ATI "box"

[Lucifers_Ghost]

Hello,

Just got a quick question.

My friend wants to be able to plug his tv feed into his computer and record tv shows directly onto his computer. Now my understanding of this is that he will need two things:
1) a video card with a video in on it
2) a capture card to "record" with

Now, he went to a computer store and explained this to them and they made him buy a device from ATI. It has a cable coming out of it that has a male 29 pin square connector on it (the video card also has a female 29 pin connector) as well as 6 RCA jacks (im assuming 3 in and 3 out) and two s-video.

My question is .. what the heck is this box thingy? Im assuming it is only to hook up the cable feed to the computer (the video card also has a dvi input and a cable input).

Any advice would be appreciated

Thank you in advance.
LG

[edsmith77]

Lucifer,
It would help if you identified the specific ATI "box thingy" that is in play here.
I have an ATI AIW 9600 that is an AGP slot device that has a micro D connector as well as a cable connector. The micro D connector hooks to a molded purple multipurpose cable that provides RCA connectors for audio and video inputs and outputs. If you have what I think you have then all that is needed is to connect the cable to the back of the video card. Install the software, register the software (i.e., have it search the cable inputs for valid channels). THen set up your recording fancies or take the one of the defaults and voila you are basically in business.

More details on your specific setup, cards, etc., would be helpful.

[Lucifers_Ghost]

Uhhh .. if I knew what the box thingy was, I wouldnt have asked the question as to what it is .. hence the reason I described it.

I can tell you that the video card is an ATI AIW 8500DV. The description on the card says it can "capture and edit digital video" but I was under the impression that one need a separate capture card.

The micro D connector that you described pretty much sounds exactly like what I described so I think my friend is on the right track. I just wanted to make sure he wasnt getting ripped off by Future Shit .. er, Shop.

Thanks a bunch
LG

[edsmith77]

Lucifer,
Ok here is what you need to do. First hook up your cable tv cable to the connector on the back of the card. You do not need any other cards. Install the AIW software (MMC and if you like Catalyst). Register the tv channels to the software (i.e., running setup for the card). Set up MMC to record via one of the presets or make your own. I would use the presets to start with until you gain some experience. YOu will be limited to the channels below 125. You will not get any digital channels unless you can take the composite outputs from the cable tv box and run them into the purple "thingy" and then select composite input vice cable input on the software.

After recording you will have an editable mpg file that you can edit out commercials, run through an authoring program and end up with some folders that you can burn to DVD.

THe process is fairly straight forward and well documented with the hardware. The rest (capturing, editing and authoring) is pretty much in your own judgement as to quality.

[edDV]

The AIW-8500DV is a 5 year old model. Why is the computer store selling him such an old product?

It still works with driver updates but better to return it for a more recent model like the 9600 or 9800.

[Lucifers_Ghost]

No no .. he already had the video card. Apparantly he bought the micro D connector there.

[Richard_G]

Sonds like he already had an AIW but without the breakout box to give him somewhere to connect external video sources to, now he has. You were right originally in saying that a capture card is needed as well as a video card, but the All-in-Wonder is so named because it does both (and is a TV tuner as well).