Wanted: ATI AIW PCI card and Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS PCI card

[sanlyn]

The 7500 Radeon and all the other analog AIW's required an input dongle whose output cable fit into the 8-pin connector. The other end of the dongle had inputs for composite, s-video, and audio. I believe most of the cables had not only the 8-pin plug but also an audio output wire that connected to the sound card's line input. The dongles for each incarnation of the AIW line was slightly different (e.g., you can't use a 7500 dongle with a 9600XT). There were a number of AIW knock-offs from nVidia and other brands that used similar devices, and even some fairly recent USB sticks that require a custom i/o device of some sort.

People would buy PC's with built-in AIW's and never use the attachments, which they lost or discarded (many didn't know what an AIW was for). Many bought the card itself but just hooked up a TV RF cable and never used the dongle. The dongles by themselves often show up at auction sites.

There is an old internet review of the 7500 AIW AGP card at http://hothardware.com/Reviews/ATI-A...Review/#!VNYfe. Scroll down toward the bottom of that first web page for some images of all the stuff that came with a 7500.

There's also a .pdf installation manual for several AIW models that show how the dongles connect (start on page 21, 22 and farther for images in the PDF). http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...68445247,d.cWc

I'm surprised to find that someone's selling "new", in-box 7500 VE's here:
http://www.amazon.com/ATI-Technologi.../dp/B00007JO6L
I don't know anything about the seller, but Amazon likely makes them guarantee the product to some extent.

[volksjager]

ill give you my trick:
take a normal s-video cable and with a little screw driver break off the little plastic tab on one side
it will now plug right in and the pin-outs are correct for s-video.
for audio just run you audio from your vcr into the line-in on the soundblaster card
i have a y-cable i got from i-simple that has phono-jack on one side and red/white RCA's on the other

[TheBang]

You can find the input dongle pretty cheaply on eBay. Here's one for $5 shipped:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/121348970838

[volksjager]

that works too
my way just eliminates the extra spaghetti mess of cabling.
it works fine if you dont need the composite

[vhsdigital34]

Thanks everyone!!

Wish I had checked back here before I went out and figured out for 7500 radeon, it's model number 6140004600 and purchased it. Looks like it's a non standard 8 pin mini din (the middle pin is a bit off from the usual spot). Would've attempted volksjager's method. But still much obliged to everyone.

Hi Volksjager,

For the AIW 7500 and turtle beach sound card set up, do I have to connect both cards from line out on sound card to line in on the adapter to the 8 pin video in port or does virtualdub recognize sound input from sound card and incoming video from video card simultaneously? Is there potential for audio/video sync issues? Feel like every time I think I have everything there's always something else I need to go get. Thanks a lot! I appreciate all the help!

[sanlyn]

The dongle's 8-pin connector has a thin wire coming out of it with a standard Sony 1/8" stereo audio plug at the end. Plug that into the Line in jack of your sound card. Tell your capture software (VirtualDub?) that the audio source is your sound card's Line In.

[volksjager]

AIW cards just pass audio along to the sound card anyway
you dont have to plug audio to the AIW card at all -
i just run my y cable directly from my vcr to the line in on the sound card
ive tried this with 7500, 9000pro 9200 and 9700 and all worked fine that way

[vhsdigital34]

Thanks everyone!

[volksjager]

this is how i have mine wired:



y-cable:

[vhsdigital34]

Thanks Volksjager!!

Looks similar to my set up (just the 8pin adapter cable). Just did a short test run to see if everything looks ok. Somehow I'm only getting black and white images in the picture. Using huffyuv and PCM. Any possibilities? Potentially a faulty video card?

[volksjager]

are you getting color with MMC? if not than it is either the card or the cabling
make sure you dont have any bent-over pins on you s-video or the 8 pin breakout cable

[vhsdigital34]

What is MMC? I've played it straight to the tv so I don't think it's the cable. I was hoping it was some sort of setting issue

[lordsmurf]

ATI MMC = ATI Multimedia Center = the software that came with ATI AIW Radeon class cards for watching TV, playback of video files, and capturing both AVI and MPEG.

Note that AVI capturing is more stable with VirtualDub.

ATI MMC takes full advantage of the hybird software/hardware of the ATI card as well, for the MPEG capturing. It's the only software that works with it.

[vhsdigital34]

I may have screwed the pooch on this one. I stumbled on the below link (wish I did before I got the card).

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...der-hacks.html

Problem now is, I just thought I had to install the video card drivers and I'd be set. So I've found a file called "6-11-pre-r300_xp-2k_dd_ccc_wdm_38185.exe". I've read on the link once you install one part it's hard to start again from scratch. How do I get on track to install the ve 7500 properly? Would this be potentially why I'm only seeing black and white?

[volksjager]

for a clean new install:
unistall ALL ATI software
restart
run CCleaner registry cleaner several times until it finds nothing
restart
install new ATI software

[vhsdigital34]

I've always wondered about this. If there are no drivers for the video card, how does it display the desktop? If i uninstall every ATI software, would it still boot up with a screen?

[volksjager]

it will display with basic standard vga driver - you will get video
dont auto install when windows prompts you - hit cancel
install ati drivers manually from the CD

[vhsdigital34]

It also tried to install "catalyst" in the end but mentioned my computer didn't have something 2.0 installed. So I canceled out of that

[vhsdigital34]

I have my computer hooked up to my TV. Seems to go blank after the windows loading screen whenever it goes back to default. Do I have to enable my integrated video card in the meantime?

[volksjager]

not sure on that one - i never use boards with onboard video

you should install cataylst - install what you need to make it work