ATI Dongles - Purple and Otherwise

[Joekster]

Have a recently-acquired ATI AIW 128 Pro card which came with a dongle that adapts
..a funny ATI connector
to
..RCA female Composite
..S-Video female, and
..TRS audio male stereo

Before the card got here, not knowing it would have its own, I purchased a Purple Dongle (label on sealed bag: ATI:6140004600) from another source.

The Purple Dongle adapts
..a funny ATI connector
to a purple block of plastic that contains
..RCA female Composite
..S-Video female, and
..RCA female L&R channels (2)

"That looks neat," I thought, and tried to replace the other dongle. No easy fit.

My poor old eyes and brain go back and forth on whether the part of the dongles that plug into ATI are identical. Looks like there COULD be a keying bump inside the metal shell.

Before I try any more experiments (which might include both force and swearing) I was wondering if anybody knows for certain if all Dongles are interchangable?

Joe

[NJRoadfan]

STOP! Before you break something, those purple boxes are meant for the later Radeon boards. Sounds like your card uses the classic breakout cables like my original All-in-Wonder has. These guys should have what you need.

Input cable (Note: use of audio jacks requires internal pass through to soundcard): http://www.svideo.com/4head.html

Output cable: http://www.svideo.com/3headavoutad.html

[Joekster]

<-- I need a bigger smiley face than this.

That was it! I had the innie connected to the outie.

Seriously, this connector http://www.svideo.com/3headavoutad.html was indeed the one connected to the card.

This cable http://www.svideo.com/aticable1.html is the purple dongle I had purchased. It is similar in concept to the link you sent.

And yes, fortunately, the connectors on the ATI card ARE keyed, so I was unable to connect them wrong.

As I type, the card is capturing via VDub.

I had several hours into this issue, and you cleared me up.

MANY thanks!

Joe

[kpmedia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NJRoadfan

those purple boxes are meant for the later Radeon boards. Sounds like your card uses the classic breakout cables like my original All-in-Wonder has.

Although it's already been sorted, for the sake of clarification (record of fact), the 128 Pro cards are the design that all of the latter Radeon AGP and PCI-E class AIW cards (and that one PCI edition) were based on. The purple cable/dongle (breakout box) is the correct one.

Do note, however, that the input bundle on the 128 Pro is that of the pre-Radeon cards. The 7200 AIW and later cards all used a newer input shape. The 128 Pro is the "missing link' between old 1990s style ATI and the new 2000s style ATI cards (circa 2001-2006), as it shared a few minor similarities with older cards.

Another common issue is that pins can sometimes be angled, no different than electric power cords. In that case, the wire may be damaged (full broken at base), or it may simply be in need of a budge back into the proper position (only bent at base). Same for s-video cables, or anything else with thin wires that connect to something else.

Glad to hear this is capturing, and has found a new home.

Just what I wanted to hear.

[Joekster]

"...Another common issue is that pins can sometimes be angled..."

Yep, understood. I worked for close to a decade at a school full of people whose solution to problems with S-Video connectors being hard to install was to push harder and harder. That is, until it was time to call me to replace the cable.

Somehow I got it in my head that the card was 128 Pro. Maybe because the link for "Hacking ATI MMC 8.7 to work on 128PRO" had 128Pro in its name. DLing the 7500 CD image now. Having an issue with A/V sync. No, audio lags behind video. By an unchanging amount, not simply missing frames/clock cycles over time. Only ruined one capture, we'll get that part sorted out, too.

Joe

[kpmedia]

Your card is a 128 Pro -- look at the white markings stamped onto it.

From a hardware point of view, the 128 Pro was the model for later cards. However, in terms of software (referring specifically to the drivers), it was abandoned as part of the pre-Radeon era. Therefore it only officially runs ATI MMC 7.7, max. However, again, the hardware is the same, so with some "hacking" (trickery and workarounds, as documented on this site), you can make it work with ATI MMC 8.x, the same as the 7500-8500 cards. It could probably even be made to work with ATI MMC 9.x, but there's really not much reason for that -- 8.x works better for many of the older cards, and has the most features (VideoSoap, specifically).

Based on the PM, I'm not sure if you had gotten ATI MMC 8.x installed yet or not.

It sounds like you can capture with VirtualDub, which is good! That's some success right there.

If there are dropped frames or audio sync issues, refer to the guide: Fixing Dropped Frames & Audio Sync Errors
Using that system, it may be something as easy as not having the right 80-pin cable on the IDE hard drive. (Don't use 40-pin.)

[metaleonid]

I have just allocated this ATI AiW 7500 PCI card:
http://www.amazon.com/102A0290100-AT...words=ati+7500

And there's a used version of it for just $20 but without cables. I was wondering if this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-AIW-ATI-...item58bd1103e7
is a matching input dongle cable. Please let me know.

[metaleonid]

I have just allocated this ATI AiW 7500 PCI card:
http://www.amazon.com/102A0290100-AT...words=ati+7500

And there's a used version of it for just $20 but without cables. I was wondering if this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-AIW-ATI-...item58bd1103e7
is a matching input dongle cable. Please let me know.