Damned avi_io has me stumped.

[Zeek]

Just bought an ATI 8500DV and been capturing fine with it for about a month. Unfortunately, soon after I got it in, I had to format and now avi_io, which was running perfectly before, is giving me major headaches!

Program starts fine, but will not let me adjust any of the capture settings and, if I try to run it with just the defaults, I get an error msg saying I must choose the video format first (which I obviously cannot do!).

According to the website, this is a known issue relating to drivers:

The following limitations are known to exist in AVI_IO.

With some capture hardware it's always necessary that the "Video Format" is set before you try to capture the first time. Otherwise you get an message box "Error initializing capture!" This is however not a limitation of AVI_IO. It's a driver issue.




Trouble is, I've uninstalled and reinstalled several sets of old and new ATI drivers, tried it forward, backward and every which way, and am about at the end of my rope. Why'd it work before and not now?!?! Any bright ideas?? Running Win2k w/ sp3 installed, in case it matters.

Thanks...

[marvel2020]

I never liked that avi-io for the reason that you where limited to the 4GB size file's.

I see you running win2k, is your drive NTFS?. If not convert it to NTFS but do not format it to NTFS.

If it is then why not use Vdub, or even better with your card can your not capture straight to MPEG format and cut out the AVI part.

I think i used to have problems running AVI_IO in WIN2kpro as well so I switch to VDUB converted my Harddrive's to NTFS an no more problems except for the fact that i was using a Pinnacle PCTVRAVE card and was limited to capturing to AVI then converting to Mpeg 2.

Now i've a new Geforce4 ViVo and can capture sriaght to MPEG2 .

[Zeek]

Marvel2020,

Yeah, I'm NTFS all the way. (Got sick of waiting for the grass to grow while defragging.)

Well my man you may just have sent me on the road to solving my problem. Strange, but when I tried virtual dub, it told me that no capture driver is available. Stranger, because I KNOW for sure that I installed it (several times over along with dx 8.1 and the video update.)

So then I gave Premiere a try just for fun and it's capture settings are limiting me to firewire only - definitely more suspicions.

I wonder if something is up maybe with ATI's newest drivers? The ones I used before format were just a month or two older. Maybe new and improved isn't so improved here, eh? Anyway, from what I am reading here, ATI makes great hardware but abyssmal software - so my money's on the drivers.

Your thoughts?

And btw, re your GeForce and straight to MPEG2...how is that? GPU saving your CPU all the work or something? I had an old GF 2 that was fine, but wouldn't capture above 352x240 in Win2k. ATI one is pretty decent so far but, if I'm right, these new drivers are very much going away.

[Zeek]

Update:

It is definitely something to do with the ATI drivers. I sniffed around google a little bit and found a couple things.

1. The latest (bi-monthly) release of their drivers are apparently problematic.

2. Several other ppl are in my boat w/ the first time install going without trouble and then problems whenever installing to a new OS. A lot of them have tried uninstalling and using an older driver set, but still having trouble (remnants of the older drivers, maye?) Anyway, there is an excellent guide re how to completely wipe out the old drivers here:

http://rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=33630746

Unfortunately, even after trying this, Win 2000 still will not recognize a cap driver - even with Virtual Dub!

Any bright ideas? I bought the card to END my headaches with that v7700 but now I have many more hassles than before! Starting to wonder if my $165 ice scaper was worth the pain in the ass it has become.

[vhelp]

zeek,

sorry old chump. AVI_IO doesn't support DV. after reading sever of your
posts down, I see you used to use v7700. I'm assuming you mean another
capture card that was VFW or WDM type, and not DV.

If that's the case, then that is why you can't capture w/ AVI_IO.. because
you are NOW using a DV device. AVI_IO and Virtual Dub do not support
DV. That is, they both don't capture to DV w/ a hardware DV chip or
something like that. Its not the same, if you were to capture w/ an
analog capture card, and set either of those two apps's compression to
MainConcepts DV or Canopus DV codec and capture with those codecs.
It's not the same. You are still capturing analog (vfw or wdm)

Example, I can't use my ADVC-100 (a DV device like your ATI DV) with
AVI_IO or VDUB to capture. It just wont work. This is probably your
problem too.

You either use your ATI's software (MMC) to capture (that is, transfer to)
DV or use a third-party DV app to do your capturing (DV transfer)

-vhelp

[Zeek]

Vhelp,

Sorry - I was not specific enough.

Actually, I am not trying to capture via a dv device. The thing that is giving me the headache is an old 8mm tape I am trying to archive, and I am pretty sure that the ATI wdm drivers (new ones) are the problem. Definitely, I could be wrong there because mine is not the voice of experience here, but there are enough posts on google/3drage and such to make me think I am on to something.

In any case, one of the big reasons I got 8500dv is that I can do both analog and digital with it. I have enough future plans for dv and just DON'T have enough vhs/8mm stuff to justify a canopus or something like it.

Anyway, thanks for your help either way. I am definitely in need.

[vhelp]

zeek,
Yes, I use analog and DV in my setups for Video stuff.
ie, ADVC-100, ATW, WTVGO, DC10+ etc. Nothing stops me from doing
whatever I want, though I've suffer MANY headackes in the beginning
ta get things working. But, now I use my ADVC-100 mostly, but have
the options to use whatever other analog capture devices at will.

I see. I didn't know that, of the 8500DV (can do both analog and DV)
The only other thing I can suggest for you is the WDV2VFW wrapper
if I'm wording it right. Have you installed it for your WDM device ??
..course, it's also limited in most capture devices anyways, but does
work in some peoples setup (mine for example)

-vhelp

[Zeek]

The only other thing I can suggest for you is the WDV2VFW wrapper
if I'm wording it right. Have you installed it for your WDM device ??

Hmmm, actually - no I have not. If someone could help me get my hands on it, that'd be cool.

Btw, just scrubbed (and I mean COMPLETELY) all the ati stuff I had on board and reinstalled from scratch with the newest drivers, just to be sure. OS is STILL lacking a capture driver, so it looks like what I've been reading (see earlier post) is right.

Got a Christmas party to go to for now, but I'm going to hunt down an older driver set and try, try again later tonight or tommorrow. I'll post back after that and let you know if it worked. Tks for your reply, vhelp. I watched a lot of your posts before joining this group and you are very helpful.

Meanwhile, if anyone else has this card and is thinking about driver update, think AGAIN! Sometimes well enough alone is best policy.

[Zeek]

Oh well...

It's easy to find old display drivers, but the (working) old wdm capture drivers are nowhere to be found. Anyone have these lying around (for the AIW 8500dv)?

[Tagger]

I won't pretend to know what wdm capture drivers are, but I did buy an ATI AIW 8500DV several months ago and if they are on the install disk, I could email them to ya.

One of these days, when I get some time, I'm gonna figure out how to capture. Hell, that's why I bought the damn thing in the first place!!

[Zeek]

They're just capture drivers. Honestly man, I don't know the full details and all, but I blv there are older vfw (video for windows) cap drivers and wdm (damned if I know the acronym)ones, which are newer. In any case, you need wdm drivers to capture with this card.

As far as your offer goes, much obliged. Unfortunately, I have the CD in front of me and it hasn't done me a damned bit of good. Not sure why, but all I can tell you is that - for sure - the newest cap drivers for this card are shit and, for whatever reason, whatever is on the CD is not helping me either. I HAD a driver set I downloaded from ATI's site in November and they worked fine. (You'd think I'da saved them knowing ATI's reputation and all, but I never said I was smart.) Anyway, the display drivers (new and old) are easy to find, but the older cap ones are pretty scarce. Guess I'm on the phone (yipppee) with Canada tommorrow.

Btw, you should definitely invest the time and do some capturing. I'm pretty new at this myself, but I can tell you for sure that, when things go right, you can have a lot of fun. The card you (we) have is excellent. Unfortunately, the software ATI makes has a reputation for being abyssmal. Anyway, thanks for your offer...