MMC 7.5 has arrived.

[morac]

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On 2001-12-07 06:17:14, sommersby wrote:
And I also agree the skin is UGLY!!!....lol

But the capture functions work MMMMMMuch better!
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You can change the skin back to the "classic" version using the ATI multimedia control panel.

[homerpez]

OK, I've tried it, and I'm just a bit confused...

I can't decide if 7.5 is (will be)? better or worse than other versions...

Has anyone else noticed these things about MMC 7.5?

1 - CPU efficiency (measured in % usage) has been improved, but just a bit?

2 - Overall MPEG-2 quality has definitely gone DOWNHILL? I compared MPEG-2, 480x480 with 7.2 and 7.5, 6.00 MB bitrate (constant), Deinterlace, Visual Mask, 100 quality motion search. The 7.5 quality showed lots of blocks and motion problems.

3 - INTERLACED captures may not be true INTERLACED? (could be imagining this)

4 - Just what does "Inverse 3:2 pulldown" mode do? I tried it, and whether capturing interlaced or filtered, quality is BAD. Interlace artifacts even show up when the "Deinterlace" is on. How is that supposed to work? Am I using it wrong?

5 - Overall performance being very erratic? Like, when I first loaded it and tested... I tried capturing "DVD HIGH" mode, 720x480, MPEG-2, 8.00MB/sec. I never could do this in other MMC's, yet it worked on 7.5!.. ONCE. It will work well sometimes, but drop frames others. And, seconds apart. (I could be imagining this also).

Weird stuff... has anyone had good results for capturing? Or am I just doing something wrong here?

BTW: all tests I did were using 6.00MB/sec bitrate, so when I compare quality, I'm using that rate.

[homerpez]

Two other observations: (or are they questions)?

- The files output for MPEG-2 mode are still .mp2, but now they are even stranger... now, if you open them in DVD2AVI (in order to get TMPGEnc etc to see them), it opens it twice, once with an asterisk. You can delete one and it will open the video with just one of the files. Then, under "Preview", it plays too fast. Tha could be the fact it was "Inverse 3:2 pulldown video"... whatever than means.

- One possible improvement? When I did drop frames (still pretty often I have to say), it didn't corript the capture any. Previous MMC's would corrupt an entire capture file, if even one frame was dropped. I typically dropped <1% to 3% of frames (depending on test), but every test clip played without crashing.

[homerpez]

SORRY for the double-post, the forum isn't letting me delete...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: homerpez on 2001-12-07 20:15:12 ]</font>

[next]

Homerpez - once again you are obviously doing something wrong. Just trying to help here but in response to your points:

1. That's right. CPU effiency has improved.

2. Mpeg quality has improved. That's been my experience as well as the experience of many many posters on numerous boards. Sorry but you seem like the odd man out.

3. Yup. Imagined.

4. If its bad for you then don't use it.

5. Erratic. Too bad but this seems to be a constant theme for you. I'm beginning to think that you may have to do a fresh OS install. This may give your box a fresh start.

Good luck!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: next on 2001-12-07 20:23:22 ]</font>

[next]

homerpez - as far as mp2. Just save the file as mpg or simply rename the extension to mpg after you save. If you're trying to use the ATI mp2 extension in 3rd party programs you're stuck in a dead end. This fix is extremely simple.

[Stinky]

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You can change the skin back to the "classic" version using the ATI multimedia control panel.
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SWEEET! .... that looks so much better!

'classic' ... ha ha ha! it should be 'not ugly'

[homerpez]

I'm sorry, next, you seem to hate my #&^@$% guts. Oh, well. Se la vie.

Anyeay, Just to satisfy my interest, what IS Inverse 3:2 pulldown? I suspect it takes 29.97 and captures is at 23.976 instead... bt why? (tried it, it's skipping fields).

So help me, I am not making up the quality issue. I can set motion search to "100", Bitrate to 6.00MB/sec (higher than I used before), and even a smaller frame size (480x480 instead of 640x480). There IS a motion estimation problem, and the capture looks really sloppy.

I even cranked up the search ranges to 256 horiz and 128 vertical, still does it. It's more blocky than MMC 7.2 or earlier, especially after a scene change. Hmmm. I'v tested all modes, all filters. This is a new phenomena to 7.5.

I guess it's like ATI, fixing the one problem I had with MMC, and breaking all other things that worked right.

[Nelson37]

homerpez - Inverse 3:2 pulldown (IVTC) is designed to take a 23fps film which has been converted to 29fps and revert it back to 23fps. ANY frame droppage may through this off, and only some TV captures will benefit from it. You also have to set a 3:2 pulldown on playback flag.

[leebo]

Close.
3:2 pulldown is for material that was originally shot on film and later transfered to video, like a movie.

When transfering to video, they repeat one field (a video frame is made up of two fields) every other frame (or something similar - I'm too tired to look it up right now).

The reason this is done is because a movie is shot at 24 frames per second, but video (in the US) is shot at 29.97 frames per second.

Adding the extra fields makes up for the difference. 3:2 pulldown removes these extra fields so that when you watch the movie on a computer monitor (or HDTV) the resulting image is closer to the original.

[next]

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On 2001-12-07 21:13:50, homerpez wrote:
I'm sorry, next, you seem to hate my #&^@$% guts. Oh, well. Se la vie.
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Hey homerpez, I'm just trying to help! I just see you running down dead end alleys at times. As far as the quality of MMC 7.5 goes ATI uses the Ligos GoMotion codec for its mpeg2 encoding. When Ligos continues to improve its GoMotion product then the quality of MMC and mpeg2 captures improves as well. That is pretty much what is happening with MMC 7.5.

Here's the site for Ligos if you're interested:

http://www.ligos.com/

Here's a decent link too:

http://www.ligos.com/index_developers.phtml?n1=developer_kits&n2=gomotion_sdk

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: next on 2001-12-08 08:26:54 ]</font>

[homerpez]

...then why hasn't it improved?

I guess if everone else is having theirs work, more power to them...

(Neither here nor there for me anyway, I've been capturing with V-Dub and Huffy lately, so MPEG-2 is essentially useless to me)

[Fred©]

Is the MMC 7.5 supposed to work on an ATI AIW 128Pro? I uninstalled 7.1 version and installed it but TV does not recognize capture device... others aplications work ok, just the TV! (It must be TV!!!)
MY O.S. is winMe Portuguese version.

[next]

I'm getting some serious results with mpeg2 captures and MMC 7.5. First of all the codec MMC 7.5 is using is much more efficient than previous versions. All of my captures have been at 480x480 in the past so I began testing at this resolution. My results suprised me. I tested on a 1.2 mhz Athlon box with 512k ram capturing to a 7200 rpm hard drive.

480x480 15mps CBR no frame loss. Maxed out the settings. CPU utilization around 75% to 80%. Amazing. Maxed the settings out and no frame loss.

Now some other findings:

640x480 was captured up to about 8 mps CBR before I started seeing frame loss. CPU utilization was in the mid 90% range for mps lower than 8mps

720x480 was a no go. Had frame loss at even very low mps CBR.

Now for some news that suprised me even more. When I turned on the Inverse 3:2 Pulldown option I got the following:

480X480 15 mps CBR no frame loss. Wasn't sure at first if I should have expected this.

640x480 15mps CBR - NO FRAME LOSS. This was a HUGE suprise. CPU utilization was low 90's.

720x480 6mps CBR - NO FRAME LOSS. Another huge suprise. CPU utilization was in the mid to high 90's.

All of my tests had real time deinterlacing on.

I have no idea how the Inverse 3:2 Pulldown affects the quality of a SVCD burn but I'm going to find out soon enough!

Things seem to be heading in the right direction.

[next]

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On 2001-12-08 16:17:06, Fred© wrote:
Is the MMC 7.5 supposed to work on an ATI AIW 128Pro? I uninstalled 7.1 version and installed it but TV does not recognize capture device... others aplications work ok, just the TV! (It must be TV!!!)
MY O.S. is winMe Portuguese version.
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I have the same problem. MMC 7.5 has not been officially released for the AIW PRO 128. I run AIW 128 Pro's on three boxes and have been able to install it on only two. I have the exact same problem that you do on the third box. I can tell you some things that the problem is not:

1. It's not the card. I swaped cards beyween boxes and had the same problem.

2. It's not the video driver. Tried them all. No luck.

3. It's not your OS install. Did a fresh 98se install. No luck.

4. Probably not the bios settings. Set all bios setting to very conservative levels. No luck.

5. Tried various combinations of installs. 7.1, 7.2, 7.5 etc in various combinations of installs and uninstalls. Don't think its the problem.

This may sound crazy but I think it may be the motherboard and some sort of conflict. I did a motherboard swap on a box keeping all of the other components and MMC 7.5 installed fine. No problems. The problem motherboard is an FIC AZ11. It has a KT133 chipset. At first I thought it might be the KT133 but I have MMC 7.5 running on a Shuttle motherboard with a KT133 chipset. At this point I have no real idea but the only variable I have isolated is the FIC AZ11.

Sounds crazy but that's where I'm at.

[vcrpro3]

MMC 7.5??I was just at their (Ati Website) and downloaded MMC 7.2-No Dvd for Win-XP...is this the one you mean?

[alucard2050]

for what its worth. i have run many tests with the new 7.5. i seem to be experiancing more blocks in the video. usually i capture with the Huffyuv codec useing iuvcr and it always looks great. even with 7.2 it wasn't this bad. the new skins i don't mind, the new features are a step. put the overall performance is just not there yet......

[homerpez]

alucard2050, this is what I tried to explain...

I did notice some of the improvements that next did, but only speed-wise (and mine weren't quite as remarkable as his machine), but quality-wise there was a definite problem with blockiness, all around. This is with using bitrates higher before, and full motion search precision. Some new problem with it.

As for 3:2 pulldown mode, I discovered it does in fact get REALLY messed up upon even a single dropped frame, but otherwise works.

Full 29.97 NTSC, with De-Interlace and Visual Masking (whatever ATI means by that) still seems the optimal way to do MPEG-2 with it, but then again there are those &*^$*&#^ blocks.

Personally, I'm sticking with Huffy, 352x480, and seeking out a bigger HD. MMC still is really disappointing (if you couldn't tell by my other posts).

vcrpro3: Um... {cough} 7.5 isn't, um... really... being "distributed" yet by ATI, on their website... if you can follow?...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: homerpez on 2001-12-08 23:20:27 ]</font>

[next]

alucard - what card are you using for capture? Is it PCI or AGP technology? I think I remember that iuvcr requires a PCI card. Not sure but I think that's right.

[wmfv7]

Just installed MMC 7.5 on an athlon 950, win2k, 256 megs ram, and ati a-i-w radeon video card.

Mpg1 captures are dropping frames, but the windows media format made some nice caps. Just wondering if anyone has a method of changing the settings like bitrate for the windows media format?

I capped the entire UT vs LSU football game in 780kb/sec wmv7 in less than 700 megs. Decent quality, but I know it can be improved.

Does anyone know how to edit windows media format?

[Yoshi Suto]

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On 2001-12-06 14:09:54, next wrote:
And it is a quantum leap. I'm starting this thread as a continuation from this one:

https://www.videohelp.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=67670&forum=2&start=30

in order to change the topic to MMC 7.5.

Couple of preliminaries before I run it through its paces. First it installed fine on a AIW Pro 128 on a Win98se box. Well it installed fine on one box so far and I'm working on a second and have had some problems with TV Player on the second. Not sure what the problem is but its running fine on the first box. What I've noticed so far:

1. It now has a 3:2 pulldown option. Yes!

2. It will segment captures like virtual dub. You can set capture file lengths. 800 megs for example. No more 4 gig file limits in 98 for mpeg2 captures! Yess!!!

3. All the splash screen now say version 7.5

4. It looks really COOL.

5. And tons more!

Going to run it through its paces now!!!



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[psycaz]

I loaded 7.5 over my 7.1. I am running it on an Athlon 1.4, 512mb ram, AIW 128 Pro 32 mb with an Abit KG7-R. I noticed also that the quality of the captures is not as sharp and block free as my prior. But what I have experienced so far is that my never ending issue with audio desync seems to have been corrected with 7.5 !!! I still am going to do more testing, but on a 90 minute capture and then converted to svcd in TMPGE, before I would be out of sync between 1 to 5 seconds audio first, now no noticable sync issues. I will trade off the quality for sync - I can't get rid of interlace lines when using Virtual dub - still got that problem - even with filters, I can still see it - that could be me though since I know where it was before.

[AT]

Just want to add something about 3:2 pull down.

Other posts have described it, I won't repeat it here.

For practical use, you apply it only if you capture from a DVD disk that originally converted from a movie film (most of them do). Any other wrong doing will result in quality loss.

3:2 pull down benefits:

1) You only need capture at 23.9x frams per sec., thus for the same bitrate, capture quality supposed to be better than capture at 29.9. This is a simple math.

2) Again since it only capture at 23.9 frams per sec., CPU usage will drop down, that's why some people reported no fram drops at higher fram size and/or higher bitrate with 3:2 pull down.

3:2 pull down will add a flag into captured file, so when playback, it will play 29.9 frams per sec. by repeating some certain frams.

PS: Installed MMC 7.5, appears OK on my machine with PIII 800, 512MB, ATI 128 Pro.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: AT on 2001-12-09 22:24:10 ]</font>

[booffead]

Tried it out - AIW 128 pro, win98, installed over MMC 7.1
Functions just fine, but 1 question. How to export capture with .vcr extension? Any clues?

[energy80s]

Well, I spent most of Sunday afternoon trying to get MMC 7.5 to work ... but no chance! It just doesn't recognise the TV tuner in my ATI AIW 128 pro card! Also other apps were a bit "dodgey" and wouldn't run smoothly - the DVD player and the file player.

I tried to install 7.5 over 7.1 and nothing worked. I then wiped out all of 7.1 plus the drivers and did a fresh install of the latest drivers and 7.5 - the TV app wouldn't work. Went back and installed the "6" drivers and 7.5, still wouldn't work. went back and installed 7.2 and 7.5 - still wouldn't work. Went back again and just did a full install of 7.2, but that was dropping more frames than 7.1 so dumped that too. In the end had to just Ghost back to my original setup and everything worked as usual.

So after 3 hours of constant tinkering, MMC 7.5 is of no use to me! Ahh well, it was worth a try.

[thelookout]

Hi all. I just installed MMC 7.5 over 7.2 and it's been working great. Capture seems MUCH more efficient, but i need more time in playing with the settings.

I'm getting a funny result with my MPEG-2 captures though. The video comes out great, but the audio sounds funny. The sounds comes out higher-pitched, like Chipmunks thing or like it's being fast forwarded. Anyone experiencing this? If so, how do i fix this?

Thanks!

[next]

energy80s - I had similiar problems. Was able to install it on 2 98se boxes with AIW pro 128's no problems. Was even able to install it on a 98se box with a rage 128 pro vivo. But had problems on a third box with a AIW 128 pro 128. As it turned out it was not hardware related. I was also not able to install it after a fresh OS install on the third box. Not sure why.

My sloution was to take a ghost partition image from one of the boxes that it was working on and restoring it to the third box. Not a very good solution for most people but it worked.

The problem is obviously software related. MMC 7.5 has not been officially released to the masses and there may be some sort of hardware/software (?) checking routines that caused a problem on the third box.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: next on 2001-12-10 07:46:49 ]</font>

[sillyrabbitt]

fyi for anyone who cares i too was able to load mmc7.5 on a win98se machine and its been working great, so far (knock on wood)

[nittany]

Anyone install this for use with an ATI TV Wonder PCI card? I am just curious to find out if it works with this card. Anyone know what cards are supported? Thanks.

[next]

I agree with the comment of no more A/V sync problems under MMC 7.5. I capture to mpeg2 and burn SVCD's. In the past I had to edit in M2-edit pro and then demux/mux the files in Mpeg2vcr. It was an easy fix but it is no longer necessary. Now I can simply edit the capture in mpeg2vcr and save the cuts as an SVCD program stream and burn. No demuxing/muxing required. I'm guessing this may be an ATI fix and other programs for editing may work as well. TMPG comes to mind.

As far as quality of my SVCD's I'm not seeing any decrease. As a matter of fact they look better (played on a 32 inch TV). One thing for sure is that the codec MMC 7.5 is using for mpeg2 captures is much more efficient than previous versions. Like I posted before, CPU load is way down with MMC 7.5.