Best capture software for ATI-TV Wonder?

[pwb007]

I recently purchased an ATI-TV Wonder PCI card to capture VHS home movies to SVCD. The card does MPEG-2 "conversion" but ATI software supplied MMC v7.1, only captures at 640x240 "by design" according the ATI web site and according to what I read, SVCD is at least 480 x 480. I'm trying to locate the best software to use to capture directly to svcd before burning with Nero. I'm very new at this and have done lots of reading and downloading (VirtualDub, PowerDirector, etc) but have not hit on the right combination yet (took over 9+ hrs to convert using TMPEGenc). Any help and advice would be appreciated.

[MOVIEGEEK]

You can't capture over ???x240 due to the chipset.Best bet is to
return Wonder and get Radeon All-In-Wonder,Radeon chipsets allow up to 720x480(NTSC).MMC7.7 has SVCD(48khz audio)setting,but again only
for Radeon chipsets.
http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html

[garbman1]

I have ATI AIW and am able to capture with good quality at vcd, svcd,and dvd res. Look in the tools section for a fix for the res problem. You may need to upgrade to MMC7.5. ATI does not support this version, but if you look around you can find it on the net. I find that captures done with ATI AIW are a little grainy, but since they are done in real time I use it much more than TMPGE. Also if you capture through analog ATI connections I think I read some where that the true res is limited by that connection. Your res can also be limited by your source video like VHS. Because of those limits and to fit more on a CD I often use 352 x 240. (If I am capturing VHS that is all I am getting anyway.) If I must have best quality I still capture, and edit DV video as avi using firewire and use TMPGE to convert(encode). With my settings it takes more than 12 hours per CD with TMPGE.

[tomreedtoon]

You might get better results with this post from modeler_us:

http://forum.vcdhelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=88306&highlight=

I had used his suggestions and made fair video captures in Win 98 SE. (Hint; WinVCR can be had on eBay for very reasonable prices.) Unfortunately, while the encoded MPEG2 stream works, editing is problematic; you can't do frame-accurate edits on it, no matter what you use.

I am reluctantly installing Evil Empire #3's Windows XP Pro on my machine, wiping out everything I ever did, in hopes of finding a better solution with AVI captures. I think the solution might involve getting rid of ATI's drivers for the TV Wonder, and using the ones on Sourceforge.Net...

http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/

It is claimed that these drivers will allow the TV Wonder to capture in 480x480, even 720x480 for DVD recording. Just like you, I am unwilling to abandon something bought with my hard-earned money, even if the manufacturers don't do a good job with their software. If this fails, of course, I may have no choice.

[mopar7]

I have the ATI 128 pro, agp, I like it. I use the tools from this site, capture at 141kbps and burn, no conversions needed. I have done an svcd, however, my slow computer loses 1% to 2 and then the video and audio no longer sync.

[aykh]

I have an ATI-TV Wonder PCI card too & I have a fast system (P4 2.26 & 512 DDR333 ram, XP Prof.)
I capture TV programs with DScaler 3.1.2. Although this program is still in developing stage which has audio problem & the max. vertical resolution can only be 240 (i.e 754x240, 640x240,...) but the image quality is the best I've seen so far.
I capture TV using Divx pro 5.02 (MPEG4 format) in 724x240 res. Believe me the recorded file look almost "AS GOOD AS" the original!!!
However, it's a little tricky to get the audio to work but I finally figured it out myself.
hope it help!

[Amish Electrician]

I cant seem to get a good captuer with power vcr any mp2 captuer i do seems chopy when i play it back on the computer the picture looks great but the motion is chopy jurky
Iv got a p3 933 with 512meg ram using an ati all in wonder 128 & im capn to a second hard drive both my drives are ata100. I have a dvd burner so im hopen to put my projects on there so size not the issue

[Banko]

I just use VirtualDub in XP Pro with Soundforge Drivers, and the Pic MJPEG Codec set at 18! Then I use Premiere to edit it. Then I encode with TMPEGenc

[Brandogg]

DO NOT use those drivers! I tried to and they totally f*cked up everything. It was a pain in the ass to get the old drivers back too, and now it takes at least 1-2 mins to load PowerVCR with my ATI TV Wonder. I use the default drivers and can capture at pretty much any resolution, just don't use the program that comes on the CD, download only the drivers off ATI's site, and use PowerVCR. You can edit the registry to give pretty much any resolution you want.

[tomreedtoon]

Amish Electrician...you said:

I cant seem to get a good captuer with power vcr any mp2 captuer i do seems chopy when i play it back on the computer the picture looks great but the motion is chopy jurky

That's the nature of the beast. And wait until you try to edit mpeg2 files! I'm resigned to the disgusting fact that the only way to capture and edit is in AVI, on a huge hard drive. Then, I'll convert to mpeg2 to burn to SVCD - and pray that the "double secret conversion" or whatever they call it will give less pixellated results than the one-pass from WINvcr.

As for the frightening warning from Brandogg...

DO NOT use those drivers! I tried to and they totally f*cked up everything. It was a pain in the ass to get the old drivers back too, and now it takes at least 1-2 mins to load PowerVCR with my ATI TV Wonder. I use the default drivers and can capture at pretty much any resolution, just don't use the program that comes on the CD, download only the drivers off ATI's site, and use PowerVCR. You can edit the registry to give pretty much any resolution you want.

I captured several shows using this scheme. I discovered,when I loaded the files into another program to edit, that this scheme (which moderer_us recommended) does NOT capture in the 480 x 480 resolution you need for SVCD. The file is identified as 480x240. Other people say the problem is those ATI drivers, and that the "other guy's" drivers are the only solution. Can anybody corroborate what Brandogg says, that the Sourceforge drivers don't work right?

(Remember, Brandogg, that we're all working with Windows, the most popular and lousiest operating system this side of the ZX-80. That's the reason this digital video stuff is so hard; we have to fight Bill Gates all the way to the finished product.)

[rsuave5]

i just got ati tv wonder and im working out the bugs. im hoping to capture my video to avi and burn to dvd my old bootleg concert seem to play ok and all i will capture tomorrow . i like the tv player and digital recorder but im looking for specifics on configuring this system for best possible capture
ive got a nice setup sony vaio winxp pent 4 1.8 512 ram 80 gigs im not so familiar with drivers but i did dload the win xp and all seems well anyone with the patience to give me a little tutorial email my adress and sys specs are in my profile if not these posts really help thanx. although the lingo is a little foreign stil

[MOVIEGEEK]

i just got ati tv wonder and im working out the bugs. im hoping to capture my video to avi and burn to dvd my old bootleg concert seem to play ok and all i will capture tomorrow . i like the tv player and digital recorder but im looking for specifics on configuring this system for best possible capture
ive got a nice setup sony vaio winxp pent 4 1.8 512 ram 80 gigs im not so familiar with drivers but i did dload the win xp and all seems well anyone with the patience to give me a little tutorial email my adress and sys specs are in my profile if not these posts really help thanx. although the lingo is a little foreign stil

This is a good guide:http://www.vcdhelp.com/ATI_AIW_Guide.htm

[tomreedtoon]

DO NOT use those drivers! I tried to and they totally f*cked up everything. It was a pain in the ass to get the old drivers back too, and now it takes at least 1-2 mins to load PowerVCR with my ATI TV Wonder. I use the default drivers and can capture at pretty much any resolution, just don't use the program that comes on the CD, download only the drivers off ATI's site, and use PowerVCR. You can edit the registry to give pretty much any resolution you want.

Brandogg, I don't know what you did, but I had no problems running the Sourceforge drivers on a machine with Windows XP. After, by the way, installing the latest ATI drivers and MMC. You CANNOT capture in the 480 x 480 resolution needed for SVCD's with their drivers. You can with the "BTWINTV" drivers (right name?) on Sourceforge.

You will lose the capability of using that lousy MMC software, and you'll probably have to capture in AVI and convert, meaning lots of hard drive space and extra time for conversion. But the video quality of the capture is superb. Better than anything MMC ever produced (and easier to edit than what WinVCR did, too).

[nicepants]

Does powerVCR yield better capture quality than MMC? What I've been trying to do is capture everything to a 720x480, 15mb/sec, 100 Motion Search Precision file.

Then I use that file in TMPGenc to encode SVCD compliant streams with. The quality seems "pretty good". I'd hate to spend the money for this program only to have the same results.

Also....I was wondering what people have found to be the best settings for MPEG capture with MMC 7.7

Use Inverse 3:2 Pulldown?
Deinterlacing?
Visual Masking?

[easydvd]

I also have an ATI card. Mine is TV Wonder VE which I think is great for the price.........under $50. I tried the ATI MMC stuff with drivers from sourceforge and never could get it to work right. I've been having very good results at low res, 320x240, with iuVCR and at higher resolutions I've been having good results with Virtual Dub. I usually try to capture with either Huffy or Picvideo MJPEG at 19 , but occasionally I use M$ mpeg4v2 or v3 at 6mbs video and have EXCELLENT results converting to VCD with that.
Overall, I'd say that the ATI software is junk. At the very least, there are better products available that are either freeware or shareware.