ATI Rage Fury Pro w/TV WOnder

[wimp]

I DO NOT have the AIW, just the Rage Fury Pro with a TV WOnder. Is there any way to get a DVD "ready" capture from the hardware I have. I cannot get mmc 7.7 to load. I drop frames unless I select I-frame with 8 Mbit rate. But in capturing I got cut off at 3.99 GB. (excellent captures though... I mean great!) Is that because I am running FAT 32? I am running a AMD Athlon 1.33 GHZ 512 MB RAM. It is FAT 32 that limits that file size correct? I really would love to be able to capture right at DVD quality and burn...any suggestions!

Thanks,

Wimp

[wimp]

Does Fat 32 Limit the capture size? Is the maximum 4 GB? I really would like to know! Also, What is faster in converting to a DVD compliant file in MOvie Factory2.... Going from 640x480 4 Mbit or 720x480 8 Mbit (I frame Only). Thanks! ANd somebody PLEASE REPLY!

[edsmith77]

WIMP,
Yes, FAT32 does have a 4Gb limit (aka via the OS in use). However, Vdub can capture in segments depending upon the size you set (regardless of the OS in use). You can then frame serve these captured segments to Tmpgenc for encoding. This method works just fine! This, in essence bypasses the file size limitations. A better choice is, if you are running W2K or XP is to convert your drive to NTFS and avoid the file size problems altogether.
Picture quality is in the eye of the beholder and on this forum there are many beholders. Anyway IMHO, bit rate seems to be the biggest determinant of quality. More bits/sec sorta implies more quality (given other factors remain constant). Thus, in order to capture more bits/sec implies the need for faster hardware.
Now with the ATI Rage Fury Pro. That is the exact same card that I have. However, my processor is a P3 at 800MHz and 512MB. I also am using the DMA enabled Maxtor 120 Gb 7200 RPM with ATA133 enabled disk drive. Thus, with this piece of hardware, I cannot capture at full DVD specs due to many dropped frames. Hardware is just not fast enough. One other point you must be sure of is to have DMA enabled on your capture drive. It sure would help if your capture drive is not your system drive as well. Sharing the drive with the system and doing captures is just an unecessary large burden. Also, maybe if your drives are ata133 capable, setting them up for this higher transfer rate will help the capturing problems. Basically, what I am saying is get the fastest response from your system as possible for the highest capture rates. Which will undoubtly lead to better quality pictures.
On my system, I tried MMC 7.7 and could not get it to work. So I dropped back to 7.6 and have been happy ever since. I have set up a personal capture mode for VCD. I am still undecided whether to capture in one large file and then use Tmpgenc to split or capture to a specificed file size and then just author to disc. Right now I am leaning towards the Tmpgenc method. Do not ask me to justify, cause I can't. Just personal preference.
Sorry for the long winded reply. Hope this helps.

Ed

[wimp]

Ed,

Thanks very much for the reply. I have found that if I capture at 352X480 4.08 Mbit (MP2) there really is no difference from 640x480 4.08 Mbit (MP2). My captures on both look pretty good and I can't tell a difference between the two except in the time it takes MOvie Factory2 to convert. (No frame loss on either) The 352x480 converts much, much quicker. Thanks again for the reply and I decided to convert to NTFS and am now getting larger captures. I really do appreciate your taking the time to write, and the information was helpful. How did you get 7.6 to work? I thought I could only download 7.2 (MMC). Also, does 7.6 support 48KHZ audio? Thanks for the help!

Wimp

[edsmith77]

Although 7.6 is not specifically for the Rage Fury, it will still work and yes it does support 48 KHz audio.

Ed