ATI Diamond 650 card has no s-video?

[theglenlivet12]

I have received my Diamond 650 PCI card and went to install it, but found that the port on the back of it doesn't seem to accept S-Video. What do I need to do to hook in my S-Video cable? And before you ask, no it did not come with any supplemental cables. The card, the install CD and the manual was all that was in the box.

Card is shown here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...X3VJYNXAIH6MQU

[lordsmurf]

You need to get this: http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53...m/381129130983
It's cheap, only $10.

You bought an incomplete card.

[msgohan]

It originally came with the typical purple breakout box and should also work with the short adapter cable for A/V In (not out!) that can be bought from various places.

diamond_ati_tv_wonder_hd_650_dual_digital_and_analog_tv_tuner_pci__breakout_box_1_lgw.jpg

But this is one of the ATI cards with a known AGC pumping issue.

[theglenlivet12]

So here's where I am at on this:

I emailed the seller and they offered to send me "something that might work" and told me that the input is basically S-Video and I should just break the plastic tab and plug it directly into the card. I told them I'm not interested in breaking things that are working and to just refund my money.

So, I am back to square one now with two cards, both of which have their flaws. I have tried the WinTV 1600 with an audio card handling the sound instead. I thought it worked as I was able to capture about 20 minutes with the audio in sync. Sadly, it didn't stay that way and the audio is again drifting. The other card seems to work okay and is a WinTV 1250, but I have yet to do any videos longer than a few minutes for testing, but I plan to tonight.

My thoughts thus far are that I would like to try the Canopus 110 route, but am a bit hesitant as it would mean another $250 or so. But, at least the audio would be in sync since that seems to be their selling point. I had thought about an ATI USB stick, but am not confident in the throughput of USB and don't want to set up for more misery.

I just want something that works, the audio stays in sync and the picture looks good.

I figured there was no more harm in trying a $5 cable and seeing if my troubles can finally be solved. I'll keep you guys posted.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by theglenlivet12

the seller and they offered to send me "something that might work" and told me that the input is basically S-Video and I should just break the plastic tab and plug it directly into the card.

That person is a moron.

Quote:

My thoughts thus far are that I would like to try the Canopus 110 route, but am a bit hesitant as it would mean another $250 or so. But, at least the audio would be in sync since that seems to be their selling point.

Canopus "audio sync" may be a selling point -- but it's bunk. A Canopus capture can, and often does, have sync issues just like any other capture device. Sync issues are just in the nature of video work, and no single magic product will ever resolve it. Dropped frames are the usual culprit, and that means a TBC. The Canopus boxes DO NOT have timebase correction. There's nothing discernible in there that would act like a real TBC. (Some years ago, I took B&H Photo/Video to task over this BS in public. They made all sorts of asinine claims about the magic of the Canopus box. After I spoke up, and we had a public squabble, they backed off.)

Quote:

I had thought about an ATI USB stick, but am not confident in the throughput of USB

It should be fine. Do the math. Huffyuv is 35-40Gb/hour. Let's say 0.7Gb/minute. Or 0.0116Gb/second. That's 1.6Mbps. USB2 is 480mbps max theoretical, or 60Mbps. In practice, you may get half that. But 30Mbps is still fast enough to grab ~2Mbps Huffyuv. (CPU is also a bottleneck, as all USB communication goes over CPU.)

[theglenlivet12]

I'm not so much worried about TBC since I have TBC in both my VCR deck as well as an external 8710. The CPU I am using is an i7 and shouldn't be a bottleneck. I am, of course, attempting to push the hardware I am finding to the very limit of their release date, that is to say, trying to use older hardware with Windows 8.1. However, I don't think being on XP would even solve my sound issues since it sounds like that is just the way it is.

The plan from here will be to test the WinTV 1250 and see if it also suffers from sound issues. The quality is slightly less than that of the WinTV 1600, but I can easily live with it as it is nearly indiscernible. I can do this while I wait for my adapter that you suggested to come from Ebay by next Wednesday. I'm not holding my breath for any miracles though as it sounds like it doesn't really matter what I am using and the audio issue will persist.

If there is anything in that magic hat of yours, lordsmurf, anything at all to solve this sound issue... I am happy to try it.

[lordsmurf]

Internal and external TBCs are not the same. You need both.

i7 may be fast as multi-core, but not necessarily single-core. Lots of software can still only use one core at a time. So the per-core clock speed is still important.

Hardware is often affected by the OS. It's all in the drivers. I see this all the time. Good hardware works badly (or not at all) on a new OS, and new hardware usually will not work at all with an old OS.

See how the purple dongle works. I'll be here.

[theglenlivet12]

Cable finally came in the mail and I installed the drivers and hooked it up and just got a black screen. That was with the drivers from Diamond. The drivers from ATI don't even show the device at all and it shows a yellow question mark in the device manager. Now, when I try reinstalling the drivers, the application just hangs. I am at my wits end with this project.

Can you point me to the drivers I should try with the Diamond PCI 650 and Windows 8.1?

[lordsmurf]

"Diamond" is just the rebadger/brand of the card. It's still an ATI 650, and no different than a non-Diamond.

I have a feeling this does not work in Windows 8. Almost nothing does. Realize that Microsoft fundamentally change the way that a/v works in each version of Windows. XP was best, then some stuff was removed for Vista. Same for 7, 9 and now 10. The OS keeps getting gutted, and for users of serious/professional video, it's stepping backwards with each release.

The 650 was not even official supported in Win7, though the USB version worked if you forced the Vista drivers.

The older ATI AIW worked with Vista and Win7 as well, but was VERY hit-or-miss, and just not work the hassle. If you sneezed funny, it'd break. If the phase of the moon was wrong, it'd break. That's why an ATI AIW is XP or nothing. The 650 PCI is probably XP/Vista or nothing.

I don't think the Canopus ADVC are even officially supported with Win7 or Win8.

You can always try to use "compatibility modes" on the exe for the ATI software, or even VirtualDub. See if that helps. Try everything from XP SP2 to current.

[theglenlivet12]

On a lark I decided to grab another one that had S-Video on the back of it just to make sure it was my computer and not the video card, plus it was only $30 so I figured why not. Seems it has the same problem so it is probably a driver issue. Most of the time, the driver installation just hangs and it won't install at all. Sometimes it goes through so I don't know what to say about that. I have a working video card, two of them in fact, I just can't get the audio to sync with the video. I have been at this for two months with the same issue and at this point, I don't see any reason why I should not try the Canopus if they are regarded as a solution that doesn't have audio sync issues in nearly every forums but this one. I just want the audio to sync, I will worry about getting the very best quality at a later time.

In the meantime, I have just begun the process of capturing smaller segments of video with the WinTV 1250 such as short 10-15 minute home movies or things that can be segmented to avoid audio sync issues.

[lordsmurf]

Again, Canopus ADVC boxes can have audio sync issues as well. That's just the nature of capturing. Using an ADVC is no guarantee of audio issues being resolved.

Segmenting doesn't really resolve issues. It just makes the delay less worse. But it's still delay, and that's a bad thing. When you edit or merge those files, the audio sync issues will re-emerge. The reason behind audio sync issues is that frames are being dropped -- reported or not.

So, just to confirm:
- You're using a NON-ONBOARD audio card, correct?
- You're using Windows XP, correct?

Something I'd like for you to try is to see if ATI MMC 9.15 works: http://www.videohelp.com/download/mu...15_mmc_enu.exe
Note: I'll attach it to this post later on.
If any MMC works, it will be only 9.15, as that version was special.

[theglenlivet12]

I have used both audio through the capture device and audio through an external card and the result is the same. I do not have access to Windows XP, this has to be done on Windows 8.1.

I can try those drivers and I'll report back to you on how it went since I am just grabbing the latest drivers from Diamond's website. I had also tried ATI's website and the result was the same.

[lordsmurf]

You're probably never going to find anything that works in Windows 8. That's just the wrong tool for video work.

ATI MMC is only for Windows XP, and it's capture software (not drivers).