Is ATI MMC7.7 FINALLY DVD-compliant?

[miamicanes]

After two days of installing, uninstalling, reinstalling, endless reboots, and the uprooting of several fistfulls of hair during fits of rage, I *finally* got MMC7.7 to work with my All in Wonder 128 pro

Now that MMC *finally* supports 48kHz audio and 1/2 DV-1 resolution (352 x 480), the big question remaining is...

is it FINALLY capable of making 100% DVD-compliant ready to burn MPEG-2? Or, if it's not, are there any third party utilities that can quickly tweak its MPEG-2 output into total compliance so apps like Ulead DVD MovieFactory 2 won't feel compelled to re-encode them anyway?

I suspect it's still not quite making proper MPEG-2 files, because Windows Media Player plays them with the wrong aspect ratio, and DVDMF2 takes about 50% as long to re-encode the file as the file's own playing time. On the other hand, it's entirely possible that Windows Media Player is ignoring otherwise valid flags, and DVDMF2 might just suck.

On a related note, are there any programs that can examine an MPEG-2 file and generate a compliance report, identifying things that are wrong, questionable, and maybe even things that are technically valid, but Bad To Do for some reason?

[furball6969]

Yes the video is compliant. MMC has been compliant for over a year at least, just had to resample the audio to 48Khz.

On the other hand, it's entirely possible that Windows Media Player is ignoring otherwise valid flags, and DVDMF2 might just suck.

Probably, and yes it does.

[Bizuser]

Miamicanes - I just went to the ATI download page, and plugged in ati aiw 128 pro, and the only MMC items available for download are version 7.1, dated March 2001. I separately searched their site, and sure enough, MMC 7.7 exists - but I'm not sure how to get to it.

What's the deal? Is this unsupported on AIW 128, but known to work?

I'd love to try it - if you could tell me the best way to get to it, I'd appreciate it. And any tips for installing it ... sounds like there are issues!

Is it true that you can capture to MPEG2 using this version, and burn that MPEG 2 straight to SVCD? And/or cut the MPEG2 file using TMPG?

These are both actions that fail miserably with mpeg2 files produced by MMC 7.1!

I'd like to bypass the 8 hours it takes to capture to avi and encode ...!

Thanks!

[mcorpse]

MMC 7.7 is only available for certain OSes, I believe.

[oldfart13]

I don't think it's the OS, but the card itself. 7.6 works with the Radeon 7500 and up so I would assume 7.7 does as well. I got rid of my 128 long ago so I can't help you on that for sure...

[miamicanes]

You're in luck... I burned most of last week grappling with that very issue myself

I can't tell you exactly how to get it to work, because I installed, uninstalled, reinstalled, rebooted, and mangled the registry and system files so many times trying to recap *exactly* what I did would be hopeless. However, I *DID* eventually succeed at getting MMC 7.7 to work with WinXP and my AIW 128pro.

Here's approximately what I'd suggest:

1) install the demo version of GoBack. It'll let you cleanly roll back after failed attempts end up mangling your registry so you can try again

2) go to ati.com, and lie. Say you have an AIW Radeon 8500DV, and download the DVD player software, MMC 7.7, and the WDM driver.

3) uninstall MMC and the DVD player software.

4) Install the WDM driver. Remember where it unpacks the files... you'll probably need to go back in a little while. When it tells you to reboot, flip a coin. Heads = reboot, tails = ignore it and continue with step 5

5) Install the 7.6 DVD player software. Don't reboot afterward.

6) Install MMC 7.7. Now reboot.

7) Try to launch the TV app. If your computer hangs (it probably will), reboot, then go into device manager and expand the "Sound, video, and game controllers" node.

8 ) Manually update the driver for EVERY ATI component you see. Tell it to install from a specific location, let you choose from a list, show compatible hardware, don't search, have disk, browse to the directory where the Windows XP WDM drivers were unpacked in step 4, and ignore Windows' dire warnings that the drivers aren't known to work/signed/might not be compatible. Don't let the computer reboot until you've updated every last one of the ATI WDM drivers.

9) Reboot. Try the TV app again. If it STILL hangs, go back into device manager, and make sure all the drivers for the ATI WDM devices you just updated in step 8 have December 3, 2002 (give or take a day) datestamps. If one or two don't, you probably forgot to update them. If none of them do, Windows probably sabotaged your efforts.

If Windows undid your hard work (thanks to Driver Protection), you're going to have to use add/remove programs to uninstall everything related to ATI products, reboot, then reboot into safe mode and somehow manually delete anything and everything remotely resembling an ATI driver, .inf file, .dll, and anything else remotely associated with ATI, its products, and maybe even video in general. And scrub any and all evidence anything ATI-related ever existed from the registry. You DID make a backup first, right? This can easily fry Windows beyond repair... but Windows Driver Protection can be stubborn, and sometimes nothing short of total scorched earth deletion can subvert it and force it to let you install the drivers YOU want.

On the other hand, if MMC's TV app runs, but when you capture you get weird results (I initially got captures with mangled, muted chroma data in the top half, and black & green video in the bottom half), try selecting a different capture format. If that succeeds, you can try reselecting the format you tried the first time around... hopefully, the act of choosing the other one will have reset whatever was screwed up and it'll work now. At least, it did it for me

Another tip I read somewhere... go into the registry and find
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Software
ATI Technologies
Features
TV
SOUND
Record Volume

and change the value from "352" (hex) to "100" (still hex).

Good luck!

[Sonnee]

I have an ATI TV WONDER VE capture card that works fine with my system (albeit following an arduous effort to get all the correct drivers loaded). I am currently running MMC 7.1 after a failed attempt to upgrade to MMC 7.7.

After the upgrade my TV card failed to work correctly with many of the issues that people have discussed on this forum. Needless to say, I reverted back to MMC 7.1. I had to completely re-install my OS to get everything working as before.

My advice to anyone who wants it - if it works, don't change it !! (particularly with ATI products).


SYSTEM info:-

ASUS 400FSB Motherboard with P4 1.9GHz.
512MB RAMBUS
100 Gb Hardrive
WIN2K
ATI Radeon 7500
ATI TV Wonder VE
Creative Audigy
DRU500A DVD/CD Writer


For anyone who wants to brave an MMC 7.7 upgrade, here is the link:-http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/win2k/radeonopt-2k.html

[ofbarea]

Hi,

I was able to configure ATI MMC 7.7 using Windows XP SP1, Direct X 9.

1. Install lates ATI video driver available. In my case I have an ATI all-in-wonder 128 Pro.
2. Install XP SP1
3. Install Direct X 9
4. Install WDM Capture Driver for All-in-wonder radeon for Windows XP.
5. Install ATI multimedia Center for any of the Radeon Cards Avaliable.

After all of this it should work. At least it did worked for me.

Good luck.
Hi,

I was able to configure ATI MMC 7.7 using Windows XP SP1, Direct X 9.

1. Install lates ATI video driver available. In my case I have an ATI all-in-wonder 128 Pro.

2. Install XP SP1

3. Install Direct X 9

4. Install WDM Capture Driver for All-in-wonder 9700 radeon for Windows XP. This was only tested with my aiw 128 Pro.

5. Install ATI multimedia 7.7 Center for any of the Radeon Cards Avaliable.

After all of this it should work. At least it did worked for me.

Good luck.

[ofbarea]

I almost forgot...

Use the WDM capture driver of the Catalist 3 Radeon aiw 9500.

Good luck.

:P

[ofbarea]

Ups!!!

AIW Radeon 9700 I meant...

[alucard2050]

i have a problem with MMC7.7....i downloaded it. everything installed..but where is the program to capture..i have the file player, vcd player, cd audio, library, and configuration, but there is no capture software...i've used earlier versions that have the capture software bundled with it. does this have it??? what else do i need to do??

[ofbarea]

It was activated in the PC that had the All-In-Wonder card. I installed the same application in a system with a Radeon 9000 but it dod not installed the video capture application.

Ithink feature will be enabled if there is an AIW capture card in the system.

[Sonnee]

alucard2050,

As far as I can remember from my battle with an MMC 7.7 upgrade, the software prompts for a valid cd to be inserted into your drive containing a previous version of 'MMC'. If your disk does not contain 'TV' or the capture software as you prefer to address it, the upgrade will not load 'TV'.

You simply need to use the cd that came with your cap card ( I presume it is an ATI?) and the upgrade should then load completely.

I faced the same problems and wasted a lot of time searching 'ati.com' for the answer!


Good Luck.

[Bizuser]

Well I was lucky I guess but I had no problems getting MMC 7.7 working with my ATI AIW 128 - once I sat down and read the posts above!

I first uninstalled everything related to ATI, including basic driver. Then installed latest driver for ATI AIW 128. Then downloaded and installed the WDM capture driver listed under the Radeon aiw 9700 (Catalyst) (which says it supports all AIWs!). Then downloaded MMC 7.7.

Everything went smoothly ... not sure why!

I can capture direct to MPEG 2. The resulting file still can't be authored direct to SVCD, but a quick demux/remux in TMPG fixes that.

In the meantime, though, I bought a WinTV PVR-250 ... So now I have both cards in my system, and I'm comparing the results. So far, my observations are that the 'best' results come from ATI AIW capturing to AVI, then encoding in TMPG (but takes ages!); second best results come from direct capture to MPEG2 using the PVR-250; third best results come from direct capture to MPEG2 using the ATI AIW and MMC 7.7. But I'm still testing!

[Coopervid]

Everybody!

I have also an AIW 128 Pro. MMC7.7 with the AIW Radeon 9700 drivers works only with XP. WIN2000 failed several times. You just get the initialization wizard all the time and even you can set up everything with no problem but MMC crashes upon exit. People who want to save some time: Try this only with XP installed. Service pack not required.
Load XP. Install newest XP drivers for the AIW128 Pro. Download the AIW 9700 capture drivers. Install manually. Reboot???!!! Install MMC7.7 found under software for AIW9700. Should work. Worked for me. But no luck under WIN2000. Normally I say there's nothing that won't work with WIN200 that works with XP and I stick with 2000. This seems not to be the case here.

BTW - this worked w/o loading updates of Mediaplayer or DirectX.


Vid

[Bizuser]

Vid - my success was with Windows 2000, not XP!

I uninstalled EVERYTHING associated with ATI, ended up back at VGA. Then installed the AIW 128 driver (not a radeon driver).

Then installed the WDM capture driver from the 9700 page, then the MMC 7.7, and that was it ...

WIndows 2000, SP3, AIW 128 PCI not AGP.

Also, in case it matters, my AIW 128 PCI has the rage theater chip (it seems some shipped with a different one) and, I see "128 Pro" in certain places even though the board was sold as a 128.

[Coopervid]

Well...bizuser,

you seem to be a lucky guy!

Tried it on my standard WIN2000 installation with Go Back. No luck.
Installed WIN2000 from scratch on my second disk. No luck. Installed XP in addition on my second disc from scratch and it worked. But never mind! There was never any logic behind what works and what doesn't with ATI drivers. This was actually a piece of cake compared to what I experienced with the AIW 128 Pro card in my Athlon 1000 with a VIA KT133 chipset.
Again, it might work - but chances seem to be better under XP. I have a Intel 850MV board and this seems to be one of the most "compatible" for all kinds of video software (remember I got burned in the first place with my Gigabyte / VIA KT133 board!). Never had any issues.

FYI, this is a AIW 128 Pro /16MB /Rage Theater/ Philips Tuner FI1236 / Audio ITT MSP3430.

[Bizuser]

Perhaps I should come clean on some intervening steps - may or may not be relevant.

First, I had the AIW 128 PCI card, and a second ATI 'expert' card (which is rage 128 Pro, I believe) driving a second monitor. One ATI driver supported both cards. MMC 7.1 functioning OK. Mobo is asus P4B533. OS is win2k sp3.

Purchased a WinTV PVR-250 to try it's direct to MPEG2 capabilities. At the same time, purchased a basic ATI Radeon 7500 dual monitor-capable card (not AIW; just plain radeon, but with dual monitor support). As part of the radeon 7500 install, installed MMC 7.8 (yes, 7.8, it's on the CD, even though website only has 7.7).

Got all that working - captured mpeg 2 direct using the pvr-250, and had dual monitors working on the radeon 7500. But discovered that the pvr-250 does not support 3rd party capture to (eg) Vdub, and thus, you can't do avi captures. Boo Hiss.

So removed the ATI radeon and all it's drivers (back to VGA). re-inserted the ATI AIW 128 card; followed instructions above - installed WDM capture driver for radeon 9700, then MMC 7.7. At this point, no radeon equipment installed; both tv tuner cards installed (pvr-250 and AIW). I can capture to MPEG2 with the pvr-250 card+software, capture to AVI using VDUB and the AIW card.

One possibility is the act of installing the radeon 7500 updated something; and/or the act of installing mmc 7.8 while the 7500 was installed (even though I uninstalled drivers and MMC later). One other thought is win2k SP3 - I'm now seeing quite different treatment of IRQs in my system - I saw that the video cards were using IRQs such as 21, 22, etc - which I've never seen before! Don't know where that came from!

FYI, I did a little research on the MMC 7.8; it's apparently the same as mmc 7.7 but with some updates specific to radeon 9700. Not sure why they are shipping it with the 7500, yet not making it available for download, but anyway, seems like a very minor upgrade.

[Coopervid]

That actually could make a difference.... but I'm not sure...

Your mobo incorporates Intel's newer southbridge chip that gives you more IRQs under WIN2000 and XP. But sometimes 2000 and XP ignore those and map many components still to the same IRQ (often IRQ9). The feature does not work with 95 based OSes like 95,98 and ME. My 850MV has that too and that was one of the factors while I bought it.

Forgot to mention that my card is AGP, I have also SP3 for WIN2000 installed on my regular installation as well as on the new one where I tried the 9700 capture drivers.

The real nasty part is that everything worked under 2000 but just got the program to crash on exit from MMC. So nothing of the configuration was saved and each time the initialization wizard will come up again.

BTW - tried Intervideo's WINVCR2 as well and can also configure the program to use the drivers and record but exiting the program will crash it as well. Same behavior. At the next start it then also comes up with the need for initial configuration.

If anybody has an idea for a registry tweak please let me know. I don't usally give up that easily and will probably do a comparison of the registry settings in my fresh WIN2000 installation vs. the XP installation. Chances are probably low but if I find anything helpful I will post it here.

Vid

[Bizuser]

Hey, Vid - thanks mucho for the insight in the IRQ deal! I built this system a few months ago and I guess I never looked at the IRQs until now. It's been so rock solid, I guess.

I just bought the P4PE asus mobo because it supports serial ATA - I will be buying a seagate SATA in my quest for silence (silence and video processing are conflicting goals I know, due to heat, but I'm obsessed with silence so here goes ....!). I hope this mobo has the same (or better) southbridge.

It seems that the irq limitation has been around for SOOOooo long I'd given up all hope of it being addressed. Does the P4 itself handle more IRQs, or does it not need to? I used to be a hardware guy but I've drifted into software these days so I've lost touch with the details!

Most times when I exit the wintv2000 app (comes with the pvr-250 card), I get a crash and lose all settings, but I don't get this when I exit MMC.

My hunch now is that installing the radeon card helped. It only cost about $70. I actually dislike the way it implements dual monitor support - it presents one big wide desktop, with the 'tray' spanning both monitors and dialogs popping up on the boundary; with two discreet cards, the tray is restricted to 'primary' monitor and dialogs are centered on one or the other.

Thanks again ...

[Coopervid]

De nada, bizuser.

I'm on the track....
Fixed WIN2000 and all works. But pretty complicated. I have first to find out by an analysis how that all is related.
A hint in advance:

DirectX9 instead of 8.1. and 8.1 bda(multimedia)
Exported XP registry settings and imported into 2000 (HCU/Software/Ati Technologies/Multimedia)

I'll keep you posted....

P.S.: You should have and ICH4 with USB2 compared to my ICH2 with USB1.1. Both support APIC/ ACPI which gives you 24 IRQs.

Vid

Damn.. I typed an even longer post before but somehow it was lost....

[Bizuser]

I have directx 8.1 installed (just checked with dxdiag).

In my registry for hklm/software/ati/ati multimedia center 7.7.0.0/1.00.000, there are NO entries (other than empty folders)

for hklm/software/ati technologies, I see a slew of entries. One such entry is /WDMCapture, but only data is Tuner Country Code.

for hklm/software/ati technologies inc, there are no entries (other than empty folders).

for hklm/system/current control set/services, there are several ati related entries, but they all seem pretty innocuous - pointing to system32\drivers\atinrvxx.sys, etc.

Which entries in the registry did you export/import?

I hear that mmc 8 will have backwards support, but I don't know when it's due.

As for losing posts, I've now adopted a new technique - type the message; ctrl-a to select all; ctrl-c to copy, then post - that way my message is saved. This forum seems to have a timeout of some sort such that if you don't post within a limit it loses your session?

I do indeed have usb 2 - that was in fact why I bought the mobo. USB2 is great - I'm doing video caps direct to an external hd on usb2. I get no more frame drops than I do capturing to my local hd. The new p4pe board just arrived yesterday and it has firewire built in also!

[Coopervid]

Actually this gets more and more obscure.... However Inoticed that XP had a higher version number of DirectX than 2000. Maybe I had still 8.1 instead of 8.1b. Now I can't tell anymore.

The keys are not in HKLM but in HCU Hkey Current User. This always ticked me off as even the ATI scheduler saves recording times etc. in the registry. That's crazy in my opinion!

Have a look there in your registry. I copied the whole part as mentioned in my earlier message and imported into 2000. The after installing DirectX9 worked perfectly.

Now I will try it with my standard installation on the weekend but I have of course to be very careful so I can go back if anything goes wrong.

Nice mobo! Are you upgrading very often? I do mostly every 1.5 years a major upgrade with a new mobo etc. Little ones more often if there is a good deal out there. Like my $169 Pioneer DVD-Burner.

[Bizuser]

Coopervid - any progress? I'm about to build my new system (with the P4PE board). I will be loading Win2k. I want to put the ATI AIW in it and get MMC 7.7 working. I could be optimistic and assume it will all work, but since you are having probs, I'd like to benefit from your experience!

In the absence of any feedback, I'll load the Radeon 7500 card first, then remove it, then load the AIW.

Thanks!

[Coopervid]

Hi bizuser,

I gave up....
I finally got MMC7.7 to work without any crashes. But I also work with other programs using the WDM drivers and those still crashed.

These are Intervideo's WINDVR2 and Cyberlink's PowerVCR II 3.0. WINDVR2 would not be the biggest problem since MMC7.7 has now also the possiblity to record DVD compatible. But I hate to give up PowerVCR as it is my favorite editor and "MPEG file fixer" for all incompatibilities in MPEG files.

I will probably have to use my XP partition to use all of them together but it is a hazzle to switch partitions just for video stuff.

I recommend that you do that step with the graphics card as it might have fixed something.

Vid

[Bizuser]

Hey, CooperVid - and anyone else who cares ... FYI I just built my P4PE system with a P4 2.4 GHz, and put the ATI AIW 128 PCI card in it; loaded ATI drivers; loaded WinDVD; WinDVD crashes as soon as it tries to display video. Searching the web suggests others are having this issue. But, of course, not everyone ... So there's some sort of interaction between ATI AIW 128, P4PE, WinDVD (all versions) that did not apply to P4B533. I'm going to try all kinds of things, of course, but just wanted to let y'all know about this! I'll post the solution if and when I find one!

[Coopervid]

Hi Bizuser,

and also to everybody who wants to use the updated capture drivers and MMC7.7 with a AIW 128 Pro.

After endless trials in WIN2000 I finally made it work! All applications using the Radeon capture divers finally run without problems.

This is how it works in case you have trouble with other programs that are supposed to use the new WDM capture drivers.

First install them and then change them manually from list. Change all 5 new ATI WDM drivers!

Then go to the WDM driver install directory e.g. ATI/support/tv-capture-wdm-6-14-01-6178v1 and go to the subdirectory WDM_2k. Highlight all files. Click copy. Go to your "%windows%/system32/drivers"
directory and click paste. This overwrites old files that haven't been updated in my installation.

Reboot and everything is fine since!

Vid

[Coopervid]

Everybody!

Just tried it without doing anything else I did before (Registry imports from XP etc.) Change the drivers, copy and paste the WDM_2K to the system32/drivers section and I'm up and running in my main installation with WINDVR and PowerVCR II using the new WDM drivers -no trouble at all!

You should probably save your original system32\drivers directory to a safe place before doing this (I did...) Just in case! Fooling around with manual installs is very dangerous!

That's the fix!

Vid

[Bizuser]

This post builds on prior posts from Miamicanes and CooperVid. CooperVid and I traded notes for a week while I fussed with this. This is hopefully a comprehensive guide!

Goal is to get MMC 7.7 working in Windows 2000 with the ATI AIW 128 PCI (Rage Theater chip). Secondary goals (for me) were to get Virtual Dub (VDub) to capture with this driver, and to fix a problem with WinDVD2000.

WinDVD2000 issue: old winDVD2000 2.6 would not play MPEG2 on my new machine (and caused ATI and Windows Media Player to not play MPEG2 either).

VirtualDub issue: VDub was built to use the VFW model (video for windows). Later ATI drivers conform to the WDM model (Windows Driver Model?). So you have to configure a 'wrapper' that came with Win2k SP2 (I believe) before Virtual Dub will 'see' the ATI card's capture capability.

Steps:
1) clean install, win2k
2) install DirectX 9 (8.1 may be OK - but 9 is easier to find)
3) install ati aiw driver 5_13_01_3279 (this is the driver from ATI website - pretty old but seems to be latest).
4) install MMC 7.1 (also from ATI website).
5) install Virtual Dub, capture didn't work - no capture device available.
6) install WinDVD2000 2.6 - plays avi, mpeg1 but mpeg2 crashes.
ATI file player and Windows Media Player also now crash on mpeg2
7) uninstall WinDVD 2.6; installed WinDVD 4.0 - ATI File player, WMP and WinDVD play MPEG2s ok. (optional step, this was just me getting winDVD2000 to work!)
8) install ATI DVD 7.6 - all programs still play MPEG2s ok
9) install wmfdist (latest windows codecs) (when you install one of the ATI components above, it warns you that you must have these available/installed, and gives you the web site to get them from)
10) install latest tv capture tv-capture-wdm-6-14-01-6178v1 (d/l from ati radeon site).
At this point, looking in device manager, under 'sound, video and game controllers', I see five ati wdm items:

1) rage theater video;
2) specialzed MVD Codec;
3) Specialized PCD Codec;
4) TV Audio Crossbar;
5) TV Tuner

11) Manually update each 'wdm' driver to latest version (from 5.13.1.3279 to 6.14.1.6178).
To do this, get to properties for each item, then driver/update driver, then (non-default) - 'display a list of the known drivers for this device ...' then 'have disk', then browse to the location (typically, c:\ati\support\...) where the files were installed when you installed the tv-capture-wdm-6-14-01-6178v1 package, windows 2000 subdirectory. Then OK/accept/whatever to close the dialog fully. Repeat this 5 times to get all 5 updated.
12) Copy all win2k drivers from the win2k folder just referenced to system32 folder (this is the tip from CooperVid, who found that not all files were updated when you go through the individual updates of step 11). Many files will be identical but some will be newer.
13) Apply win2k sp3 (could probably have done this much earlier in the process)
14) install the vfwwdm wrapper (instructions on vdub website - http://www.virtualdub.org/docs_vfwwdm). For no obvious reason, applying the windows Service Pack does NOT automatically do this, even though the necessary files are provided in the service pack. Test Vdub - it can now capture!
15) uninstall MMC 7.1 and ATI DVD 7.6 (do this for 'cleanliness').
15) install ATI DVD 7.6 and then MMC 7.7 - all file types play (mpeg1, mpeg2, etc) in all players. NOTE: YOU MUST install in this order - DVD 7.6 first, THEN MMC 7.7 - or else you lose the 'digital VCR' capability in ATI for no good reason!
17) tested Mpeg2 capture in ATI MMC (Digital VCR). Seems OK!

[n6nfg]

15) uninstall MMC 7.1 and ATI DVD 7.6 (do this for 'cleanliness').

Did you just do a standard ati "uninstall" from the control panel,
or did you also need to do the "registry" cleanup stuff to
eliminate all ATI references?

-n6nfg