Usage of the Ati X800 AIW

[Lumbermatt]

Hi everybody,

I found an ATI X800 All-in-Wonder (PCIE edition) to sell for a few 15 bucks. I don't know if somebody here owns and and uses this card but I have some questions about it.

1 - The card comes with a breakout cable that has a SCART, VGA and a pink connector. On the pink connector, you can plug another breakout cable with Composite + SVIdeo. Capturing seems to work with the composite input. Is it possible to use the SCART connector to capture some video ? or it's only output ? (The documentation isn't clear about that, it's told that you can plug a VCR or Camcorder...) but I didn't found a Scart-input somewhere in MMC.

2 - My card came with MMC 9.09 which is pretty unstable. It's impossible de capture more than 15s video without having the PC freezing. Which version that is compatible with my card is know as stable ?

3 - Do you use MMC or VirtualDub (i'm familiar with VD's capture mode) ? This MMC bringing more than VD ?

Thanks a lot in advance.

[Brad]

I googled "ATI X800 All-in-Wonder PCIE scart input": http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/1536-ati-all-in-wonder-x800-gt-pci-express/?page=2

You can see analogue D-SUB 15-pin for a monitor, SCART output (via a VIA VT1632M), the port for connecting one of ATI's domino I/O blocks and an audio pass-through so the AIW can grab any line input you're feeding your sound board.

The only advantage I can think of to using MMC is to capture in MPEG-2.

[Lumbermatt]

I googled "ATI X800 All-in-Wonder PCIE scart input": http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/1536-ati-all-in-wonder-x800-gt-pci-express/?page=2

You can see analogue D-SUB 15-pin for a monitor, SCART output (via a VIA VT1632M), the port for connecting one of ATI's domino I/O blocks and an audio pass-through so the AIW can grab any line input you're feeding your sound board.

The only advantage I can think of to using MMC is to capture in MPEG-2.

Hi vaporeon800,
Thanks for the link. I didn't found it so clearly described when I searched for this information.
So I fed the video signal with an SCART/Cinch adapter to the card: it works good.

Concerning MMC, I read a lot about various versions. I tested the 9.09 (not good), 9.16 (the last one... hoping it would correct some bugs... but what a piece of cr*p). I wanted to test 8.7, but it seems not to be be compatible with my hardware (too early version maybe).
I want to capture directly as MPEG2 to I can burn some DVD out of my VHS.

[Brad]

If the MPEG-2 compression filter got installed by MMC, you can try to build a graph in GraphEdit.

[Lumbermatt]

If the MPEG-2 compression filter got installed by MMC, you can try to build a graph in GraphEdit.

Thanks for the advice. I'll take a look at it.

So far... MMC got me crazy.
I tried various Catalyst versions : 6.2, 6.4, 6,11, 8.xx (provided with my card) and the last actually provided by ATI (10.2). Only the 6.2 installs from itself (I don't need to manually install the display / capture drivers because the ATI setup complains about having no support for my hardware).

I tried MMC 9.09 : Freeze the whole PC after few minutes
MMC 9.15 and 9.16 : Don't work (can't initialize the TV error)
MMC 9.02 : The installed seems to be corrupted or like this (MSI installer error)

I have been searching for MMC 9.06.1 which is reported to work better but couldn't find it anywhere on the web. ATI don't seems to provide MMC to download anymore on their website... Btw, do somebody have a copy of MMC 9.02 or 9.06.1 archived on his PC ?

[Nelson37]

You have to be very, very careful to COMPLETELY remove the previous MMC version before installing the new one. Simply running an uninstall is usually not sufficient.

IIRC it was version 9.6 or so that the encoding engine changed completely.

There used to be complete instructions at Rage3d.com, but it has been some time. Going from memory, there are several ATI directories that need to be manually removed, DLL's also, registry keys, etc. Doesn't take that long once you've done it 5 or 6 times, but it has been a long time.

[Lumbermatt]

I did that this way : I uninstalled all the ATI stuff with the uninstaller, rebooted in Safe Mode to make sure that all drivers are unloaded and deleted all other files with Driver Cleaner PE and double-checked in the System32 directory that all ati files have been deleted.

I had some success with following combo : Catalyst 6.2 + MMC 9.03
Picture comes up (no "could not initialize" error) and my PC doesn't freeze as with MMC 9.09. I tried to capture some video in MPEG2, and it seems to works.

But the picture looks like sh*t as if it were a problem in the interlaced displaying. On fast scenes I have some massive "ghosting". I doesn't know if this goes over on the captured video stream or not. And the sound is cracking in the left channel (I'm capturing with an Audigy 2 ZS card).

I searched for MMC 9.02 without success. If somebody have a copy archived and could upload it somewhere it would be really great.

Many thanks in advance.

[Nelson37]

What is your source, connection type, and capture settings? Give complete detail or some screen shots on the capture settings, there are several that can cause some problems.

On the left-side audio, double-check all connections and try a different speaker or headphones. Shouldn't be a problem in only one side.

[Lumbermatt]

What is your source, connection type, and capture settings? Give complete detail or some screen shots on the capture settings, there are several that can cause some problems.

On the left-side audio, double-check all connections and try a different speaker or headphones. Shouldn't be a problem in only one side.

A have a Thomson VCR with a SCART output on which I connected a SCART to 3x cinch adapter. The ATI breakout cable is connected directly on it with a cinch/cinch adapter.
The sound is connected on the line in of my Audigy 2 LS card with a 2x cinch to jack cable.

I investigated a little bit around the problem. There are no desinterlacing problems on the captured MPEG file. As far I don't watch TV, it doesn't matter...
Concerning the sound, I have no sound on the capture file just a cyclic cracking noise. I found out that the sound card just played the linein input. I think that it's just configuration related... I'll have to investigate.

[sanlyn]

Do not use MMC. For anything. At this point in time, it's useless bloat and was never all that great to begin with. Install the ATI drivers, WDM and capture drivers.

To anyone who captures and processes video on a laptop, I extend my deepest sympathies and sincerest hopes for success. I will never try it again. I've used AIW's since 1998 and still use two of them today. I captured to several formats, using different software. The VHS/analog -> VirtualDub -> lossless compressed AVI route has never failed, nor has cleaning up that capture and encoding+authoring it. Every other method may have offered some benefit/convenience or other, but was hardly worth the grief or dissatisfaction that resulted in the end product.

VHS recorded directly to DVD almost always looks worse than the original tape. Retail tapes in pristine condition usually have a better ending (if you can learn to ignore the way digital encoders see analog noise as worse than it was in its original form. I gave up on that and re-captured a few of those recordings the hard way. But you might not care). Home-made VHS sources are seen by lossy digital encoders and by DVD recorders as aliens from the garbage pits of the universe, and the results look that way. 6-hour home tapes are especially disturbing, and are doubly disturbing from a JVC player. In any case, the route taken from captured lossless AVI goes into some form of cleanup, either the obsessive/compulsive type or a simple levels/noise adjustment. Then they are encoded using a few decent (and often free) standalone MPEG2 encoders and authoring apps, all of which outdo MMC or almost anything that can be had from the big-ticket vendors. Even without cleanup, a better encoder works wonders every time. Another advantage to lossless AVI is that the video can go from there to several delivery formats, including hours of decent standard-definition video encoded to h264 for BluRay or AVCHD playback on a single disc. With DVD, you are limited to 2 hours max, and 90 minutes preferred.Or you can use lower bitrates and expect the lower quality that comes with it.

There are easier ways to do it. You have several choices including the choice you're using now. Some are satisfied with what you're likely to get, many are not. Whichever way you go, I'd advise keeping some of those MPEG2 captures on an external drive. It is possible (but difficult) for skilled hobbyists and pros to make clearly visible improvements from such recordings when they have more time to handle it. Otherwise, if you discard the captures as well as the original tapes you really want, your choice later will be zero.

There are other ways to capture VHS using the AIW card, and other formats to capture to, without MMC. I'll let other members cover the non-AVI methods, as I tried them a while back and left them behind, finding the results no better than recording VHS directly to a DVD recorder -- which, if you think about it, is what you are doing with MMC.

Best of luck.

[Lumbermatt]

sanlyn,

First thank you for yout long and interesting reply. To be honest, I'm (compared to lot of people here) new to VHS video capturing and wanted to try various software and workflows to see which I prefer. I can't understand how ATI may have brought out such pieces of faulty software (do the guys there even tested it before ? I doubt ...).
I tried, MMC, Virtualdub and VirtualVCR. My personal preference goes to VirtualVCR as far it doesn't drops some frames actually. (For an unexplainable reason VD still drops a bunch of frames during capture).
For the compression, I'll see how I do it. I tried to make a h264 (mp4 file) with the --interlaced flag but when playing back on my CRT TV it looks horrible as if up and bottom fields were inverted... I maybe have forgotten to specify the first field. I think I'll play around with it next days.
Last question : in your mind what is the best way to proceed ? I have an LCD panel TV and a CRT TV (in progressive mode... thats maybe why it looked bad). Is it interesting to desinterlace before with QTGMC ? Or let the playback device (multimedia harddrive or midrange DVD player) do it ?