Older ATI All in Wonder 9600 AGP card and Windows 7 MC?
 

I have an older machine with a 2.6ghz processor, 1gb of RAM, and an AGP graphics slot that I was thinking I would turn into a Media Center PC. I have done some research, and was informed that the older ATI All in Wonder cards did a better than decent job of capturing video from old Home video camera's via S-video, and converting these to digital video. As I have a number of these old home videos, and am not in a position to pay out large sums to get them all converted, I am thinking of pursuing this as an option.

In addition, I want the pc to function as a media center pc, hopefully with Windows 7 as opposed to older XP mc.. I have a copy of Windows 7 already, but would have to purchase XP MC, which I would rather not do.. I have used media center, and done considerable reading, but I have not found any threads out there regarding these older cards and Windows 7, that would suggest whether they work with Aero, etc.. I am less concerned about Aero, and more concerned about the card itself working.. According to ATI's web site:
' AMD has moved a number of DX9 ATI Radeon™ graphics accelerators products to a legacy driver support structure.'

Again, I do not know if this means it will work or not, but I was hoping someone here could offer some insight..

Hmmm. Found this in the fine print, and it seems it may answer my question.. Any idea if there is a way of making this work though? I work with computers for a living, so I am good with IT stuff, hacking etc.. however, I am still fairly new to the video technology. I myself have not owned a tv in about 10 years. 100% pc.. Here is what is listed in the current ATI driver release notes for these cards..

Note: ATI All-in-Wonder™ boards operate with AMD’s Windows
Vista ready display and capture drivers under the Windows Vista
operating system. However, the Windows Vista Media Center
application does not support TV/Capture functionality provided by
the ATI All-in-Wonder™. TV/Capture functionality is qualified to
function with Snapstream’s BeyondTV 4.6 for Windows Vista. Other
third party solutions (such as Arcsoft’s Total Media 3) may support
TV/Capture with the ATI All-in-Wonder™, but these applications
have not been fully tested by AMD

Man, I tell you, I am confused on this subject.. If anyone who is very good with this stuff, would be willing to accept pay for a 20 minute phone convo, I would appreciate it.. I am hoping to get this whole thing figured out by Christmas, as the intention is to re-design my folks Media setup..

I'm looking into it.

Thanks... let me know. I am serious about the conversation. Would be good to get some info from someone who is in the know on this subject..

ATI drivers, especially the classic pre-AMD ones are honestly a gigantic pain in the butt as-is --- much less hacking them to work. Hacking ATI hardware to work with unsupported software/OS was possible, but only in a few narrow circumstances. I don't think you'll find a way around this. At very least, I won't know of any method for it.

If your parents are having a hard time with their current home theatre setup, I'm wondering if adding a HTPC to the mix will make it easier or more confusing. Older folks are especially scared of tech sometimes, so I'm not sure this will actually be a solution for you. I've seen this scenario many times -- it never ends well.

From my experience, removing gear is the only way to make such a situation better. No fancy audio setup (use TV speakers), no computers, just basic cable/satellite/antenna, plus basic DVD player. Leave all the recording out of it, worry about playing/watching only. If they need recording, get a TiVo, it's easy.

Honestly, if somebody can't figure out how to set up their own video recording setup (referring to your parents here), then they're not going to be able to figure out how to use it either. Again, I've seen this scenario many times -- it never ends well.

Most I can do here is wish you luck on this.