Is an AIW card good enough for VHS to DVD conversions?

[freedomsbeat]

I need to transfer a lot of home videos (vhs) to DVD and wonder if the all in wonder cards will do the job or if I should save for an analog to digital DV bridge device..... If the AIW is fine, what's the older card I can go for? I don't have a lot of extra $$ nor do I need gaming features - is the capture quality from an older AIW (say the Radeon VE) the same as modern AIW cards?

[lordsmurf]

Yes.
7000, 7200, VE, 128PRO, 7500, 8500, 9000

[presto]

I have the AIW Radeon and the AIW Radeon 7500. They both do a great job on VHS to DVD.

[freedomsbeat]

I have the AIW Radeon and the AIW Radeon 7500. They both do a great job on VHS to DVD.

Anyone know the quality on those "TV-Wonder" cards?

[mastersmurfie]

I have an old ATI AIW 128 that I got off Ebay a couple of years ago. Been using it ever since (never saw any reason to spend more money on one of the newer ATI cards--if it ain't broke, don't fix it...) One of the first things I did with it was capture my VHS copies of original Star Wars trilogy and converted to DVD...I couldn't be happier with the quality. I followed lordsmurf's (no affiliation ) guides for tweaking the capture settings, and capture in MPEG2 and then author straight to DVD...Always worked for me. Only downside that I have come across so far is that I cannot "upgrade" the ATI MMC to any newer version than 7.7 (but, hey, again, if it ain't broke...)

just my two cents...

[Coluph]

TV Wonder Card? Don't bother!
I had one of these and after two weeks of hell trying to get it to make files compatible with other software gave up. (I won't get into the details) Those cards are good for nothing more than watching TV on your computer. Capture for output to DVD...forget it! VCD...maybe.

I've opted to go the firewire route, and have ordered the Pyro A/V Link, and hoping for the best when it arrives.

I have not used an All In Wonder since the orginal, so I do not know how those work, but IMO ATI does not have a very good track record of releasing well written drivers/software for their products, and who wants to buy a new capture device every time you upgrade your video card?

[lordsmurf]

Anything that is ATI and does not say "ALL IN WONDER" is complete junk, using BT and Conexant chips (basically becoming an overpriced AVerMedia card).

If ATI, it needs to be AIW to be the best.

[Will Hay]

Anything that is ATI and does not say "ALL IN WONDER" is complete junk

Complete bollocks.
Utter shite, and I expected better from you.
ATI Radeon 64mb DDR ViVo has been superb for me for the last 13 months and all for £35.00
I can't believe my first post since the 24th had to be this.
Will

[vhelp]

actually, I think it's a matter of user experience; source; and other facets
of techniques and capabilities etc etc etc. that rules w/ any capture card.

My ATI-TV Wonder pci card has done wonders for me for 3 years, though I
do not use it much these days (only in the past did I) but I have no issues
w/ my ATW card. Well, almost none. Line Noise mostly. All everything
else works fine, when I use it in conjunction w/ avi_io or virtualdub (vdub)

I think that those peoples who used any of the ATI line of cards (any) and
had bad expeirence w/ it, was a result of the above and a then some. Bad
case of luck, given their system and setup.
.
.
It ins my opinion that going to another card was shear coensidence that they
go success w/ those other cards. Perhaps better driver or driver instalation
etc.

But, it's ben just the luck of the draw, when it came to ATI cards. I'm still
a fan because it was one of my first cards, that and my DVC I Anyways..

-vhelp

[lordsmurf]

Anything that is ATI and does not say "ALL IN WONDER" is complete junk

Complete bollocks.
Utter shite, and I expected better from you.
ATI Radeon 64mb DDR ViVo has been superb for me for the last 13 months and all for £35.00
I can't believe my first post since the 24th had to be this.
Will

Oops. VIVO! VIVO! VIVO!

... I always forget that card ... uses the same chipset, it was so short-lived though. That card is fine too, Will.

Let me rephrase it... any ATI lacking the Theatre 100 (aka Rage Theatre and Theatre Rage) or Theatre 200 chipsets are typically subpar, and are normally found to be BT or Conexant chips. The non-Theatre chips need special nuturing and are not MPEG-friendly.

Theatre good. Others not so good.

[Will Hay]

It ins my opinion that going to another card was shear coensidence that they
go success w/ those other cards. Perhaps better driver or driver instalation
etc.

But, it's ben just the luck of the draw, when it came to ATI cards. I'm still
a fan because it was one of my first cards, that and my DVC I Anyways..

-vhelp

Bravo.
My first card was an AIW and it never, ever worked.
Did I blame the card?
No.
Did I bash the brand on every forum I could find?
No.
I bought a Matrox G400 with RR-G add-on and had six months of 'first attempt' captures ntil the Radeon came along.
Why did it work when the AIW didn't?
Who knows.
Was it the new motherboard I'd installed that didn't have a VIA chipset?
Like I say, I have no idea.
Too many factors but to say all are crap except the AIW is complete shite and totally misleading.
Will

[Will Hay]

Anything that is ATI and does not say "ALL IN WONDER" is complete junk

Complete bollocks.
Utter shite, and I expected better from you.
ATI Radeon 64mb DDR ViVo has been superb for me for the last 13 months and all for £35.00
I can't believe my first post since the 24th had to be this.
Will

Oops. VIVO! VIVO! VIVO!

... I always forget that card ... uses the same chipset, it was so short-lived though. That card is fine too, Will.

Let me rephrase it... any ATI lacking the Theatre 100 (aka Rage Theatre and Theatre Rage) or Theatre 200 chipsets are typically subpar, and are normally found to be BT or Conexant chips. The non-Theatre chips need special nuturing and are not MPEG-friendly.

Theatre good. Others not so good.

That's better.
What with your excellent guides and constant assistance you have to appreciate your imput on this site, and the responsibility you have in reporting the facts
Will

[lordsmurf]

Call that first post a case of the early-morning stupids!

[chaseru]

Do you plan to use AIW for AVI capture or MPEG2 capture/encode?

You may have better success using the AIW to perform the AVI capture then use another prog like TMPGEnc to encode to MPEG2.

[presto]

Do you plan to use AIW for AVI capture or MPEG2 capture/encode?

You may have better success using the AIW to perform the AVI capture then use another prog like TMPGEnc to encode to MPEG2.

Big waste of time UNLESS you plan to do a LOT of editing and use fancy transitions. Mpeg2 capture works great and womble and Tmpgenc DVD Author are great at cutting out pieces.

[chaseru]

Do you plan to use AIW for AVI capture or MPEG2 capture/encode?

You may have better success using the AIW to perform the AVI capture then use another prog like TMPGEnc to encode to MPEG2.

Big waste of time UNLESS you plan to do a LOT of editing and use fancy transitions. Mpeg2 capture works great and womble and Tmpgenc DVD Author are great at cutting out pieces.

I'll have to reconsider the quality of the AIW's MPEG2 capture function. In the past I've just dismissed it as being inferior to an offline 2-pass encoding job. Has anyone compared the two? I'll generally do offline encoding anyway since I like to filter out video noise, but for a lot of projects it sounds like I might be just fine with the AIW's MPEG2 capture.

[MJPollard]

Do you plan to use AIW for AVI capture or MPEG2 capture/encode?

You may have better success using the AIW to perform the AVI capture then use another prog like TMPGEnc to encode to MPEG2.

Big waste of time UNLESS you plan to do a LOT of editing and use fancy transitions. Mpeg2 capture works great and womble and Tmpgenc DVD Author are great at cutting out pieces.

IMHO, AVI capture is the way to go if you're someone (like me) who likes having complete control over every step of the process and tends to use dedicated tools for each step. As for time, I'm at work 11 hours every day (including driving time), so setting up a batch render for multiple clips (or one huge clip) before going to bed will have a bunch of nicely rendered clips waiting for me when I get home the next day. Why let all that idle time go to waste, eh?