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On second thought I guess I won't be going down the way of the 650, I was interested in it because it was released at the same time as the TV Wonder 200 PCI so they shared the same CDROM. But later I found the 200 PCI uses the Connexant chipset based on an old bt878 design. Apparently at that time ATI was offering premium AIW cards and seeking to offer a lower cost "entry" level which did not use the Theater 200. (Unlike) the AIW Radeon VE, in the 200 PCI they did not source an older cheaper version of their video chip and partner that with a Theater 200 chip and went outside the company.
The difference being Theater chips all use 12 bit Analog to Digital converters and everything Hauppauge or Brooktree or IvTV (Connexant) used 10 bit Analog to Digital conversion.
I guess somewhere someone figured 10 bit was enough and 12 bit was overkill, it would be cheaper to manufacturer, but I know in signal processing.. as long as it doesn't mean extra noise.. it will mean extra detail. Maybe its like squeezing blood from a stone.. with broadcast quality video signals from S-VHS or worse.. but the cards are kinda cheap these days.. even new old stock.
I have a number of machines.
I started planning on only acquiring one "perfect" All in Wonder card and putting together one capture system.
But the cards were so cheap and still in shrink wrap.. so I tried to marry good card with appropriate system.
1. Intel D915GEV motherboard, running XP, ATI All In Wonder VE (7500) PCI conventional (Theater 200)
2. Wistron (HP ML110) motherboard, running Windows 7 x32, ATI TV Wonder Elite PCI conventional (Theater 550)
3. Asus motherboard, running Windows 7 x64, Diamond ATI 750 PCIe (Theater 750)
4. Mac Mini using a Startech SVID2USB23 (eMPIA EM2861)
The Startech was an old S-Video to USB converter dongle I had laying around, but the documentation on the chipset was easy to find and the driver support for Windows and Mac excellent, including TWAIN still capture drivers. The Mac program was an actual digitizer for OSX and very native.
I still have a keen interest in the ATI USB 2.0 tuner, because I think that might document the setup and functioning of any Theater 200 chip, even one for the PCI bus.. but its possibly a pipe dream. The first one I acquired ran very hot and really made me think it was damaged. I've a second one I'm looking forward to testing, in better condition.. perhaps it will work out.
I've read here on this forum that the 650 had a very high failure rate, and read elsewhere that shortly after launching them ATI recalled (all) of the ATI 650 cards from all of the stores in the US. Their reported failure rate was between 30% and 50% and several people speculated there was a fundamental design flaw.. at least with the tuner.. and possibly with the AGC control.
The ATI 750 came in two version the PCIe and the PEX, the PCIe accepted S-Video, the PEX accepted S-Video and Three component video. -- I've always tended to err on the side of (don't need it, less to break if less complex)
Since I only have an ag5710 (S-Video) vcr and component video is more in the realm of laserdisc (which I do not have) the Diamond ATI 750 PCIe looked more attractive.
As attractive as DV seemed sometimes, especially in the Microsoft documentation for video capture.. I learned the hardware stability was terrible and the signal handling highly restricted to late 1990's "ideas" of good enough, constrained by the speed of computers back "then".. so I stayed far away from the AIW 8500DV or any DV equipment. The workflows were especially attractive to a computer guy, since everything seemed like you could automate it.. but the tradeoff was terrible video quality when compared to what was actually possible with raw analog video.
Last edited by jwillis84; 09-15-2017 at 09:58 AM.
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