Stupid ATI AIW Question

[DarrellS]

Here's a better picture. I spent enough time making it in Photoshop so I figure I might as well post it.

[stahlhart]

That because they print it on 2 different pages.

They print it on two different pages -- WITH A DIFFERENT SCENARIO TITLE AT THE TOP OF EACH PAGE...

Give me a break...

You're right, though. I just interpreted it at first glance as page 21, "here's how you connect a VCR to record" and page 22, "here's how you connect a television to the output" -- it looked like two separate uses for the card. And then they sneak in that bit about the line input on 22 -- "oh, by the way, don't forget to connect THIS..."

I think the illustrations could have been clearer. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Edit: yeah, had they shown it the way DarrellS does here -- that makes much more sense to me.

Now you can see why I used the word "stupid" in my topic -- I had a gut feeling that that's how I'd feel by the time we got done talking about this...

C.K.

[DarrellS]

Here is a picture of your condo showing how to run cable TV to your video card on the second floor.

[stahlhart]

Won't work. The wall that it would have to be done on is internal (the condos are attached).

And if I ran any wires on the exterior of my unit, the association would string me up...

I do have phone wiring on/in the wall in question, though, so there is the possibility that I can snake coax along the same path that the phone wiring follows, and there will be holes through the framing where needed. It might not be a bad idea for me to investigate this in any case, as I may end up going on broadband someday (I'm on DSL now).

edit: I found a seller for the output cable I am in need of, and ordered one... I'm going to try out the internal connection between the AIW and the sound card in the meantime.

C.K.

[DarrellS]

I do have phone wiring on/in the wall in question, though, so there is the possibility that I can snake coax along the same path that the phone wiring follows, and there will be holes through the framing where needed. It might not be a bad idea for me to investigate this in any case, as I may end up going on broadband someday (I'm on DSL now).

I'm not sure if there would be enough room to pull a coax through the same hole but it's worth a try. You might have to drill another hole and it takes a special kind of drill and bit. You might think about going through the sheetrock in a closet or cabinet where it wouldn't be noticable.

I found a seller for the output cable I am in need of, and ordered one... I'm going to try out the internal connection between the AIW and the sound card in the meantime.

Great.

I don't even think the internal route is an option on my card. my sound is onboard so I doubt it.

[stahlhart]

It looks as though I've made my first successful capture...

I made the internal connection between the AIW and the Santa Cruz, and set up the audio inputs accordingly (muting the non-capture ones).

I captured a little less than two hours of video as uncompressed AVI. The resultant file is about 56Gb; GSpot reports the size as 3,956Mb, 42% video data and 58% audio data. It plays back in WMP with audio and video synced clear to the end, and I can see interlacing in the video. I captured at 704x480 NTSC, 44.1KHz 16-bit Stereo for audio, using VirtualDub and the HuffYUV codec. Dropped 80 frames total.

Do these numbers look about right?

I guess now I get to learn how to encode it for DVD authoring.

I can't thank you guys enough for the help... really appreciate it!

C.K.

[DarrellS]

Glad everything worked out for you. The interlacing is normal from what I can tell. Just use the deinterlace filter in Virtualdub when compressing.

How were you able to capture with Virtualdub. I can't capture in Virtualdub with my card. Phaeron says I should be able to with the new version but all I get is a black capture screen with audio and the program freezes up. When I close the program with task manager, the audio still plays and I have to run the TV tuner and close before the sound will stop playing. He doesn't have an answer for me.

[thecoalman]

I don't even think the internal route is an option on my card. my sound is onboard so I doubt it.

Look on your mobo for a connector, should be black.

[stahlhart]

Glad everything worked out for you. The interlacing is normal from what I can tell. Just use the deinterlace filter in Virtualdub when compressing.

How were you able to capture with Virtualdub. I can't capture in Virtualdub with my card. Phaeron says I should be able to with the new version but all I get is a black capture screen with audio and the program freezes up. When I close the program with task manager, the audio still plays and I have to run the TV tuner and close before the sound will stop playing. He doesn't have an answer for me.

I actually wanted the interlaced capture, per lordsmurf's discussion on the subject (http://www.digitalfaq.com/capture/interlace.htm). I also own a Plextor PX-M402U that lacks the ability to do so, which was my main reason for adding an interlaced capture tool to my setup. I still own a traditional non-progressive television set.

I didn't really have to do anything special regarding VirtualDub -- I'm just using version 1.6.4 with the HuffYUV codec, also Windows 2000 SP4, Catalyst 5.4 drivers and MMC v8.9 <-- if this matters in any way to VirtualDub. I set up HuffYUV per lordsmurf's instructions at DigitalFAQ, and actually I'm still tweaking the capture setup as I learn more.

Mabye it's hardware differences between your system and mine -- have you tried a PCI soundcard instead of the onboard sound?

I couldn't get VirtualDub to work correctly with my PX-M402U.

C.K.