successfully captured and burned hour-long VCDs with chaptering (thanks to this site). However, tried this week to capture MPEG2 and have the same problem. I agree with vcdforme. ATI lied about the MPEG2 capture, or rather, I can capture MPEG2 but it isn't NTSC compliant. Glad you posted the question because I was about to anyway. Thanks for finally spurring me to register.

[dcsos]

I've had no proble capturing MPE-2 NTSC compliant, once I ironed out Driver problems
and the VIA chipset: lose it!
All Intel ...... and ATI works.....
You must rename the stupid MP2 format it calls it and MY DVD will accept the audio and video!
GOOD LUCK

[Gazorgan]

Ya'll need to capture in MJPEG or Huffyuv, edit, fiter, then encode to SVCD. I reccomend capturing in 720x480, 640x480, or 480x480 in that order. Capturing directly to SVCD always looks poorly.

[crahak]

I use a setup very similar to garzogan
I capture with virtualdubvcr either with huffyuv or a mjpeg codec @ 95% (at 720x480), then you can convert it to whatever you want.
Works no problem with every card I've tried

On the fly encoding isn't known for quality. You will get much better results by reencoding, but it does take time...

Oh, I have problems with a VIA chipset too. Gave the mobo and got an ECS one instead. (was stuck with PCI latency patches and what not and it still was bad) Never had problems again

[alandla]

Thanks for the suggestions but there are some problems with other software. WinVCR and PowerVCR are not freeware (I hate to buy a card and then have to buy software again)

This is from HUFFY website:
Some capturing programs (including ATI's Multimedia Center) do not support external compressors and hence can't be used with Huffyuv. If you're using one of these, I recommend switching to Avery Lee's free, GPL'd VirtualDub. (Even if you're not using one of these you should probably switch anyway, since VirtualDub is a lot better than any bundled capture utility.)

And this is from VirtualdDub's website:
VirtualDub needs a Video for Windows capture driver to capture. Most Firewire (DV) devices do not provide a VFW driver, and thus cannot be used by VirtualDub at all. Also, ATI appears to be shipping their current devices with a WDM (Windows Driver Model) driver only; this can be used indirectly by VirtualDub through a Microsoft wrapper, but it is crippled in functionality and it also appears that the wrapper is buggy.
The wrapper will show up as "Microsoft WDM Image Capture (Win32)." If it works for you, great.

Also, TV Wonder is not the same as the All in Wonder so they aren't comparable.
ATI's website has made a note of the lack of MPEG2 capture ability on the Tech Support FAQ and has said further revisions to MMC 7.1 will be posted. YEAH good luck with that.