UPDATED: ATI TV Wonder...VFW...Success!!

[yodigity]

Ok, so this will be my first post to this board. Though, I've read many, many...many...many...(get the idea)...many, many posts and articles here. Thought it was time to give a little back. And regarding the bt8xx-based TV Wonder, "little" is probably expected.

I've not even looked at capturing on the PC in quite some time now, so forgive me if some of this is well known.

The last time I tried anything w/this card had to be a couple of years ago, with massive failures trying to get VirtualDub to capture. The old VFW vs. WDM driver issue. Despite various configurations w/wrappers and generic drivers, I always dropped a ka-zillion frames.

Not sure that many people would go to these lengths, but I was driven by my need for "closure" (or so my wife would call it) w/this outdated TV Tuner/Capture card. I'll skip the part about how I got to this point, and go right to what it takes:

Win9x based Operating System
ATI TV Wonder PCI (bt878)
VirtualDub
Driver: TVWond30.zip from DriverGuide.com (appears to be a win9x VFW driver for the TV Wonder)
NOTE: I did NOT run the setup.exe, but instead simply pointed the update hardware wizard to the TVWond30 folder. Drivers installed fairly easily. (It says it works w/"All Windows" but I could only get it working under WinME and Win98SE.) I was using a XP1800+ w/512 MB PC2100, and captured to a 5400 RPM drive with zero problems.
Now, there is very little control for capture resolution, as I only get options for 1/4(160x120), 1/2(320x240), or Full(640x480) in VirtualDub. However, the results were zero dropped frames and a pretty descent picture. A bit grainy for my taste, but after a couple of software filters applied, not bad at all.

So, if you still have one of these cards and a spare HDD laying around to play with, give it a shot. Hopefully my success was not a fluke. Not sure it will work w/all TV Wonder cards.

Now, it really doesn't compare to the Hauppaugge PVR-350. This card had just been laying around in my closet for 8-9 months, as it was given to my wife. I was unaware of what I had in the PVR-350 until reading some of the posts here. I just threw it in my test system to compare w/the results I was getting from the TV Wonder. Guess I'm going to have to employ it's use full-time now...and back under the bus goes the TV Wonder.

UPDATED: Better screenshots.
Also played from my $99 Sony HiFi VCR. Source was a VHS-C, so the following resolutions are probably overkill. A better player might cut down on some of the noise. I cap'd 640x480 to AVI in VDub for the TV Wonder. The colors are more saturated with the PVR-350, and picture appears smoother during playback. You can probably see more detail with the TV Wonder, but you also get quite a bit of grain (which can be partially eliminated with VDub filters).

[Soopafresh]

Look at Mel Gibson's Mullet....

[danmanx]

LOL! Mullets!!!

Thanks for the info, yodigity.

[NIRVANAX5X]

Quality comparison might be a bit easier if you could have side by side captures of the same frame.

[yodigity]

I'll have to re-cap some stuff since I've already deleted the original files, but I wanted to experiment w/s-video from my DirecTV anyway, so I'll post some full sized shots directly from the capture when I get that done.