Question on Ati Tv Wonder Card

[maulwurf]

I have read some posts saying that the tv wonder card can capture mpeg2. Is this true or do these people mean that they are capturing in mpeg1.

[NervousElk]

No they do capture as mpeg 2 (well ati radeon does) as i have one. Problem is the format it saves as doesnt seem to be compatable with much and you have to convert to get it to work. Iam still trying to sort all the problems out.

[maulwurf]

Thanks for the response. So you are saying that the ati tv wonder card will do mpeg2 or that your all in wonder radeon card will. Because i have the tv wonder card not an all in wonder radeon video card. And I can't switch to mpeg2 in the settings. Would I need the latest mmc to do this?

Another question for you. How well does the digital vcr program work with the all in wonder radeon? I am trying to decide which card to get for my new athlon 1.4ghz. I am wondering if I should buy a geforce 2 and use the ati tv wonder. Or if I should get the all in wonder radeon.

Thanks

[Warren2B9]

I have both ATI TV wonder purchase 6 mos ago and ATI RADEON AIW purchased last month when I upgraded to 1Ghz Athlon.
Here's what I know for what it is worth:

1. You can not upgrade MMC of TV wonder. Does not capture MPEG2. AVI captures are limited in time because of 2 GB limit. You can make decent short VCD clips with AVI captures and tsunami encoder. Direct capture to MPEG1 results in poor quality VCD clips.

2. Digital VCR features are the same for both TV wonder and AIW. Works the same except more options to capture for AIW. With 1 GHZ I can not capture MPEG2 DVD size, but can capture next size down. 1.4 GHZ should be able to capture full DVD. Generally buggy software means about 50 percent of time does not work. If computer is in sleep mode will not wake up to make recording either. I bought a ReplayTV device two weeks ago - IT WORKS EVERY TIME.

3. Software shipped with AIW doesn't work well. You have to down load latest drivers from ATI - follow RFonots (sp) directions (link on vcdhelp home) exactly to make the board work.

4. TV wonder is great for just watching TV on your computer. It is a toy and fun for what it does, but not much use beyond that, and there are cheaper toys that do the same thing.

5. AIW is also a pretty good graphics card, but price is fairly high for what you get. At least AIW will work with third party capture software - TV tuner will not. I am still working on which capture software to use. AIW software is inadequate.

I think video capturing and editing using these consumer priced devices is just not there yet - however it is an amusing time consuming hobby.

[Beavis]

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On 2001-08-17 07:40:13, maulwurf wrote:
I have read some posts saying that the tv wonder card can capture mpeg2. Is this true or do these people mean that they are capturing in mpeg1.
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Any TV card can capture mpeg if it's software based and you have a fast computer. What you're probably asking is whether or not it's hardware-based and the answer for the TV wonder is no.

ATI's TV wonder type software and drivers are notoriously bad. If it works on your system, great, but don't hold your breath if it doesn't. The Hauppage (WinTV) software is much better. You can actually get really nice looking captures with these types of cards, though it's probably best to capture in AVI and convert using TMPGenc.

[maulwurf]

Thanks for the input guys. Do you happen to know much about the wintv pvr? Is it gonna be pretty much like the all in wonder or does the vcr software work well?

I really would like to get good quality captures as well as reliable software. Are there any other options besides those two? (With the vcr type recording?)

Or should I just stick to avi captures and converting to mpgs?

One more thing. Do you take the hard drive out of the replay tv and hook it up to your computer? And could you tell me where you can purchase one? Preferably a brick and mortar store, not an online store.

Thanks again guys

[Warren2B9]

>>Thanks for the input guys. Do you happen to know much >>about the wintv pvr?
I don't, except I am pretty sure it is not a graphics card. So should be priced like a TV card.

>>I really would like to get good quality captures as well >>as reliable software.
So do we all!

>>Are there any other options besides those two? (With the >>vcr type recording?)
None that are reliable that I know of.

>>Or should I just stick to avi captures and converting to >>mpgs?
S-VHS tape -> AVI -> mpg would probably be most reliable way for time shift archiving to CD-R VCD or SVCD. I plan to use the ReplayTV instead of VCR.

>>One more thing. Do you take the hard drive out of the >>replay tv and hook it up to your computer? And could you >>tell me where you can purchase one? Preferably a brick >>and mortar store, not an online store.
Not yet, but I have heard it is possible. You can also upgrade hard drive to increase time. You can also upgrade TIVO units, but not read disks with another machine. I bought mine at The Good Guys two weeks ago. Works great!

>>Thanks again guys

Good luck.

[Zak0]

Thought I'd poke my head in here to comment...

I've got an Athlon 800 with an ATI TV Wonder PCI. I've used it with both Windows 2000 and WinXP (Beta 2, RC1, and now RC2) with both the beta and the final released drivers and the latest MMC.

First off, I don't use MMC for ANYTHING.

VirtualDub has worked great for capturing video to AVI and I can then encode to VCD format MPEG-1 using TmpgEnc. I use another 3rd-party tool for watching live television (It's called DScaler - do a search for it on SourceForge). I'm very happy with this card - the price is right and it is capable of everything I wanted (making VCD-standard MPEGs and watching live television).

If you need something that can capture directly to MPEG or you want higher resolution, or you want MPEG-2 in the end - this card isn't for you. But, if you're looking for a cheap card that lets you capture some video and watch live television on your PC - this one works.

-Zak

[Warren2B9]

I could never get ATI TV Wonder to work with a third party capture software. I tried VirtualDub, ULEAD, MGI Videowave.

Did you do any kind of special setup to get VirtualDub to work?

[zed]

I have the old ati isa tv card - does this do mpeg?? - it is a spare card at the mo ..

[KingJohn]

Hi

Well since I'm out of IRQ's it seam like a good idea to get rid of my "ATI xpert @ work" and "Hauppauge WinTV" . However I have recorded some great movies from the WinTV card, and since the codecs are on my system I can capture to Divx or the new Mpeg4. However I don't seam to be able to capture to mp3 audio, I guess its because the card is mono... But mono is just fine anyway.

The ATI all in wonder radion in the UK is £230 ($368) and from what I am hearing around the net, its simply not worth the money, especially if you are buying it for better recordings. It may be a great TV card and good for 3dfx games, but it seams to be terrible for video recordings unless you have a P4 2G then you will need a fast hard drive with 50Gb space...

So I'm sticking to this Hauppauge WinTV, cheap and cheerful but works well.

P.S. I also got an old ISA ATI TV card, it captures with the codec you have installed. The ATI codecs are not compatible with anything, as I found out when I changed to this new PCI card, I could no longer play the ATI AVI movies I made, had to contact ATI who sent me a link to download the ATI codecs. So I have now converted them all to Divx

god these forum links mess up sometimes
xpert@work = xpert @ work


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: letmeinforgodsake on 2001-08-21 16:02:39 ]</font>