ATI TV Wonder - needhelp to capture at 720x480 and 352x480

[The village idiot]

Can anyone point me to the drivers I need to be able to capture at higher resolutions with an ATI TV Wonder? I'm using win2000pro sp2, DX8.1, MMC7.1, mediaplayer 7.1, pentiumIII 733, and plenty of ram and disk. This version MMC seems to be a different version from the one used with the All in Wonder video cards. I tried that version and had capture problems. Thanks.

[vhelp]

thevillage,

FYI: I was searching around for some info, and I came accros an old post
I made right, so I'm UPDATing here, that:
* I AM able to capture at 720 x 480 resolution ! !

The truth is this. . .(BOME)
Its virtually IMPOSSIBLE to capture at 720x480 to an AVI file AND,
with NO frame-loss!!!
Can't be done!! I have tried it many, many times, w/ various codecs
etc. but still frame drops. About the maximum I will allow in a
frame drop number is 7 per hour!! and NO more!!

I've tried this w/ the HUFFY, PIC MJPEG, and Straight to AVI w/ no
codecs (uncompressed) but all give me some form of frame drops that
are way too many for me.

These are the systems I have tried 720x480 w/ ~7 frame drop goal but
failed on this:
* TP4 / MMX 233Mhz
* MSI mb / AMD T-Bird 900Mhz w/128 mb ram
* MSI mb / AMD 1700+ (1.4Ghz) w/ 128mb ram
* ESC K7S5A / AMD 1800+ (1.5Ghz) w/ 256mb DDR ram

NONE of the above allow me to cap w/ out min. frame drop of ~7 or less!!
Perfect 720x48 capturing will never happen!! ...till we reach the 3Ghz
speed.
Best to try for 640x480, 480x480 or better yet, 352x480.

I've tried everything imaginable:
* shutting down ALL apps in tray bar, even clock.
* no virus check on (or installed for these tests)
* DMA on
* hard drives on their own slot, ie, prim. or secondary w/ NO other
hard drive to bog down capture drive
* BIOS tweaks
* NEWer graphics card, though an AGP x4 will help a little w/ my
capturing, IMO.
* defraged hard drive
* reformated hard drive
* minimal windows 98 (not SE) software, and no other except for capture
app
* rebooting machine and not starting anything else, but capture app
* give or take a few other scenios and a combo of and and all the above.

* You may be able to cap PIC codec but you will still have way too many
frame drops.
* also, MMC, though you can cap at 720x480 (I've done a few) don't be
fooled by the <1% you see in the window. Too many poeple are misslead
by this (included myself at one time) and think that it means 1 or two
frames in the WHOLE capture process. NOT SO!! There were dozens or
hundreds of frame drops. Believe me. There are that many, MMC (ANY version)
uses this approach (<1%) in the window to kind of throw you off to the
truth in framedrops!
* ANY version with MMC

Welp, the 720x480 IS THE CHALLENGE!! So far, I believe that there is
NO ONE PERSON who is actually capping at 720x480 w/ NO FRAME DROPs
what-so-ever!! ...correct me if i'm wrong.
But, if anybody is telling you that they are capping at 720x480 w/ NO
frame drops is lying to you! No, not taling aoubt real-time mpeg either.
We are (i am) talking about AVI capturing only.

My current system (though many would say it is plenty capable... foowy)
* windows 98 (not SE)
* MSI mb / AMD 1700+ w/ 128mb ram
* ESC K7S5A / AMD 1800+ w/ 256MB ram
currently, I capture w/ my ATW at 352x480, and will drop maby 5 frames
an hour, and that's at 352x480!!


-vhelp
. . .(BOME) Based On My Experience
. . .(ATW) ATI-TV Wonder pci verion

[vhelp]

theVillage,

Sorry i did answer your question, ...I just complained, he, he...

About the only help I can offer is:
* I have Windows 98 and ATW card in it.
* i use a VFW driver (my AGP card installs a WDM driver) but this
causes trouble for vdub. So, ...
* i use a Hauppauge VFW driver I found at their site. You may want to
the that driver out or any VFW driver under your W2K OS. may or may
not work.
* or, try the VFW wrapper for the WDM driver. I think theirs a copy of
the link somewhere on this FORUM in the Tools section.
* after the above, if you can't get a good capture at 720x480, then
keep bumping down the resolutoin ie, 640x480, 480x480 and then the
352x480 till you get the most minimum frame drops you can live with.

Remember to back up your current settings so that in the event that
something does happen to your W2K setup, you can undo what you
did. I think that W2K has a REVERT routine for this. I could be wrong.
But the last thing you want is more headck, getting back what you had
before you tried the above and then some (from others here)

-vhelp

[The village idiot]

Well, I can get 720x480 with power VCRII ver.3. Only problem is that something just doesn't seem right with the video when I play it back. I can't put a finger on the problem, but I expect to find that it is not interlaced video. But still no half DVD(352x480) available. I just can't see using 720x480 for things recorded off of cable, but wanted something to be able to burn to DVD without having to resample the video.

I also tried the driver from http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/ but it isn't working with the tuner in my TV wonder. Gives me errors with the Philips generic and the MK2 which is what this card has.

Guess I need to keep looking.

[dattrax]

All,

I think the dropframe problem you are experiencing is due to a bad sync on your source material. Are you capturing from analogue or digital? I suspect analogue. If this is the case you will need a TBC to fix the sync pulses on a VHS/SVHS bla bla bla.. tape, I bought one and it sorted out my (7 frames in 1 hour) dropout problem.

To verify if this is the case, try capturing from a digital set top box and if it doesn't drop any frames then the TBC is what you need.

Jim

[The village idiot]

Well I got pissed at the machine and wiped the hardrives. Fresh install of win2000, and other software. Still no luck . The ATI drivers are loading WDM versions, no vfw for 2000. I can get it to produce 352x480 by changing the registry, but it just isn't right . Same goes for powerVCR. And DVDmoviefactory gives errors if an illegal setting is used .


Anybody know anything about how ATI sets up their drivers? Or how I can actually get this working with win2000? I don't want to mess with file size limits with fat32.

[muzman]

I guess the original poster's problem was that he cannot capture in high resolutions at all (let alone dropped frames). In fact, that is my problem too. I have ATI TV Wonder VE, and the maximum lines I can capture is 240 lines (i.e. XXX by 240).

This must be the limitation of the driver because when I chose a different capture resolution (e.g. 640x480 or even 352x288) VirtualDub gives an error "Unsupported Video Format" (even though I capture blind, i.e. no Overlay or Preview). Tried AVI_IO. It lets me setup the resolution but cannot capture either.

So... Is there any remedy to break the barrier of x240 lines for this TV Wonder card?

Murat

[The village idiot]

Yes, Muzman, that was my original question. Since this card uses the same chips and tuner as other All in Wonder cards, it must be able to capture at the same sizes. The question is, is the limitation in the software or the card's firmware. So far I'm hitting a wall with the software. Too bad to, this card makes great looking VCD (if you feed it a good enough signal), and it actually works (unlike my Dazzle DVC2, and the Sigma DVR I had). If I could get half DVD (352x480 interlaced) I would be happy. I just want an easy format to record things off of cable and burn them to DVD-R. I would accept 720x480 for the same purpose, but that much is kind of a waste from any tuner.

[vhelp]

Afternoon peoples, TheVillage, and others (STILL having those 352x240 blues)

first, if anyone knows how to find out EXACTLY which driver you have
installed, ie, WDM or VFW then please show here for these people!!

ok, after the above, if you have determined that you have the WDM
driver installed on your system, then you need to install the VFW to
WDM wrapper. try the tools to your left, else I don't know where,
other than search for it on Google.com
* If you can, find a VFW driver somewhere and install them in your
system (windows 98, I hope) me/w2k, I don't think they work, but I
could be wrong. Just try it out anyways.

Follow my 3 step process, and you should be able to capture at 352x480
resolution. There is absolutely no reason to capture higher than 352.
----------------------------------------
If you have the VFW driver installed, then two settings you can use:
vdub: step 1
* go under Video/Format
* change to either YUY2 or 24bit RGB
* next, click [Cust] button and change to 352x480. DO NOT TRY anything
higher (I know you will anyways) higher will crash your machine, but
if you must be little children, so bit to.
* enter in each box: [352], [480]
* click [OK] button
NOW. . .step 2
* go into Video/Source
* chose your input source: [o]Composite or Camera[x]S-Video
* click [OK] button
NOW. . .step 3
* go into Video/Compression
* select your codec and now you're on your way to encode
----------------------------------------
The above method works for my ATW card running under Windows 98 in
VFW mode (I assume) cause I used a Hauppauge VFW driver and installed
them on my machine.

vdub has poor capture FPS rate, so I use AVI_IO, but everyone loves
vdub, and so, that's why I gave you instructios for it.

Please believe me when I say this. YOU CANNOT CAPTURE 720x480 W/OUT
FRAME DROPS!!! PERIOD!!! So, don't try it, or even 480x480!! you'll
have to many drops. 352x480 is the best you can do. Even on my
XP 1800+ I cann't do better than 352x480 (~5 frame drops/per/hour) at
even this low a resolution. So, don't think that higher is gonna get
you any better on your system. Those 2Ghz systems fail also. I have
a number of friends (who think they know everything [i tough them]
and tried it) they came back to me and said "You were right" ..."I
thought for sure my 2Ghz would easily do 720x480 w/ out frames dropping
like flies!!" But, they were wrong.
I'm talking about straight, uncompressed capturing!! Not pic codecs
or divX codecs. Sure you can cap 720x480 using PIC or divX. I'm talking
about uncompressed or it's close friend, huffy here. These two fail.

You can D/L my VCD samples I've created w/ the above configures, at:
VHELP's Samples...

That's it. I'm worn out from all this.
Good luck!

-vhelp

[pixel8or]

Greetings All,

I'm new around here but I've been playing around with my capture setup for a couple of months. I'm getting very good results with an ATI TV Wonder VE on an Abit KT7A/Duron 700 system with Win XP.

I gave up on VirtualDub for doing caps. My first love is now is iuVCR.

http://www.iulab.com/index.shtm?iuvcr/about

It's only for Win 2000/XP though. But I can capture up to 640x480 using Huffyuv and that gives me some fantastic looking video when I run it through TMPGenc for mpeg-1.

I'm also using his tweaked bt878 WDM drivers. Seems to have made a noticable improvement.

My question is this... Why would you WANT to capture at 720x480 from TV or VHS? 720X480 is a 3:2 ratio and stretches the image horizontally. Do you pick up any extra detail by getting the wider picture? I can see capping at 480 height and reducing it because of interlacing, but is there really any benefit from the extra width?

[CUBANAZO]

I use a program named iuVCR .....you can capture at any resolution.....XXX x 240 is a software limitation of ATI's MMC 7.1

[vhelp]

pixel,

the more detail, the better, of course.
But, the downside is:
* require more cpu power
* more hardrive space
* longer encoding time, due to downsizing/resizing video

Now, as far as capping from VHS, yes, better off making VCD as your final
but, for advanced people, they/we can make pretty good SVCD's from VHS
source materials, provided they are like, store bought movies, as I have
plenty of those, and still buy them due to their very low cost, ie,
$20 for DVD vs. $5 for VHS. The weigh is like this, if you can make pretty
good look VCDs, great, but if you can make good looking SVCDs, all the
better, but VCDs are pretty much the norm for VHS source though. I play
around w/ both VCD/SVCD when it comes to VHS source.

I'm sure that your 640x480 captures are dropping frames, but you prob. are
comprimising w/ this due to your "i can live with this" decision. But,
I doubt that you will be able to cap at 720x480 w/out dropping way to
many frames. It's all about what each individual will live with, till the
next better method comes along.

-vhelp

[jacknjt]

hey
i use iuvcr with ati tv wonder ve and had captured 704x480 without any frame drops using the huffy codec. p4 1.3ghz 384mb rd ram winXP

[tomreedtoon]

You might want to check out this particular thread on this forum. I have not tried it yet, but it seems like it's a lot closer to quality results from the TV Wonder card. You need "WinVCR 3.0" in addition to the TV Wonder card, and the instructions on this thread...

http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=88306

By the way, although the web site listed has the required software program, "WinVCR 3.0", at a cost of $99 downloaded or $129 with shipped disk, it is available a lot cheaper on Ebay. (Hate to backstab an advertiser on this website, if they are, but they are WAY overcharging. If they charged as much as $49 for the downloaded version, I would have got it from them.)

[pijetro]

I've just started playing with these resolutions on a friend's computer, (similar to your configuration). Nowhere do I see on any posts on how important it is for software capping. It's interesting to note, that whenever we tried capturing at 720x480, frames were dropped. The software was Vdub, Iuvcr, Ulead VideoStudio 5, etc.. It was expected, everybody seems to agree that it's pretty hard to do. Lo and behold, with Ulead pro 6.5, no frames were dropped. Apparantly, Pinnacle software was also used, and no frames dropped. Unfortunately, throughout this little project, we couldn't cap with any compression (probably a driver issue), so I'm assuming the cpu didn't have to work as hard , but back to the original statement I made. Can anyone back me up on the importance of software, huh?

[Jayloki]

Pixelator: with them modified drivers for IUvcr how did you install them?? Simply right click on the .inf files and select INSTALL???

Also, where do you look in your system to see whther or not the codecs took to the installation??

Thanx. All new to this as well

-Jayloki-

[The village idiot]

Pixel8or --- Thanks for the link. in the 5 minutes I played today things finally look promising. It is AVI, so I'll have to convert it to mpeg. But at least it WORKS :P . Thanks.

A note to others, I tried the vfwwdm wrapper, no change there. At least not with windows 2000. It didn't do one damn thing. Also tried every tweaked/custom BT8x8 driver I could find. End result with those was the tuner quit working. So I'm using the ATI drivers with a custom inf file.

Open BT848.inf in notepad. Scroll down until you find the line that reads:
HKLM,%RunOnce%,"mvfilter.ax",,"%11%\regsvr32.exe -s %11%\mvfilter.ax"

Put a semicolon in front of that line:
;HKLM,%RunOnce%,"mvfilter.ax",,"%11%\regsvr32.exe -s %11%\mvfilter.ax"

All the custom drivers do that, I think it may have something to do with macrovision. That's about all. You could also edit kscapture.inf if you want the vfwwdm drivers to install. Just look for the lines that have --> ;xxxxx where xxxx is something important, and remove the semicolon. The comment lines in the ATI inf's all have several spaces after the ";" so just remove all of them without the space. But with win2000 the vfw drivers don't seem to do anything, at least not on my box.

Now all I have to do is tweak the iuvcr registry to get 352x480 and 720x480 (and clean out a hard drive for the huge files that follow)

[The village idiot]

Last update on this subject...

I am now able to capture at up to 704x480 uncompressed AVI. I can almost get that res with the huffyuv codec but it's on the edge of processor speed, so it doesn't really work. With uncompressed AVI at 704x480 with pcm audio at 48k you will use approx. 1.2 GB per minute. Also happy with 352x480 and 48k pcm audio. That seems to use about 600MB per minute uncompressed and half that with huffyuv at best setting.

All this thanks to iuVCR.