MPEG-2 with ATI AIW RADEON

[zeus60]

I am having trouble capturing MPEG-2 video with my ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon card. To be more specific, I can't play the files back. I use the ATI TV application that is part of MMC 7.1. I can save the file, but when I try to play in back, the playback application hangs. I have tried various capture settings, and I've tried to play back the files using the MMC file player. I can't import the files into TMPGenc or ULead's Video Suite. The symptom is always the same: the application hangs. There is very little CPU activity when this happens.

MPEG-1 capture works fine.

My system is a Pentium III 1 GHz, 512 meg of RAM, Windows 2k Professional.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[patrickm]

did you install the DVD 4.1 update? it fixes capture and file player problems. it sounds like you don't have an MPEG-2 playback codec on your system, and it'll fix this too.

[RFontenot]

Installing the ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon:

Install the AIW card in your system, preferably in a slot that does not share an IRQ with another card.

Change your system’s BIOS setting to dedicate an IRQ to VGA.

Do NOT install software and/drivers in included CD-ROM.

If previous installation exists, remove the following programs in order via the Add/Delete Program and reboot.

· GUIDE PLUS+(TM) for Windows System
· ATI DVD
· ATI Multimedia Center
· ATI Display Driver

After rebooting, open Windows Explorer and delete the following directories:

· \Program Files\ATI Multimedia
· \Program Files\Gemstar

Start regedit , delete the following keys and reboot:

· HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ATI Technologies
· HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ATI
· HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ATI Technologies
· HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Gemstar

Download DirectX 8.0a and the Video Capture Update for DirectX 8.0 from Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/directx/homeuser/downloads/default.asp

Download latest video drivers, MMC 7.1, DVD, and updated manuals from ATI:

http://support.ati.com/products/pc/radeon/radeon_drivers.html
http://support.ati.com/products/pc/radeon/aiw_radeon_manuals.html

Install Microsoft DirectX 8.0a and reboot.
Install Microsoft Video Capture Update and reboot.
Install ATI Display Drivers and reboot
Install ATI Multimedia Center 7.1
Install ATI DVD 4.1.0.0
Install Gemstar GUIDE PLUS from installation CD

[patrickm]

(install the DVD update regardless of whether you have a dvd drive or not)

[RFontenot]

Yep, skip any step and something probably won't work.

[next]

Great advice RFontenot. My only suggestion is a minor one. I would do all of the downloads prior to the cleaning out all of the ATI stuff. I'd clean the system as you suggest but have the new stuff there and ready to install.

Great advice! Thanks.

[zeus60]

Thanks for all the advice.
There's only one problem: I followed the steps that RFontenot listed and I still have the same problem. <grin>

However, I have discovered that I *can* play back the files using PowerDVD (presumably, other software DVD players would work as well, but I only tried PowerDVD). Playing the files is good, but I would really like to cut and join clips. I am going to take a look at the DVD rip section and see if I can get some hints on converting the files into something I can edit.

Once again, thanks for your advice and your time.

[RFontenot]

MPEG-2 playback is hardware accelerated when using ATI hardware and software. The drivers for hardware accelerated MPEG-2 playback are in the ATI DVD application, which is why you need the DVD software installed even if you don't have a DVD player. The ATI file player can't playback MPEG-2 files without the drivers.

It sounds like you either have an IRQ conflict, or you haven't enabled an IRQ for the video card. If an IRQ is enaabled, you may need to remove every card in your system and then put one back at a time to see which one is conflicting with the ATI card. Once you've identified the conflicting card, try moving it to another slot.

If all this is beyond your capabilities or desires, then you'll have no choice but to use a software only solution like PowerDVD. In that case, there is no point in keeping the ATI card, because a big feature of the ATI cards is their hardware accelerated MPEG-2 playback.

[zeus60]

I have an ASUS CUSL2-C motherboard, which dedicates an IRQ to the AGP slot. There is no card in the adjacent PCI slot, so I don't think the AGP is sharing an IRQ. However, I looked at the manual for the motherboard, and did not see a way to enable the IRQ. Perhaps I didn't look close enough. I'll check again.

Once again, thanks.

[RFontenot]

One other check you might want to try is to run the system compatibility check. Open Control Panel and click on ATI Multimedia Center. Then click on the "System Compatibility Check" button. It may find your problem.

I've seen postings in other forums where a bad sound card can cause problems with ATI cards.

RF

[zeus60]

I did run the compatibility check. It noted that my DVD drive does not have DMA enabled, and that my sound card might be a little slow, but that was it.

However, I made an interesting discovery. I have three cards in my PC: the ATI AIW Radeon video card, a SB PCI512 card, and a network card. All use the same interrupt, namely IRQ9. I did some checking on Microsoft's web site, and lo and behold, Win2k will always use IRQ9 for peripherals. (You can look at KnowledgeBase article Q252420 if you are interested.)

So now my next step is to see if it works under Win98.

[patrickm]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
However, I made an interesting discovery. I have three cards in my PC: the ATI AIW Radeon video card, a SB PCI512 card, and a network card. All use the same interrupt, namely IRQ9. I did some checking on Microsoft's web site, and lo and behold, Win2k will always use IRQ9 for peripherals. (You can look at KnowledgeBase article Q252420 if you are interested.)
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

but that's only if you install as an "ACPI PC". skip that and you're fine. then go into device manager, list hidden devices, and enable "NT Legacy APM Control" to handle soft-shutdown and such.