Good tuner/capture software?

[jlundin]

Do I have to use the software that came with my card? I have an ATI AIW Radeon, and while the card itself is nice, the ATI software is AWFUL. Even after installing patches, it still crashes my otherwise-stable Win2k machine every 2 months or so. And I don't mean a reboot crash, I mean a *rebuild crash*. Safe mode, ERD, repair install, nothing works.

So...can I get separate TV tuner/video capture/VCR software? I'm more than willing to buy it, as long as it works correctly on Win2k and will record to MPEG2. Recording directly to SVCD format would be a huge, huge plus. I'm sick of converting.

Please help! I don't want to have to rebuild my computer again before Christmas! (I really need to make a Ghost image this time...)

Oh, BTW, if anybody from ATI is reading this, could you fix your software so that it works? Please??

[thxkid]

I have seperate MPEG2/tuner card by Hauppage that I instead use vitrualDud to capture with for AVI, which can be found on this web site, it also lets you capture up to the WIN98 limit of 4gigs.

[p®è§+ïgé]

there is no capture program available (at least, none that i'm aware of) that will replace ATI's "software-assisted hardware encoding" of mpeg streams (in realtime anyways unless you have a 30GHz machine or better). the codecs used are not exposed to other programs and can only be accessed in ATI's multimedia center.

even though you may not like it, the best way to capture would still be to cap. an avi and then encode it to mpeg - unless, of course you want to buy another card specialized for capturing mpeg.

[jlundin]

Okay, time to change the question.

If anybody knows of a TV tuner/capture card that will:

1. Work well on Win2000
2. Provide VCR functionality (scheduled recording of TV programs without intervention)
3. Record DIRECTLY to an SVCD-compliant format (no AVI conversion)

...please respond. I'm getting rid of this stupid ATI card as soon as I can afford to.

[hankys]

Have you tried Matrox Marveil 450 eTV? http://matrox.com/mga/products/marv_g450_etv/home.cfm

It covers the first two points, but i think strikes out on #3.......

[p®è§+ïgé]

read my post again

[Berthil]

I think you want to much from just one card. I use a PCTV Pro and it's software sucks. So I use Dscaler to watch TV and AVI_IO to capture, real time or sheduled. Works very well for me, it comes almost close to you wishes above.

It all depends on your PC speed, TV-Card, Software, how they combine and lots more. Just browse through this capture section and you'll get an idea about the complexity of video capturing.

[jlundin]

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On 2001-12-27 19:20:05, Berthil wrote:
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capture section and you'll get an idea about the complexity of video capturing.
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Oh, I understand the complexity. I'm just trying to get around as much of it as possible.

Besides, the VCD format has been around a long time, and I have a pretty fast computer. It really shouldn't be that hard.

I found a way to get nearly what I want out of the ATI card -- there's a registry tweaking utility that will allow Multimedia Center to make recordings to an XVCD format that's playable on my Pioneer DVD player and will handle about 40 minutes per CD. All I have to do is split and burn. They play in computers nicely through Windows Media Player, unlike MPEG2's.

With all the recording I do, there's no way I could spend all that time converting. I can barely keep empty space on my hard drive as it is.

The only problem I have now is that every week or so the ATI TV player crashes, I get an exception error, and about 30 seconds later the computer freezes up. Luckily I've been able to keep these crashes from preventing a stable boot-up. If ATI would just FIX THEIR SOFTWARE I'd be totally set! Well, a dual-head version of the card would help too. I'm tired of only being able to display the TV viewer on the primary monitor.

[Macros746]

Jlundin,
I'm sorry that I didn't see your post earlier. There are two solutions to your problem. One, go to rage3d.com and find the link to download MMC 7.5. No, it isn't supposed to be out yet, but, yes, it is WAY more stable and effective than it's earlier incarnations (i.e. 7.1, and 7.2) But, if you want to avoid MMC and ATI's software entirely (yes, they suck) I would highly recommend Showshifter. It isn't very expensive and it has great picture quality. It isn't quite as versatile as MMC in the encoding directly to MPEG2 arena but it has some great features. Give it a try. But, for what you say you want to do, go get MMC 7.5. You won't be sorry.

Macros

p.s. there are a few people for which 7.5 doesn't work at all. I hope that you are not among that minority.....but learning about rage3d.com is great for you anyhow. Lots of VERY knowledgable folks over there with WAY too much time on their hands for playing with their AIWs...

[Macros746]

I forgot to mention. The AIW really is an amazing piece of hardware. It is too bad ATI couldn't hire some of Nvidia's driver programmers....

Macros

p.s. I forgot to mention, you may want to try some of the 'unofficial drivers' that are around for the AIW. I myself am using the Omega drivers for better gaming performance. But I do know that these drivers have caused some people capture problems. Again, these unofficial drivers can be found at rage3d.com

[jlundin]

DOH! I downloaded and installed MMC 7.5, and now TV doesn't work at all. The TV viewer won't even launch, the Control Panel options are no help, and in the TV Listings area it says "No TV Tuner". Do I need to install a new driver too?

[jlundin]

*** NEVER MIND *** I found a fix on rage3d.com. Thanks Macros. Hopefully This version will be (relatively) stable.

[Greg12]

If MMC 7.5 works with Windows 98, can I have a link? I can't find it.


If it doesn't is their any ATI program, better than 7.1 that works?

I made a perfect AVI today, but it didn't record sound.

[jlundin]

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On 2002-01-05 13:47:09, Greg12 wrote:
If MMC 7.5 works with Windows 98, can I have a link? I can't find it.

If it doesn't is their any ATI program, better than 7.1 that works?

I made a perfect AVI today, but it didn't record sound.
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I'm pretty sure that giving you a direct link is against the forum rules, so I'll just say this. Go to rage3d.com, click on Links, then click on ATi-News. That site has it in their downloads area. It's in German, but don't let that throw you

I'm pretty sure it works on 98, but every OS seems to have its own unique problems with it. Seems like once you get over them, though, it's stable. Look through the forums on rage3d.com.

There really is no "ATI program that works". All their software is barely passable.

I have one last problem with it: the file names that I use when I schedule recordings using Guide+ (or even manually) don't stick. It just uses one filename all the time. Luckily, with 7.5, you can change the destination filename in mid-recording, but that doesn't really help when I'm not home