Audio Problems - All In Wonder Pro 128

[nicepants]

Recently got the AIW 128 Pro after having significant problems with the Radeon. I had the same problem with this card as I did with the radeon, however.

Problem:
When capturing from TV, the audio sounds fine on the sound card output. However when playing back captured files, the audio level is low, and there is a LOT of hiss.

Workaround:
Those of you with an AIW know that the card has a 1/8" audio output that you plug into the line input of your sound card, since the AIW doesn't do audio capture. Well I tried just unplugging that, and instead running the line out from my portable MD recorder to that line in jack. I was able to capture the MDs audio perfectly. So I took the next step and fed the AIWs audio output to the line in of the portable MD unit. I then set the unit to record-pause, which feeds the audio from the line in to the line out. I captured another file like this and it sounded fine.


Conclusion:
Well something is not right about the way the AIW sends audio to the sound card. Something is apparently wrong with that signal, because the card is unable to record it correctly, while it can record from other sources just fine.

My guess is that it's mis-matched impedance or maybe a DC offset.

A better solution would probably be to use a small distribution amplifier between the AIW output and the sound card input.

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If you have had similar problems please let me know. I am able to capture, it's just a pain to have to have a MD recorder sitting there to make sure the feed is decent. I will probably just buy a small distribution amplifier so that I don't have to waste an MD deck for this purpose.



Specs

IWILL KK266-R Motherboard
AMD 1.0Ghz / 266 FSB
1.0 GB PC 133 RAM
All In Wonder Pro 128 w/ 32 MB RAM (AGP)
Using On-Board Sound Card
Windows 2000 Pro SP2

[Ole_thor]

Nicepants,
I have an AIW 128 (not pro) it has 2 sound connections, 1 goes to the dvd or cd and the other goes to the place where the dvd/cd used to go (on the sound card). I thought the pro was similar, just had a few more features and more memory.

If I use the ATI MMC 7.5 to capture AVI I get high volume (so high it clips). If I use Virtualdub to capture I get no sound at all (and the video is reversed (negative image). I have only been testing it with the TV input so far, not the svideo. I think your problem could be the cabling, or it could be the capture software.

I also found that the ATI software would let me capture at 720x240, but I can't seem to get 640x480. the virtualdub output is unreadable by tmpgenc so I can't format the data for svcd and burning. I'm kind of new to this so I probably just did something dumb with virtualdub.

What kind of results are you getting with the video capture?

Ole.

[resnullius]

i don't remeber who told me this but i had a similar prob. Does your motherboard have a via chipset? If so, you can try installing the via pci latency patch (www.viahardware.com). Also, disabling UDMA (using DMA33 instead of DMA66) sometimes fixes the problem...

[next]

I've had 'hiss' problems as well. I pretty much ran the problem down to the sound card. The reason I mention this is that with a number of AIW setups the "hiss" only occured with a particular sound card. It was a hercules. Swapping sound cards fixed the problem across various box setups. Not sure if this is your problem but it worked for me.

A quick fix I found that worked was to use the mic in on sound cards that had a "hiss" when using the line in. Not a very good fix but if you think it might be the sound card try the mic in input and see if the "hiss" goes away. If it does then its your sound card.

AIW cards pretty much do an "ole" when it comes to sound - meaning in most cases it is a simple pass through and not the cause of your "hiss" problem. I don't think your AIW card is the source of your "hiss".

[jackieshane]

nicepants, mate I got AIW 128 with 16Mb pCI and no sound with VirtualDub.

Some clever jonny must be out there to help us out. I need this stuff badly.