ATI AIW cptured so poor, or not?

[Capptureboy]

I capture with my ATW 128 16MB under WinME. I only can use the Software Version 6.0 (comes with the Card for Win98 in 1999). If I use the MediaCenter 7.0 from ATI, the card brings error on capturing. No capture possible. I am trying to capture from VHS to SVCD. I choose ATI MPEG settings in the software. The preview Windows looks fine, but the captured movie is too poor, so the final SVCD is more poor. What do i wrong?
Perhaps it´s better for me to buy a new Card, but wich should i buy?
please help

[Tommy]

I don't know the answer to your problem but I use a ATI AIW 128 (agp 32mb) and i use MMC 7.X and it works fine. You might want to try capturing in avi and then converting to mpeg. Might help you capture.

[jeremypps]

hey I'm conforted by your post, I'm not the only one having problems with my AIW ...
All I can tell you is what someone told me (I keep trying but with me it doesn't work, still bad quality):
Set MMC to MPEG2, any audio quality, any video bit rate, close the MMC, go hack the registry to set the proper heght and width video resolution, open the MMC, capture, save the file, close MMC, open TMPGENC, demux the file and mux back, open NERO, burn.
For someone all this stuff works.
Hope for you too ...

[ebaldino]

Guys,

AIW is a good card, but please don´t think you can capture directly to mpg with resolution 352x240 or greater and get anything worth watching!

The AIW requires a lot of patience in getting it to work initially - downloading all of the right drivers and software and stuff - but once it works, it´s pretty good.

... but then, this entire VCD/SVCD thing requires a lot of patience....

My suggestion for best results in SVCD is to capture to AVI using huffyuv, then use CCE SP to encode to mpg...

good luck,
E.Baldino

[jeremypps]

I'll try, but the fact is that a friend of mine sent me a svcd ntsc of a magnum p.i. episode made just capturing the mpeg2 with ati, demuxing, muxing back and burning.
the quality is like vhs.
no squares in the images at all.
he still wasn't able to explain what I do different, when he comes to Italy I'll kidnap him for a couple of days and make him show me how he did ...

[davidian]

Perhaps your friend made a nonstandard SVCD? I've got an ATI-card, and when capturing to ~2600 kbps the quality is not VHS-like at all.

When capturing to AVI, and converting to SVCD the quality is like VHS (not as sharp but it's OK).

But there is really not a very big point in making an SVCD, with resolution 576x480 since your VHR has a resolution at about 320x240 (or something like that) so capturing in a bigger resolution is the same thing as resizing to a bigger framesize and then resizing to a smaller.

So making a VCD is really better, or an XVCD .. but it's best to capture 576x288 (av) instead of 352x288 since you'll capture both fields that way. Then you convert it into standard VCD, reducing the resolution to 352x288.

Or perhaps make an XVCD with res 576x288 or 352x288 with higer bitrate than 1150 kbps. I haven't really tried making XVCD's so I don't know if it is very much better..

So capture with hufyuv (or whatever it's called) at resolution 576x288 and then convert into standard VCD, that is my tip. Besides, you'll fit more into the CD than you would if you'd capture to SVCD format.

[jeremypps]

Hey you were very clear and helpful, I thank you a lot really !!!
Hope this helps Capptureboy too ...

[Capptureboy]

Hello to all Posters, thanks for so many tips. I try all tips and will see what happend.

...so long

[jeremypps]

davidian, you were right.
I acquired an AVI, then converted in mpeg with tmpegenc and the result was pretty good.
th problem is 10min movie ~ 2 GB ... and, even if I have 15 GB free, MMC stops acquiring after 11 min.
Moreover, video editor (MMC 6.2, where is it in 7.1 ver?) has problems if I try to edit the file.
Anyway the quality was really better than if I capture directly in MPEG, thanks again!

[davidian]

Guys, I'm going to write a tutorial about this and ask baldrich to post it, I hope it will help more people

Just for the record, I haven't really come up with this myself, I've worked the method out with help from people from both VCDhelp forum and another SVCD forum.. so I don't wanna take all the credits myself

/Johan

[gimp]

I have a AIW Radeon 32MB/DDR I capture at 742x480 Mpeg-1 8MB/Sec. with usealy 1%frames dropped. I run XP Pro with XP default drivers, the MMC 7.2 & DVD 5.0 I use to run 98SE never any luck always crashing. Using XP this thing is very stable I can set it up walk away come back 10 minutes before the end of program to stop & save.

[rtherr3184]

I was wondering if there was a way to capture with 2 different preprogramed settings.It would be wonderful to capture a half hour or hour in a format that would be burned to vcd. Convert if nessisary. Another setting would be to capture video, like my daughters video tapings, and edit them. That would have to be compliant with adobe premier. I keep getting crashes in adobe with the ativcr.dll so I must have captured in a bad format. What would these settings be. I could not get mmc 7.1 to function on my win98 and had to reload windows. I just purchased win xp and another harddrive to play with. When I get a functioning system with that I will convert over my raid array. I would enjoy any time you can save me in solving this

[patrickm]

the quality of cards using the Rage Theater capture chip are excellent for realtime MPEG, as long as you have the processor to handle it. Rage theater is on the AIW 128 Pro and Radeon cards, but the AIW 128 16Mb PCI uses an older BT829 or BT878 chip. use MMC 7.1 with the rage theater, i've posted the procedure to make near-dvd quality SVCDs many times, so just search for that. MMC 7.1 supports multiple presets. it works under win9x with the 4.12.6292 drivers for the AiW 128 cards. i wrote this up too, but install MMC 6.3, then 7.1 right after it into a new directory. and install the dvd 4.1 update, it fixes the capture problems of 7.1

if you want to do editing, make a preset that captures in "I-frame only" (under GOP settings). this is essentially MJPEG, and will allow you to do frame accurate cuts, and has very good quality (you may need to turn bitrate above the intended target value, since I-frame uses much less compression)

if you're looking for a good, cheap editing program, for <$50 you can get Video Factory from sonic foundry. there's also a trial version you can download (www.sonicfoundry.com/download). it's almost the same setup as Vegas Video (their professional level product), just with a few limitations. a vegas demo is also available. its MPEG encoding isn't that great, but the editing is very good.

[davidian]

I've finished that tutorial now. Check it out at

http://medlem.tripodnet.nu/davidian/index.htm

now!

[Movie555]

Hello All,
I have an Athlon 1333 with an AIW Radeon, and the MPeg capture capabilities are GREAT. I use the MMC 7.1 and fit TV eps (42 minutes usually) on a single SVCD for playback on my DVD player. The bitrate (2100) is very good and using Mpeg2VCR for cutting out the commercials takes only a few minutes, so I can burn a fully edited TV ep a mere 10 minutes after the capture finishes.

All hail ATI!!!