ATI TV Wonder 650 PCI - Black Screen in virtualdub

[HidenSeek]

I wanted a capture card to capture my hi8 tapes and I just recived an ATI TV Wonder 650 PCI in the mail a couple of days ago. I live in PAL Land btw. I know this is primarily a NTSC card, but I read somewhere that you could capture in PAL using virtualdub.
So I installed the cards latest drivers (not the ones from the CD) and set up my virtualdub to record PAL according to the settings in this topic
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/313735-Capture-card-for-Laserdisc-and-VHS-Good-card-quality/page2

but I only get a black picture... most of the time.
Because sometimes when I've played around with the settings (basically doing the same thing over and over again) suddently there's a picture. But this seems to be just random when I get the signal and I usually lose it when I stop the tape.
but when I go into video\capture filter...\video decoder\ options in virtualdub and choose PAL_B, it detects one signal and 625 lines. but there is still no picture

I installed Catalyst Media Center just to test with another capture program and it finds the signal whenever I start the tape, but it tries to play it in NTSC mode so I get jitter and no color

So I'm guessing this is a problem with virtualdub?

[deadhead_]

First of all, what is your OS? And I think that there's a problem with your capture card settings.
Try to download Microsoft Livecap and play with the settings of your card.
1. Select in crossbar/video pin the correct input and video standard
2. Slect in Filter Properties the correct video standard (PAL)

[Cauptain]

Do not waste your time, it will not work.

I sold my ATI 650 for it.

Sometimes worked sometimes not.

This card is wasted if not for use in NTSC

Try Power Director 8/9 (very good for ATI 650)


Claudio

[deadhead_]

oh c'mon. Theatre HD is designed for both PAL and NTSC countries. Last drivers + 32bit OS and all works fine (I have Asus es2-750). The capture quality is awesome.

TS shall be advanced PC user to finally tune the card and PC.We can only help

[HidenSeek]

gah forgot to put it in, I use Vista 64bit

[deadhead_]

Install 32bit XP or win7 (Vista is the most vulgar M$ OS) and try again

[HidenSeek]

First of all, what is your OS? And I think that there's a problem with your capture card settings.
Try to download Microsoft Livecap and play with the settings of your card.
1. Select in crossbar/video pin the correct input and video standard
2. Slect in Filter Properties the correct video standard (PAL)

When I search for Microsoft Livecap I get "Did you mean Live Map?" in the search results

[deadhead_]

I've attached livecap (livecam)

[jagabo]

Try turning off DirectX output in VirtualDub. Options -> Preferences -> Display -> Use DirectX... then restart VirtualDub.

[HidenSeek]

Try turning off DirectX output in VirtualDub. Options -> Preferences -> Display -> Use DirectX... then restart VirtualDub.

This seemed to work! Thanks! hopefully this was the problem. Do you know the reason why the DirectX was the culprit?

[HidenSeek]

actually would you belive that at almost the exact same moment that I hit enter to post my joy... the black screen returned

[jagabo]

Try playing a video in a media player before starting VirtualDub. Leave the player running until after you've started the capture module.

[usually_quiet]

Many of the same capture codecs available using Virtualdub appear to work for AMCap. You could do a test with the trial version of AMCap to see if that works better for you. It is not expensive to buy if you like it.

I live in NTSC land, and AMCap works more consistently than virtualdub for me using the PCIe version of this card and the latest drivers for my OS (Windows 7 32-bit).

[lordsmurf]

This card works fine in VirtualDub, for PAL input signals.

The issues being described so far are simply settings choice errors.
That's correctable.

[HidenSeek]

Try playing a video in a media player before starting VirtualDub. Leave the player running until after you've started the capture module.

this didn't work either.
Gonna try and play around with AMcap now

[Cauptain]

Try playing a video in a media player before starting VirtualDub. Leave the player running until after you've started the capture module.

this didn't work either.
Gonna try and play around with AMcap now

Power Director 8/9 only...Amcap will got same VD problems.

[HidenSeek]

Try playing a video in a media player before starting VirtualDub. Leave the player running until after you've started the capture module.

this didn't work either.
Gonna try and play around with AMcap now

Power Director 8/9 only...Amcap will got same VD problems.

yes Power Director 9 is working
but will it let me capture in avi? or just mpeg?

[Cauptain]

Try playing a video in a media player before starting VirtualDub. Leave the player running until after you've started the capture module.

this didn't work either.
Gonna try and play around with AMcap now

Power Director 8/9 only...Amcap will got same VD problems.

yes Power Director 9 is working
but will it let me capture in avi? or just mpeg?

AVI, MPEG 1-2 and DIVX.

Maximum AVi resolution is 1024x768

But I prefer MPEG2~25000 btr. Very good quality.

• 
• 
• 
• 

[HidenSeek]

my profile button is greyed out, is this because I have the trial version?

[Cauptain]

my profile button is greyed out, is this because I have the trial version?

Strange, because i have a trial PD9 e make the screens above...

[usually_quiet]

@HidenSeek There may be other capture programs to try depending on what you want to do with your captures. It would be good to know if you plan to capture to directly to the end format (and which one) and just trim it a bit, or if you want to capture to a lightly compressed format, process your video, edit it, and convert to its end format afterwards.

Virtualdub and AMCap are mostly used for capturing with DV or lossless codecs like Huffyuv used for compression. These are good if you need to correct specific kinds of problems that show up in the capture, or do a lot of editing, but these codecs are rarely used for the final product.

Catalyst Media Center can be used for capturing to MPEG-2. While Catalyst Media Center has a clumsy user interface, it should be possible to playback and capture PAL video. I have been able to use it for successfully for NTSC, and have seen there are settings available that control whether PAL or NTSC is used. I have also used graphs built in GraphStudio for capturing MPEG2, using either the card's hardware encoder or a software encoder. I am capturing from a set-top box, not a camera, but perhaps both of these can still be used for camera captures.

I haven't tried Power Director 9, but Cyberlink developed Catalyst Media Center for ATI, so there is a good chance their software will work well with this card.

[HidenSeek]

The plan was to capture in avi using huffyuv for presserving as close to the original recording as possible(that I can afford). in this day where terrabytes cost very little I thought that this was something I could afford. Also I guess the tapes don't last forever (already lost the summer of 1992 because of bad tapes) so I guess the sooner the better?
I also want to edit some of the footage and burn it to dvd later, but I'm still very early in the learing stages about this part

so I wanted to use virtualdub, because that's the program I've read so much about here and on different forums, but I just can't get it to work. Are going to try a different version of Power Director 9 now and see if I can't get a version where I can choose the format.

[HidenSeek]

Found this in the user guide of PD9

Profile button.
If this button is grayed out, that means that the original format and quality of the
media is maintained as set on the original media device (camcorder, etc.).
The profile settings that are available depend on the capture device connected

and the capture mode you have selected.

so does this mean that my capture card has a fixed setting? something I noticed, but forgot to mention is that when I was able to capture in virtualdub, the resolution was in 720x576. I've read somewhere that hi8 PAL is 640x576, but when I try to change the resolution I get the "capture device does not support the selected video format" error. Infact 640x576 YUY2 seemed to be the only format that the card supported
can it be the card itself that is at fault?

[jman98]

Catalyst Media Center can be used for capturing to MPEG-2. While Catalyst Media Center has a clumsy user interface, it should be possible to playback and capture PAL video. I have been able to use it for successfully for NTSC, and have seen there are settings available that control whether PAL or NTSC is used. I have also used graphs built in GraphStudio for capturing MPEG2, using either the card's hardware encoder or a software encoder. I am capturing from a set-top box, not a camera, but perhaps both of these can still be used for camera captures.

I haven't tried Power Director 9, but Cyberlink developed Catalyst Media Center for ATI, so there is a good chance their software will work well with this card.

I have the ATI TV wonder 650 PCIe card (close enough to the PCI) and it's worth noting that Catalyst Media Center does NOT work at all under Windows 7 64 bit. Cyberlink claims it is a supported platform, but it is not. I've read various other reports suggesting that it may not work on 32 bit Windows 7 either and it may also have problems under Vista. If you have gotten it to work under any version of Vista or Windows 7, would you mind posting back whether it was the 32 bit or 64 bit OS?

Windows Media Center works fine with my card and meets my current needs.

[usually_quiet]

I have the ATI TV wonder 650 PCIe card (close enough to the PCI) and it's worth noting that Catalyst Media Center does NOT work at all under Windows 7 64 bit. Cyberlink claims it is a supported platform, but it is not. I've read various other reports suggesting that it may not work on 32 bit Windows 7 either and it may also have problems under Vista. If you have gotten it to work under any version of Vista or Windows 7, would you mind posting back whether it was the 32 bit or 64 bit OS?

Windows Media Center works fine with my card and meets my current needs.

I have seen reports that Catalyst Media Center doesn't work with Windows 7 64 bit, but I can't say if that is true or not from personal experience. I am running Windows 7 32 bit, and Catalyst Media Center is partly functional with compatibility set to Vista and Run as Administrator selected. After installing the software, I installed a patch issued for Catalyst Media Center from http://support.amd.com/de/kbarticles/Pages/41344-ATICatalystMediaCenUpdat.aspx , but it looks like the download link is broken now. The digital tuner doesn't work for me, but the analog tuner does and I can capture from S-Video and the card's audio input as well.

Windows Media Center won't record input from S-Video or composite and the card's audio input unless a Media Center remote control kit with an IR receiver/IR blaster is installed and Windows Media Center is set up to use a set top box. If someone intends to capture output from another source, like a video camera, Windows Media Center is not a good choice. I do like it for watching and recording via the ATSC tuner.

[usually_quiet]

so does this mean that my capture card has a fixed setting? something I noticed, but forgot to mention is that when I was able to capture in virtualdub, the resolution was in 720x576. I've read somewhere that hi8 PAL is 640x576, but when I try to change the resolution I get the "capture device does not support the selected video format" error. Infact 640x576 YUY2 seemed to be the only format that the card supported
can it be the card itself that is at fault?

Are you certain that PowerDirector or its compressor is not setting the resolution for the captured video to 640x576?

I think the card uses full D1 for uncompressed video output by default, which is 720x576 for PAL countries, although I'm not certain of that. I don't have a camera that I can use to test PowerDirector or my TV Wonder HD 650, only a set top box that outputs standard NTSC video.

I have only been able to set a resolution other than full D1 when using hardware or software encoders. ...but perhaps Cyberlink's software is able to access the card's drivers and can change the resolution output for uncompressed video based on the capture source you select during setup.

[jagabo]

Analog PAL is not 640x576. Analog video is a continuous waveform along the horizontal axis. You can capture them with whatever number of samples you want. 720 or 704 is typical because that's compatible with DVD and conforms to the CCIR spec.

[mojonba]

any update on this? I just updated to W7 x64 and having the same problem with a Sapphire PCI Theater 650. I get no video in either Amcap, MS Livecam, VirtualDub but I do get on Nero Vision 10. I would like to get it working with VirtualDub in order to capture lossless.

[jman98]

any update on this? I just updated to W7 x64 and having the same problem with a Sapphire PCI Theater 650. I get no video in either Amcap, MS Livecam, VirtualDub but I do get on Nero Vision 10. I would like to get it working with VirtualDub in order to capture lossless.

1) WHY lossless?
2) WHAT are you capturing?

The reason I am asking is that I've done TV captures with this card via Windows Media Center and they are IDENTICAL to firewire grabs I was getting on my old XP PC. If you're just capturing TV broadcasts you are completely wasting your time (and disk space) in trying to go lossless as your so-called "lossless" captures will not in any way be better than what the card is grabbing for you from the TV source.

[mojonba]

I was planning capturing lossless to later compress x264. But that is beyond the point. Right now the only program that is able to access the card is Nero Vision and its settings are extremely limited. The point of the thread is to find the culprit of why virtualdub and others are not able to capture.