Opinions on "All In Wonder Radeon AGP Card/system

[other1]

Hi all,
I want to capture VHS>MPEG. I have herd this is a good option. I have a PIII 550k, 256ram. I am interested in ALL opinions. If this is not what you use what do you use. Thanks!
-Ross

[SluSignGuy]

I got the card last Friday. My only, and biggest complaint is that ATI (their bundled software) has the MPEG-2 files save as a .mp2 file, instead of a .mpg, or .mpeg. I have tried different ways to convert it with the assistance of people on this forum. Others have had luck it seems, but I haven't had any with a good conversion (sound problems).

Steve

[Tommy]

I have an AIW 128 agp and it works fine, a friend of mine
has the card your looking at and he likes it. However with this being said, the card can be a hassle to set up. Sometimes I think that ATI tries to make the worse drivers in the industry.

It really depends on how you want to capture the vhs to mpeg, but unless your looking for a replacement for your current video card you might want to look elsewhere. But if you really want it, its works fine once you get out all of the kinks.

SluSignGuy: What do you mean convert the mp2 file? What are you trying to convert it too? I have never had any problems with it. TPMG doesn't seem to care.

[Lum-Chan]

I am still looking for advice/help on this card. Had it for a week. I just rename my files .mpg when I save them. Unfortunatly the letterbox Babylon 5 episode I captured came out like it had been in a house of mirrors - stretched. Not sure of the best way to work with files like this.

Ideas?? Anyone???

[cas]

i got the ATI AIW RADEON AGP last sat.. the graphics are great on my lcd monitor.. the capture is another story.. so far Im alittle pissed.. first the mpeg1 dont capture near vcd quality.. next I tried mpeg2.. it says mpeg2.. when I go into tmpeg or nero it says its only mp1.. I dunno

[Pyrofanatic]

I have a AIW128 AGP and it works great. The drivers are another story though. It's a great overall card but do not depend on the ATI software to capture good video.

[Stinky]

you can capture to good quality VCD's

you can do SVCD's and you can capture to VirtualDub as AVI and convert to SVCD

with the ATI AIW there is a learning curve though

here are some links to previous threads that should help.

http://www.vcdhelp.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=43561&forum=2

http://www.vcdhelp.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=46625&forum=2

I know it's a pain - but if you search the forum you can find your answers

I'm very satisfied with my AIW

[next]

The majority of the complaints about the AIW come from users who have boxes that just might be a bit underpowered. It's a catch 22. Those that have setups with alot of CPU power love them. Those that do not think thay are the absolute worst. It is actually a great card that offers a tremendous amout of advantages. But you have to have enough power in the box to take advantage of its real time software mpeg compression.

I would't trade it for anything at the moment. I get real time captures that burn without any subsequent encoding. The quality is great and it allows me to go off VCD specs.
The real key here is that it allows me to go off specs and still burn in Nero. Also, I have been able to use VCDImager to create bins and burn in either Nero or Fireburner. It's a real time saver with excellent quality.

If you want to shave off about 6-12 hours after your capture and move into real time encoding then get one. Just have the box to support it.

[RFontenot]

I have an ATI Radeon AGP in my PIII 800MHz w/256MB RAM running Win2000. It works great now, but for a long time I was ready to dump it in the trash.

The MMC 7.0 software and drivers on the CD stink. Somehow the process of removing and reinstalling the new MMC 7.1 software and drivers crashed and corrupted my system and forced me to restore from tape backup.

I had all kinds of problems with recording until the latest drivers came out. Now everything works fine. If you get the card, my recommendation would be skip the CD install and download the latest software and drivers from ATI's website. Keep the CD though, you'll need it to install the scheduling and DVD software.

There are still some bugs even in the latest software, though.

The Best Quality setting was supposed to use I-Frames only, but instead uses IBP frames. As a result, I don't think there is a PC available today that has the CPU horsepower to record anything at Best Quality. ATI recommends customers create a custom setting based on the Best Quality setting and use I-Frames only.

The Video CD setting records at 1.05Mbps instead of 1.15Mbps. You might think .10Mbps isn't much, but with VCD it makes a difference in the quality.

next and stinky have put together a tool that allows tweaking custom settings. You can make some really high quality XVCD recordings with the tweaks. (just don't call them VCD compliant or you'll be roasted like a pig on a spit)

Dropped frames, which will ruin your recording, can be a real problem on underpowered systems. The highest resolution I've been able to achieve without dropping frames with my PIII 800Mhz is 640x480 @ 6Mbps. Getting there took a lot of tweaking though.

RF