AIW 128 owners -- PLEASE read

[Pied-Piper]

Despite what ATI says,MMC 7.1/7.2/7.5 can't work with an AIW 128 card.
When using MMC 6.3 with Win9x/ME and Old drivers,everything is fine.
But the sound problems start with the installation of MMC 7.1+ and their drivers.
After the installation of MMC 7.1+,everything works
--"but every second for two tenth of second the sound disapears. Not to mention that this means that TV is useless. You cannot watch something like this not become crazy in a minute. I tried with Win ME, Win98 SE, Win XP everywhere the same."--(Aux or Line in)
ATI has mentioned MMC 7.1+ is compatible with AIW 128(not pro),But it's NOT.
The only MMC that works fine with AIW 128 is 6.3.
Another issue that's not my concern is TV on Demand.It always crashes or is not working.
There is another post here:
http://www.rageunderground.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=23&t=001164
And I have posted this issue also in another topic:
https://www.videohelp.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=68549&forum=2
Any IDEA or HELP is greatly appreciated.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Pied-Piper on 2001-12-13 22:19:06 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Pied-Piper on 2001-12-13 22:38:06 ]</font>

[Pied-Piper]

What's the best choice for an all in one video card with TV tuner and good capture capabilities(real-time MPEG1/2)?
ATI is very disappointing.
Can you experts suggest me what to buy at a reasonable price?
A capture board with VFW and WDM drivers and capable of capturing at high resolutions without dropping frames or sound synch issues.
Does upgrading to Radeon AIW solve the ATI nasty drivers' problems?
And I have another question,what sound card is better for video capture and video editing?
I need your advice.please HELP.

[RaleighNC]

I've got aiw128/32 with mmc 7.1 on win2k. It works. I just need a better cable signal or satellite or digi-cable.

This is what I did:
http://www.vcdhelp.com/ATI_AIW_Guide.htm

[kinneera]

I've had no problems with my ATI AIW and 7.1 MMC. In fact, it fixed my audio sync problems. Perhaps there is a problem with your soundcard.

Of course, I just don't have MMC installed any more now that I'm a VirtualDub convert. Looking into buying another hard drive to handle those AVI caps, though.

[John817]

I own an AIW 128 upgraded from 6.3 to 7.1 and everything worked fine. No audio problems. Just upgraded to 7.5 only had a few frustrating hours to install. Tried to install over 7.1 everything worked fine except the TV. Did a complete uninstall, started over fresh with 7.5 still no TV. Then I went to ATI websight downloaded the newest drivers and no everything works fine. Actually it works better than all the previous versions. I can now record 704x480 at 9.0m with >1% frame drop. Never could get this with the previous versions.

Little John

[siaododo]

John817, Where did you get the mmc 7.5? I only see the 7.2 version posted on the ati web site. I appreciate if you can show me where to get the newest vesion and drivers.

[patrickm]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-12-12 23:23:35, Pied-Piper wrote:
Despite what ATI says,MMC 7.1/7.2/7.5 can't work with an AIW 128 card.
When using MMC 6.3 with Win9x/ME and Old drivers,everything is fine.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

it depends on the tuner and decoder chips you have. any of the cards with the rage theater should work with 7.1. that's why the aiw 128/32 does.

[Pied-Piper]

Please read some other posts at
http://www.rageunderground.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=23&t=001164
I'm not the only one with these MMC problems.
I have an AIW 128/AGP2x/32MB and my soundcard is a creative PCI128Digital.The computer is P3 500Mhz with 256MB pc133 SDRAM.
siaododo,you can download MMC 7.5 from
http://www.subzerotech.com/news/files/MmcDvd75.exe
but its TV on demand crashes on Win XP as well as some other problems and the one I have.
I think I'd better describe my TV proplem again
you can read others' descriptions of the same problem as I have at the rageunderground forum(address above).
I was unable to solve TV sound on many configurations.
I'd better say the sound is not continuously and is interrupted every one or two seceonds.
It disapears and then after 1 or 2 seconds comes again.
But sound composite connected to the purple thing often works fine.
In my opinion my AIW 128(NOT PRO)is made to work only with
MMC 6.3(VFW)and the drivers supplied on its installation CD.
I had no success at the installation of any other upgraded MMC and drivers.
The only working MMC is a clean install of MMC 6.3 on a fresh OS.
patrickme,
Can you kindly guide me on how to find the tuner and decoder chips I have.rage tweaker or...?
And how these chips affect my problem?I have rage theater video capture(WDM) in the device manager.
kinneera,how do you use VirtualDub without VFW drivers.Microsoft wrapper (WDM Image capture) doesn't work without many problems for my card.

Thanks all.

[patrickm]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
patrickme,
Can you kindly guide me on how to find the tuner and decoder chips I have.rage tweaker or...?
And how these chips affect my problem?I have rage theater video capture(WDM) in the device manager.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

the easiest way (in my opinion) is to just look at the card. otherwise:

i don't use rage tweaker, but do display properties (right click on desktop) -> settings -> advanced -> adapter -> properties. at the bottom, there will be a listing for each. for my aiw 128 pro, it's a philips 1236 tuner and the rage theater. one of the main problems (supposedly) for the later, wdm-based MMC's is that they don't support the very first aiw 128s with the older (bt829?) tuners, or the BT capture chips. that's why some people get "no supported capture device found" because the new drivers based on the radeon cards don't cover the old chips.

what may actually help you out if nothing is working, or sound cutting out, is to send the card back to ATI for a replacement. they have a 5yr warranty, so maybe you'd get a later build. (the first one i bought had a problem with the capture chip, and the video would cut in half and get blue lines and things...). so if nothing else solves the problems, it's possible it's a hardware problem. tell them if they stop supporting the card, they should replace it with one they support. after all, what good is a 5yr warranty on something you can't use?

[patrickm]

also, search for some of my other posts on installing MMC 7.1 i found the best way under win9x is to do a clean install of driver 4.12.6292, then MMC 6.3, then MMC 7.1 into a different directory, then DVD 4.1 into the new 7.1 directory. make sure you have the directX 8 and DX8 video capture update installed, or mmc 7.1 won't work right. and dvd 4.1 is a bug fix for capture too.

[VCDsMakeMoney]

I have an AIW card with MMC 7.1 and everything works fine.Although,when I first tried to upgrade,nothing would work.I did what patrickm did,and probably the only way to make MMC 7.1 work at all.

[Gargoyle]

I had problems similar to Pied-Pipers;
1st attempt at upgrading to MMC7.1 resulted in not being able to select "cable" as my input (button was grayed out),
2nd try (using patrickm's method) gave me the option for cable input, but then I had no sound: either under TV mode or while capturing using MMC, or capturing using VirtualDub.
I finally gave up and went back to MMC 6.3, and everything worked again.

[gsashok]

pied-piper

I have ATI 128 16 MB pro card.
In windows 2000 It worked with 7.2 version of MMC.

Last night I tried to install MMC 7.5.

TV is not working means unable to watch TV screen.
It says "problem is video capture, check your video driver"

You are right. I tried with 98 SE and ME. 7.5 fails.

6.5/7.1/7.2 works like charm.



Tonight I am going to redo my work.
If I get success I will inform here.

[Nelson37]

I have AIW 128 pro w/7.1 on Win98se and another on XP Pro w/7.5. Both working fine, the install wasn't what I call smooth, get latest and next-to-latest drivers, test.
Reformat and reinstall Windows seems to work best, update ALL drivers.
I'm not an ATI flack, but when you complain about driver support, consider company longevity. ATI will still be here 5 and maybe 10 years from now, seen any new 3dfx drivers lately? Think my old voodoo3 will get XP drivers? Also, quirky drivers are a fact of life in the PC biz. That's not an excuse, but with 7.5 there is real, usable software here at a good overall value, for my old card.

[patrickm]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
I'm not an ATI flack, but when you complain about driver support, consider company longevity. ATI will still be here 5 and maybe 10 years from now, seen any new 3dfx drivers lately? Think my old voodoo3 will get XP drivers? Also, quirky drivers are a fact of life in the PC biz. That's not an excuse, but with 7.5 there is real, usable software here at a good overall value, for my old card.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

you know, no offense, but i've had a couple ATI cards now, and i do really like the quality of the hardware, but i get tired of that argument sometimes. yes, they will be around, and yes, they give out 5yr warranties on most cards. but when were the last capture capable AIW 8M Pro drivers released? they never got a stable release for win98, and flat out gave up for win2k/XP. and they were still producing them until late '98, so the warranty could last until 2003. the last year, they have done better in updating the previous generation, but once the next generation of radeon cards come out, the aiw 128 drivers and software will drop off the priority list. even the fact that the older aiw 128 pci 16M don't have the latest tuner/capture chip means they're getting shafted now.

but the drivers themselves have actually been getting better, and MMC 7.1 was a big improvement. so let's hope they've finally started listening to their customers and will continue to release more stable software and keep 2-3yr old products useable (though don't hold your breath)