Capture issues with ATI AIW 9800 Pro HELP!

[Nozmo]

Hey forum members, thanks for the input so far

One more capture question regarding the ATI AIW 9800. My PC does not have a firewire port and I'm using a Sony TRV250 (yea, I know....). Anyway, when downloading/capturing should I invest in a firewire card or is the S-Video good enough?

The hope is that this will ease the capture process and allow me to obtain a higher quality end result, using composite, and S-Video inputs gets me fair quality at best.

Thanks!

[tigerman8u]

I have the ATI AIW 9000 pro. MMC8.x is the best software i've found for capturing with the AIW. P Studio 8 came with my card and IMO sucks compared to MMC 8.x I've tried Ulead video studio, Vdub, main concept, nero 6 and MMC8.x works best. You can capture avi, mpeg 1/2 without any problems. Start here www.lordsmurf.com, I did and believe me you won't be disappointed.
ps. nice system setup.

[bottle-necked]

IF you want higher quality end results buy the firewire card and capture DV.

[indolikaa]

IF you want higher quality end results buy the firewire card and capture DV.

Oh, good. That really helps him with his capture problem.

@Nozmo,

You may be doing something wrong. If you are connecting your camcorder 'out' using S-Video and 'in' to the ATI dongle, there should be almost no difference in quality. I do the same thing sometimes with older videotapes: they are copied to the camcorder's tape, then the tape is played back and outputted via S-Video, instead of DV, to my ATI AIW 9000 Pro.

You would be hard-pressed see the difference between the original VHS tape, the signal copied to the Sony camcorder tape, and the resulting ATI-produced disc.

If you use DV you will introduce the 4:1:1 limitation of the DV format. This may not be an issue and you may be happy with the results, but it IS a reduction of the color information from the original signal.

I have collectively authored over 1,000 VCDs, SVCDs and DVDs. I've used DV, Analog and ATI capture devices. The ATI produces excellent results when properly configured.

[bottle-necked]

indolikaa, isn't the whole idea behind Digital Video is to have the ability to transfer the video file without any further loss of quality!

[indolikaa]

indolikaa, isn't the whole idea behind Digital Video is to have the ability to transfer the video file without any further loss of quality!

Sure.

But I disagree that DV.avi is the superior method to transfer video. In addition to the 4:1:1 limitation, DV.avi files are also based on a compression scheme. That is why DV requires a CoDec to function properly on a computer system. Compression equals loss of data, and nobody has ever convinced me that DV is a lossless compression scheme.

The factory settings for ATI's MMC suck, plain and simple. If you follow LordSmurf's recommendations, you can produce ATI material that is every bit as good as DV.avi files. I've been doing both for the last 1,000+ CDs and DVDs and there's no reason why he can't utilize his existing investment to produce top-notch material.

Don't get me wrong, DV is an excellent format. I just disagree that it is superior to the ATI AIWs.

[bottle-necked]

I don't want to disagree with you because I too think ATI makes a great product and they have the ability to capture HQ video, but given the choice..... I'll take the DV capture. lol