No picture on Sapphire Radeon X600PRO

[Subhash]

Hi everyone. I really need help here. I have a custom built, P4 3.0 mhz,250 Gig HD, 1 Gig Memory with a Sapphire Radeon X600PRO video card. It comes ATI's Catalyst Software.

When I try to capture analog video with Power Director or Movie Maker, all I get is a green line towards top of the screen and a very very poor picture which rolls vertically. The objects in the picture are reddish and very very fuzzy. From whatever little experience I have, it looks like watching a PAL tape on NTSC TV or vice versa. I tried looking in Catalyst software but could not find anything that might fix this problem.

Can someone here please help. Thanks a lot in advance.....

[Subhash]

Come on people. Help me out here.

Surprising, no one has a clue to fix to my problem in the last one week. I am sure someone out there must have encountered same problem.

Thanks in advance for any input.....

[thecoalman]

Is it a commercial tape or a older VHS tape, see here:

http://www.nepadigital.com/mv/

If it's a home tape you can do some troubleshooting by getting a new VHS tape and make a fresh recording. Try capturing that, if the problem goes away you're seeing the affects of your old tape being detected as having MV protection.

If that's what your seeing about the only thing that's going to fix it is a TBC or other type of signal correction hardware.

[Subhash]

I first thought it was the tape. So what I did that I put the camcorder on Camera mode. Still the same thing. In Camera mode it should show whatever the camera is focused on.

I even downloaded the latest Catalyst version 5.11 from ATI site but no change. I suspect it might have to do something with video codecs. But I am not knowledgable enough to figure that out.

Any other help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks....

[thecoalman]

In Camera mode it should show whatever the camera is focused on.

Yes direct input from the cam should work, I'd suggest trying a different source with different cables. Maybe there's something wrong with the cam or cables.

[Subhash]

I have already tried the passthrough method with my Sony Digicam and firewire port, it works fine with that. Only when I connect direct from my analog camcorder into the video card, it wouldn't work. I know the cables are fine because if it was not I wouldn't see any response when I connect to the camcorder. I do see a very very fuzzy picture (almost dark) at times rolling vertically down to up.

If the source was not right, then it wouldn't even work with the passthrough method.

Any other suggestions are most welcome....

Thanks.

[thecoalman]

If the source was not right, then it wouldn't even work with the passthrough method.

Some devices have more tendency than others to have issues with false MV. ATI cards are notorious for that. Try connecting your Digital cam using the analog outputs to the card.

[Subhash]

I didn't quite understand that. How can I get analog output from my Digital camcorder ? The only A/V connection I have on the Digicam is the one where I feed input from my analog camcorder. So, basically that is the input jack and not output.

[thecoalman]

I didn't quite understand that. How can I get analog output from my Digital camcorder ? The only A/V connection I have on the Digicam is the one where I feed input from my analog camcorder. So, basically that is the input jack and not output.

Well I've never seen a digital cam that doesn't output analog, most likely it's a two way jack. Matter of fact analog input is usually the exception if anything. Look in the manual or the menu.

[Subhash]

Sorry thecoalman for the late reply. I was away yesterday evening.

I tried what you said and the picture is still the same. From the Digital camcorder, I could read the date display on the picture but the picture quality was still the same. Very very fuzzy, shaking and rolling down to up. You can tell there is some picture but you can not recognize anything.

Any other pointers please....