ATI Quallity compared to other Cards

[Custom_VCD]

Im wanting to buy the 8500dv, it has all the outputs and inputs I need. I love capturing form my digital cable box it has s-video and composite and so forth. But since it has a cable that you use to connect the cords into the PCI, i was curious how the quality is. Does the line act as a filter or does the quality degrade, please let me know. Im about to make a purchase and can't afford to make a mistake and buy the wrong card. Thanks

[Custom_VCD]

Almost a 100 views an no responses. Sombody has to have an AIW with the signal cord that comes with the AIW products, just a little help, please

[Sulik]

Quality is just as good as the input for me, but I'm using mostly S-Video from a DVD player (composite will most likely add more noise, and TV-Tuner input depends mostly on shielding, cables and other external factors).

[Spicuzza]

Well, I would say that the ATI All-in-Wonder cards are incredible pieces of hardware and I am very pleased with mine. That being said their software is quircky, buggy and goofy, nothing fatal, and you can almost always fix the problem but frustrating none the less.

If this helps you... if and when I upgrade, if my needs change, I will buy another ATI All-in-Wonder card.

[aguillon]

Quality is not bad at all - you must fiddle with the colour balance and brightness controls though - it s a bit dark and red by default but maybe it s just me. I think capture quality was better on my Dazzle DVC II, but the ATI does not come in far off to be honest.

Impressive piece of hardware altogether: It actually has an international tuner!! This means that I can capture my French Secam tapes and save them to Pal VCD for instance.

This card does it all: capture anything, output to TV, gaming, you name it, it does it, and it does it pretty well.

[Custom_VCD]

Thanks everyone for your input. Im going to buy one Friday maybe, if my money situation turns out good. I just don't wanna buy a 200 dollar card and not have high quality captures. Thaks again and if anybody else has any input, please respond. Im going to be using the card for my Firewire Digital Video Camera, s-video, composite and coaxial capture from my digitla cable box. with my averTV the s=video has strange vertical lines in the picture, but no through the composite. Switced out boxes and still there. Was just curious if the PCI cord with ethe adapters made quality degrade for tha above mentioned reason.

[pierre.feller]

I had first an ATI AIW Radeon and changed it (tuner defect) against ATI AIW Radeon 8500DV. Quality of image and sound is good. But I battled about 3 month with the ATI-drivers to get the firewire-connection working and a noise in the sound captering tv-channels (PAL). With the driver-release of july all works ok now. The ATI-support is poor (e-mail).

[mp3superfreak]

I've had my AIW Radeon for 8 months or so, and just got it tweaked so it works perfectly. Here is a list of my previous problems (all fixed now)

-Audio hiss when captured from cable signal (turns out it was a conflict with the Soyo Dragon+'s CMedia 6 channel built-in sound). I bought a Philips PSC705 sound card and it is AWESOME. . and no more hiss!

-My Guide Plus would not record w/o locking up. (the new drivers released by ATI fixed this).

-In my experience, the new MMC 7.7 works great. It allows you more customization when capturing.

I am a very satisfied owner, and want to get a AIW 7500 or 8500 and give my AIW Radeon to my dad.

Also, you may want to check out the forums at http://www.rage3d.com , there are tons of users with great information. Good luck!

[Custom_VCD]

You guys really came through fro me on this, I was hoping some of the gurus on this board would tell me to buy or not. So far its a big go on the purchase. Anybody have a card thats similar to the 8500dv in comparison or is this the king?

you guys and gals? rock.

[tcthien]

I got ATI AIW Radeon for almost a yr now. At first I got it dropped frames all the times (not so many but it dropped) so i did not do much capture since then, eventhough I have tried to load new drivers, etc....
Till now I got the latest driver and everything going good so far.
If you go for 8500DV, I think it should be much better. Go for it if you can affort it.

[patrickm]

if you're not a huge gamer and just want good captures, www.compuvest.com has the AGP AIW 128 Pro 16Mb with the Rage Theater capture chip (same as radeon / 7500 / 8500) for $40. capture quality will be identical to the newer $200 versions, just the 3d/gaming performance will be worse. you should have not problems running mmc 7.7, etc.

thank you patrickm!!!!!!!!!!!!
all i want this card to do is capture and it wont... i think because it has all that extra stuff some of the things aren't getting recognized. i'm just going to try a capture card -- 40 bucks will be woth getting rid of this 7500 headache.

[patrickm]

it's almost the same card, just 3 yrs older all-in-wonder with an older graphics chip. this isn't a capture-only card, but i can say that it certainly works fine in win me/2k and mmc 7.7.0.1 and you won't get any worse quality than a 7500/8500

[BV2001]

Pat,
do you know any difference between the AIW and PCI capture ( like ATI Wonder VE )
as you said, the rage and newer radeon use the same Rgae theatre chip so their capture quality will be the same
what about TV Wonder VE??
is it better to capture using AIW or let say a radeon 8500 with TV Wonder VE?? what is the best you can get for the capturing ( from VHS )
thanks

[Mirror_Image]

The TV-Wonder VE only has a mono tuner (records all sound as mono, not stereo) and has no S-video input.

[snowmoon]

Actually..

AIT AIW 128 16mb has a bt8x8 clip, I though you needed the 32MB version to get the "Rage Theater" capture chip.

For video out, did they ever fix the overscan problems?