Real-Time MPEG Capture and ATI TVWonder VE

[Nobi]

I have an ATI TV Wonder VE using VirtualDub and the universal drivers (forget the name at this time) because MMC and their drivers decided to break suddenly.

I don't have much issue with capturing to AVI (DivX5), but I would like to have the advantage of having it in VCD format without the need of converting it via TMPGEnc.

I'm assuming that my TV Wonder has the capability of real-time MPEG capturing (since that's what MMC) did; however, am I able to do this with non-ATI drivers/software?

Thanks for any information.

[easydvd]

The card has nothing to do with it in this case. TV Wonder is just an RF input adapter for a PCI slot.

Realtime hardware mpeg encoding you would need something like the products from Canopus.

Realtime software mpeg encoding is a tough one......lots of stuff that will do it the same as ATI MMC, but you're never going to get good results.....well, what I consider good results.

PowerVCR and winDVR will both do what you want......kinda pricey though

[Nelson37]

ATI cards, when using MMC, have some minor hardware assistance to software encoding which is not enabled with other software, SFAIK.

However, real-time VCD capture looks like crap. On a fast system, real-time SVCD sometimes yields decent results, but seems to vary based on factors as yet unknown to me. Cranking the bitrate above standards helps this problem, but you sacrifice filesize unless you re-encode.

[Maffoul]

I have the ati tvwonder with mmc ver 7.1 if you are running this version you can open the setup mode by clicking on the checkmark and then go to the "Digital VCR" tab and click the set custom button. Here you can select from preset list of quality settings and file types...or you can select "create New" and you can define your custom capture settings.....Hope this helps I just got my card about two weeks ago, still learning!

Max

[Bradskey]

PowerVCR and WinDVR both do excellent MPEG2 capture on an ATI TV Wonder on a sufficiently powered system (1GHz+ and plenty of RAM). However, if you try to cap directly to SVCD or VCD format then yes, the quality will suffer. Cap to high bitrate (5000-6000+ Kbps) and then reencode to your standard of choice. Not exactly what you asked for, but it gets the best results short of raw AVI capture and encoding.

[davy19]

Once I got past all the install issues of the Hauppuage Win PVR 250, it does VCD/SVCD/CVD great, depeneding upon the source.

For VHS tapes I use CVD, for Direct cable I Can get away with VCD, and it still look very good.