Sometimes the software history is just as interesting as the hardware history.

Bottom line:

Sonic made MyDVD, which was a low end DVD mastering tool at the turn of the century.

Roxio (Tivo Rovi fame) bought MyDVD and buried it in their later Creator Suite.

Before MyDVD got "re-imagined" it had to compete with Windows Media Center Edition 2005 and developed a Huge library of knowledge on how to properly capture video from many different back planes and video capture devices.. much more than Intervideo.. and standardized on 720x480 6 Mbps or 8 Mbps depending on the backplane (PCI, PCIe, USB et al)

It peaked around 2009/2010 while no one was looking.

So far its been found to be useful and compatible with:

Angle II PCI
Angel II USB 2.0
Avermedia M788 PCIe
Avermedia M780 PCIe
ATI 600 USB 2.0
ATI 650 USB 2.0
ATI 750 USB 2.0
Pinnacle Moviebox 500 USB 2.0
Pinnacle Moviebox 700 USB 2.0
Pinnacle Moviebox 510 USB 2.0
Pinnacle Moviebox 710 USB 2.0
Tevion USB 2861 USB 2.0 Item # 8738
Tevion USB 2863 USB 2.0 Item # 5527

.. basically (everything) I could beg borrow or plead to try it with.. its been a solid win

The marketing of the time billed it as a DVD burning tool.. but to do that it had to "Import media".. under that moniker (or term) it offers a (very hard to find) menu option [ Capture/Import ]

The manuals did (not) explain what Capture was, and made no mention of its features.. its quite the hidden gem.

Rather their Marketing was targeting Mix Tapes in DVD format.. that is they expected people to Import Camcorder video or Rip DVDs which contained unprotected content and Re-Master them as new DVD Mix Media.

At this same time in history things were moving from 32 bit to 64 bit device drivers and applications.. since this company was struggling their developers went over board and released a version that supported both 32 and 64 bit platforms.. just before they were acquired and further development went 64 bit only.

So I fully intend go backwards to XP SP2 and try out the AGP capture card and USB 2.0 support.

I have not tried the latest post Roxio and post Corel editions for 64 bit only.. but wonder if they retained at least the robust 64 bit MPEG2 capture support. Mostly MPEG2 was dropped or lost when later DiVX and Game Capture card support was preferred. Until the MPEG2 patent ran out they would have had to build in the cost of the license and that would have probably been seen as unnecessary in a competitive environment.

I enjoy fiddling with all the options that VirtualDub gives me in YUV, but MyDVD dumbs it down substantially and "autoseeks" the card or device with a valid incoming signal.. which was shocking to me when I realized I had not uninstalled all the device drivers for so many other cards and USB devices still attached to my system.

It seems to methodically instantiate them one at a time, probe them, and come to rest on the card or device with a currently valid signal.. without crashing.. (as I said "shocking").

I tried this with many other programs an applications like Monsoon, Pinnacle, Avid, VirtualDub with MPEG support, and many other tools of repute.. but none have come close to this.. it just works.. and I'm still looking for ways to break it, to be sure there are some (Preview) problems with (some) cards and devices.. but it still captured video clear and crisp without loosing sync.

So far the ATI 650 "butter dish" is probably the most problematic.. its automatic gain control blows out highlights.. but it still captures great video and sound.

I do try OBS studio on occasion.. but (believe me) it has no where near the universal stability and compatibility of this software.. it may work well with one specific card or device.. in a blue moon.. if you wave a hot wing in the air.. and hold your breath.. but its just not a simple capture tool.

Now I would (caution you) it does not come with hardware drivers.

Your capture card or device has to have those installed and working first.

But after that you may find the buried MyDVD mythical (Import Media)/(Capture/Import) tool works very well with your capture flow for MPEG2 4:2:0 video capture.

Super Tip! - Windows Media Center "seems" to choke on the video capture files.. while Windows Media Player has no problem with them at all, VLC no problem. I haven't investigated further.

What gets me so excited about the discovery.. is this means many capture cards and devices I had written off as unusable.. suddenly look viable once again.

I should also mention all this testing is on Windows 7 x64 to eliminate all the hazardous Windows 10 update and patch instability inherent in a "Live" operating system subject to the whims of remote over sight.

-- merged --

These also work:

Turtle beach Video Advantage PCI
ATI eHome Wonder PCI
Hauppauge USB Live2 USB 2.0

-- merged --

And these:

Pinnacle/Avid Liquid Bob USB 2.0
ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0

I have found some late model and expensive USB 3.0 Capture devices are not compatible, but most people could not afford them.

I have found one VC500 for Mac Rev2 using Windows 10 drivers does not work on Windows 7

So its not perfect.. but those outliers have some extreme reasons for not working with this old a software

It not that they wouldn't pull a Preview Video image with Sound, it was something in their much newer drivers that caused them to fail during capture to save a file.

This option is not for YUV 4:2:2 video capture, its working at MPEG2 4:2:0 which is far far better than plain DV 4:1:1

If you need to perform software cleanup or repair of captured video 4:2:2 would be preferable, but if your video chain includes a TBC and your planning to eventually convert to MPEG2 4:2:0 anyway.. this might be a very suitable capture method.

I really don't like Windows Media Center for capture, setting up the IR and Tuner requirements is quite a burden. And if your looking for a solution that supports Tuners and Scheduled recording.. this is Not the solution for you.. but for strictly VHS to Digital files.. even for burning to DVD.. it works very well across a lot of hardware.

-- merged --

Two more:

Startech SVID23USB USB 2.0
EyeTV Hybrid USB 2.0

Going to look at some AGP cards now

Interesting. I'd like to check MyDVD out, but I did a Google search for it and there's lots of versions eg Roxio, Pinnacle, some of which are "current" and cost money. Do you have a link to the version you are using?

Thanks, Al

One more (so far):

ATI All in Wonder 9000 AGP

The version that got me started was an obscure reference to MyDVD 6.1 for the Angel PCI cards based on the NEC encoder chips (same as in the Toshiba RD-XS DVD recorders)

From there I knew of a USB version of the Angel PCI and gave that a shot.. and it worked.

Then I just started trying things.

MyDVD 2009 was the first to support Vistas x64 and Windows 7 x64 (it is a an x86 program but runs perfectly on x64 versions of windows)

MyDVD 2010 was pretty much the sweet spot since it appears one of the last MyDVD before Roxio acquired Sonic and integrated MyDVD into their suite "Roxio Creator 2010 Creator Pro" but they didn't list it as a separate item on the box.

It was more or less a "guess" that they included it because many versions later they put on the front of the box "Now Includes MyDVD" .. weird.. but I would guess after acquiring Sonic they "re-thought" the importance or branding of Sonics assets. They bundled it and didn't even mention it in the Users Guide, I installed it and found it in the Start menu under its own folder.

The Numbering scheme from Sonic to Roxio to Corel-Roxio gives you massive headaches because they reused the year 2010 for multiple versions. Reviews are not kind to most of the versions after the Roxio acquistion.. I would say this is in large part because the documentation and branding lacked a bit of detail and they really wanted it to be the Napster of the DVD burning market competing with Nero and Vegas and many other programs in use at that time.

Sonic appears to have been the actual company that accumulated all the experience and went full on tilt in making a product with a Video Capture tool in the "Importer" part of the product that did extremely well.

Sonic marketed MyDVD for direct burning of PVR shows to disc.. but never mentioned Video Capture as a separate step in the process. It was included with a lot of PVR hardware.. which is where I guess they got their experience with lots of different hardware.

I have used none of the other included 20 or so odd programs that Roxio Creator Pro included and installed.. its possible their quality suffers quite a bit and resulted in the poor reviews over all.

Roxio also acquired and bundles a similar product for Mac called Toast, which I checked and it does not come with a version of the Sonic MyDVD Import/Video Capture.. instead it relied on EyeTV.. and raiding its store of captured videos for Mixing and Burning to Disc.

That makes sense because EyeTV on the Mac covered a lot of diverse hardware support that Quicktime and VideoGlide did not.

OSX had a sort of Video Capture framework based around the Quicktime project with Video Digitizers plugins.. but it was poorly documented and supported. EyeTV and VideoGlide did the best at supporting Video capture across multiple brands of hardware. After the video capture.. iMovie, FinalCut or Toast could pull from those programs capture bins and didn't have to do their own.

There were a lot of other companies in a similar position, Ulead, Arcsoft, Intervideo, Cyber.. and were often bundled with PVR types of hardware. I know Ulead specialized in adopting hardware through a Plugin architecture.. outsourcing hardware support to the hardware makers who wrote plugins to support their software for capture.. kind of reversing the paradigm. The others mostly seem to only support one or two versions of hardware on consignment or for hire.

MyDVD seems have done the hard work of directly supporting all this diverse hardware one at a time, and adding it all into their single product.. which makes it extremely easy to use.

Its not without its short comings though.. you have 720x480 MPEG2 capture.. but no VBR versus CBR or GOP frame control.. merely HQ, SP, LP and MPEG2 or DV codec controls. The bit rates for each hardware and bus type seem pre-optimized for what is possible for that bus and hardware. Some only allow 6 Mbps lots of others on faster buses allow 8 Mbps. Uniformly the video looks good. - so control freaks won't like it that much.. but having a single pane of glass that works with near anything is awfully attractive.

I would caution to try only the "Roxio Creator 2010 Creator Pro" for now, used and NOS boxes can still be found, its what I used for all of these tests so far.

I tend to think the latest editions from Corel and earlier edition than the 2010 may have some short comings.

Earlier editions won't be as mature and may not support x64 hardware as well, or at all.

Latest editions may have gone full x64 and no longer support x32 hardware.

Those are "guesses" and why I use the term "Sweet Spot" for the year 2010.

It was late enough that both x32 and x64 hardware and programs were supported in one product.

I also would be cautious about trying this on one of the 20 versions of Windows 2010 that have been released since the year 2010, Every year two new kernel versions are released and Windows 10 should be called Windows 29 or something like that to be more accurate to how different it is from operating systems in 2010.

The four digit windows 10 build number is a better name for it.

But this year the build number is Windows 10 (2004) which unfortunately makes it seem a throw back to an older version.. but its due to the weird naming scheme they picked to replace the simple two digit number versions.

Microsoft marketing must be crying a river this year over the previous marketing departments choices.

-- merged --

Ok.. historical "wise" I got a lot of things (backwards)

Here is an excellent history from George Lucas to MyDVD to the sale of Roxio

A History of Sonic Solutions

I won't even begin to summarize it, but its a good read.

Considering the investment dollars and pedigree.. its no wonder how it turned out.

"MyDVD Getting buried" in the Roxio Creator Suite however.. seems an accurate description.

I doubt anyone still has a copy of the more comprehensive $50,000 versions of the program.

-- merged --

ATI All in Wonder 9200 AGP
ATI All in Wonder 9600 AGP
ATI All in Wonder 9700 AGP

Also worked with MyDVD producing 720x480 MPEG2 4:2:0 in Stereo

The 9700 and 9800 however have given me the most device driver problems. Its a matter of rolling back the Microsoft Out of Box device drivers which collide with the device drivers provided direct from ATI by cdrom or website. Microsoft keeps prioritizing their drivers, no matter how old or broken. They are listed as made by ATI, but are contributed to Microsoft.. which then makes them the preferred ones.Typical problem is Black screen, no sound, unresponsive crossbars. -- After rolling the drivers back to a newer version or older version direct from ATI (not through Microsoft Out of Box Experience) the cards work.

-- merged --

ATI All in Wonder 9800 AGP

Now works.

I have a lot to learn about AGP and motherboard compatibility with ATI cards, it turns out it is not universal. I had two identical motherboards from Intel D865GBF and they were very sketchy with the 9700 and completely refused to start up the 9800 in BIOS.

The problem with the 9800 was when BIOS threw its splash page, it was complete unintelligible garbage, a repeating hash of pixels over and over with no pattern save its uniform garbage. It would get past post and then I could hear Windows XP boot and I could hear mouse and keyboard clicks, but the display was completely black. If I removed the card and used the embedded VGA, no problem. If I removed the 9800 and replaced it with the problematic 9700 it would boot, but throw some macroblock like pixels during post and finally settle down in windows.

I had a Dell 4600 and the 9800 boots right up into BIOS and posts perfectly.. with a much smaller power supply and lower powered motherboard. But I am wondering about the D865DBF power supply.. perhaps its under powered for this card?

The BIOS options do not allow setting Writes off, or setting the AGP speed, in fact Intel documentation is very sketchy on AGP support claiming 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x but then putting a BOLD note in the motherboard manual that says 2x is not supported and 3.3volt cards are not supported.. so maybe the 865 "could" support all those AGP modes, but not on an Intel manufactured motherboard.. very disappointing.

Asrock is not much better.. but I haven't tried one of those motherboards, it just says BIOS options have no AGP controls.

I am getting that USB 3.0 vibe.. like they really didn't like Specifications and Standards during these years and kind of went off and did things and maybe documented them later. What made it into the docs was mostly chipset datasheet specs.. Not what the motherboards could actually do. disappointing.

Once I could find a system the 9800 AGP card would work in it flew without a glitch, same was with the 9700 once I found a none Microsoft supplied driver.. it flew without a glitch

MyDVD of course captured Full D1, SD - MPEG2 720x480 4:2:0 Stereo with no problems.

I think I can get hold of a couple more AGP cards, ATI 2006 AGP/PCIe and maybe an x800 AGP/PCIe before deep diving on PCIe support.

But really it looks like All the way back to ATI 9000 AGP its good.

Sonic MyDVD existed back before the turn of the Century so I bet ATI VE, 8500DV and 7500 work as well.. but I'm becoming bored with all this testing.

Except for Magewell XI100, Diamond VC500, and an obscure Pinnacle PCTV card.. they have all worked.

From time to time I have tested VirtualDub 1.9.11 side by side and the results are either its very hard to tell the difference in the picture on playback.. or the Uncompressed signal picks up noise which the MPEG2 processing seems to remove. MPEG2 first steps are a Discrete Cosine maneuver.. so I would (guess) it specializes in removing the harmonics an Uncompressed capture were likely to pick up.. they are sort of like the Ground (hums) you pick up in unbalanced audio capture unless you really pay attention to eliminating that sort of input noise.

-- merged --

ATI All in Wonder 2006 AGP
ATI All in Wonder x800 AGP

These also work with MyDVD, in Intel D865GBF

720x480 MPEG2 4:2:0 in Stereo

-- merged --

ATI All in Wonder x600 PCIe
ATI All in Wonder x800 PCIe
ATI All in Wonder x1300 PCIe
ATI All in Wonder x1800 PCIe

These also work with MyDVD

720x480 MPEG2 4:2:0 in Stereo

I have Sonic MyDVD 5.3, bought it back in 2004. Waste of money, never really used it.

I remember the capture functions in Sonic and Ulead software. Ulead DVDWS2 was much better for authoring.

What OS are you doing this research in? XP?

BTW, I no longer remember which post that was, but I found WinDVR (aka WinDVD recorder) v2.5 and v4 today, in my archives. There may be a few others. I was software dumpster diving, looking for an old program. Saw those in passing. But again ... it is/was terrible software.

This would be equivalent Sonic MyDVD 10

On Win XP x32 and Win 7 x64

The quality of the capture depends a lot on the quality of the signal

I'm not measuring the versatility of the capture tool.. simply the fact that its an easy setup and works

I use the captured video in other tools

Capturing is the one step that (until now) I have not found a "universal" tool that works with near all hardware

To avoid conflating problems caused by signal quality, I'm capturing the same analog signal reproduced from a digital source.. to that difference is eliminated.

Ulead tends to depend on plugins written by the hardware manufacturers which vary from manufacturer to manufacturer

This is the basic out of the box, same version on XP x32 and 7 x64, since it came from the same year, same manufacturer and same box.. all of the software was written by one vendor.. another variable eliminated

I have looked into WinDVR.. but they started back in Win 98 days and varied and were too small to cover (all) of the manufacturers.. I am collecting WinDVR versions.. but none so far have been as versatile as MyDVD

I am not using MyDVD to produce DVDs, no edit video.. I am (stealing) its unpromoted video capture function to produce capture files.. so in a way I am miss using it as the vendor intended.. certainly as the marketers intended.

I am hoping by studying MyDVD with each bit of hardware.. examining the Graphs in GraphEdit.. something like the source of VirtualDub can be vastly improved.

I have already noticed it inserting something called "steam analysis" plugins.. which appear to "buffer" or "smooth out" problems during capture. I am guessing to avoid sudden changes in the stream.. similar to a tbc.. but I am not sure of that.. the streams have been remarkably smooth and "driftless" to my untrained eye.

I would upload the collection of samples, but its over 5 GB in size right now.

Perhaps I could host them somewhere else without letting them be transcoded. Or only a few samples.

They mostly look remarkably the same quality wise, only a very few devices seem to have a subtle tonal drift in color.

-- merged --

a little context from spending time with MyDVD

first, it was employees from Lucasfilm that left and started Sonic Solutions.. which I believe started as a sound company and later took on video in the late 1990's as digital editing became possible

the early products were somewhat like Sony Vegas, divided into Studio and Consumer editions offering different levels of control over the actual capture.. mostly details that consumers had no reference for understanding.. so they offered them only a few commonly used formats, like DV or DVD encodings, and only four levels of DVD compression.. everything else was automated.. even finding an active input among many installed hardware cards and usb devices.

the actual component (within) MyDVD was called "Media Import 12" but its program name was "MediaCapture12.exe" its really small at 4 MB and comes in 32 bit or 64 bit versions.. but appears really smart.

Windows DirectShow has two methods of building video capture programs, Direct Connect (or) Intelligent Connect. Most default to using Intelligent Connect.. which is supposed to use a registry based "filter component" (merit based) system for automatically building a Graph in the background.. the problem is this gets corrupted when installing multiple video editing programs and hardware device drivers

So far..

It appears this does not use Intelligent Connect.. and uses Direct Connect.. which has an internal catalog of exactly which filters to link together for specific hardware.. so.. it appears immune to multiple hardware installs and multiple editing programs installed on the same system.. a Major.. benefit.

Most people don't tear down and rebuild their operating system just to switch hardware.. or to switch from one editing program to another.

I would guess their longevity in the marketplace led to them leaving the simpler cheaper method of programming using "Intelligent Connect" for "Direct Connect".. since they sold the tool as being useful to more than one hardware vendors capture devices.

MyDVD had a long long run.. version up to 7 or 8 were 32 bit only and generally targeted much smaller collections of hardware. I dare say (without personal experience) they were more likely to use "Intelligent Connect" like the vast majority of other bundled capture software. And would be just as vulnerable to the "Merrit corruption" issues.

After Version 9 introduced Windows Vista support they started supporting the install of a 32 bit version and a 64 bit version, meaning the exact same user interface worked across 32 bit versions and 64 bit versions of the operating system. This is a major plus.. since I don't have to relearn or adapt to a totally different user interface.

What it does not do and cannot do is provide device drivers for each capture device, those the capture device manufacturer has to provide.. and they are often for 32 bit only or 64 bit only versions of the operating system.

So while it will work with legacy XP only hardware, with the same user interface.. it won't make that capture device work on a 64 bit version of the operating system.

But conversely, it will work with Windows 7 only hardware, with the same user interface.. or 32 bit versions of the device driver for the 64 bit hardware.

So its very flexible.

I have been testing using the Roxio Creator Pro 2010 suite.. which can still be found online used and otherwise.. the activation keys work, but the online registration no longer works.. because the Roxio company was sold to Corel many years ago.. and they don't support something this old.

The Roxio Creator Pro version comes with a Blue-ray disk plug-in, but the standard edition may have the same "component" of MyDVD for Video capture (Media Import) so having the full suite may not be necessary.

They stopped including the XP 32 bit edition of Media Import after their version called Nxt4.

So minimum optimal version is MyDVD 9 (Roxio Creator 2009) up to Corel/Roxio Creator Nxt3 after that it only works with capture device that have a 64 bit device driver.

To me its a gold mine of information.. and Super convenient since even with ATI cards I don't need to install the full ATI disc of software to get a functioning capture system. All I need do is install the ATI device drivers for the Video Display (if its a true All in Wonder) and the supporting WDM device drivers for the capture hardware and the Roxio MyDVD, Media Import software just works. I can quickly swap cards out and install their device drivers and WDM device drivers without removing the old device drivers and there are (No) conflicts.. this is much more like I am used to using Windows.. its admittedly "messy" and doesn't keep the file system or registry "clean" but its more "familiar" to me.

Much of the video capture hardware I tried that works.. has no other video capture software that will work with it.. and that includes VirtualDub.. for the most part VirtualDub relies on "Intelligent Connect" which makes it vulnerable to "Merrit corruption". VLC does not use "Intelligent Connect" entirely.. and OBS Studio uses it even less.. I have never seen anything not use it at all however.. which so far is what I am seeing with this program.

I'll wrap this up by stating.. it is not perfect.

Magewell XI100USB ($700) does not work "reliably" but does paradoxically work with VirtualDub
Diamond VC500 for Mac ("bluescreens")
EyeTV Hybrid Pinnacle PCTV for Mac "does not work"

but in each case.. you really wouldn't expect it to work because those devices are designed for something other than the Windows Platform or for use with alternate firmware versions.. they are "extreme" outliers.

For the vast majority of legacy gear from 2002 to about 2015 this one program (32 or 64 bit versions) seems to just work.. and I can't say that for any other software I have tried.

True it does not produce Uncompressed capture.. but not all of this capture hardware can produce an Uncompressed stream.. some of it only has an MPEG stream.

This software has a lot of information inside it.. and its still being developed today. I don't know about the capabilities of its current version.. but it does say it works on Windows 10.. so that is intriguing.

After contributing to a conversation in another thread.

I realized Hauppauge (on the low end) and AverMedia (on the high end) are still importing SD video capture hardware from Asia. The Hauppuage Live USB 2 works with this software. I'll be borrowing an AverMedia EzMaker 7 later this week.. it comes with a Software Development Kit with a documented API (typical of Avermedia.. they tend to document their stuff a lot more) and the AverMedia device is supposed to work on Windows 10 or MacOS 10.14

It will be interesting to see if this 2010 software can still work with something as new as the AverMedia EZMaker 7 if so.. it can't possibly be using Direct Connect only.

I suspect since the Magewell failed.. it will fail on this new a hardware too.. but here is hoping.. (fingers crossed).

The Latest 2020 version might work with it.. and that would be interesting information too.

-- merged --

ATI All in Wonder 7200 PCI (This is the VE card)
ATI All in Wonder 7500 AGP
ATI All in Wonder 8500 AGP

These also work with MyDVD

720x480 MPEG2 4:2:0 in Stereo

That's 32 PCI, AGP, PCIe, USB devices
- if for no other reason, its good for testing whether the capture devices work

Its also been good for figuring out (how fast) I could setup a card by going direct to the Driver and WDM folders to install the Display driver and the WDM capture driver without going through the Disc Wizard.

Only the ATI 7500 proved really difficult.. it seems the oldest card, and had its driver stored side by side in a DrivX9 next to a DrivXP directory. I kept trying to install the X9 driver and the WDM drivers also also thrown into the same directory.. so installing the wrong display driver also tried to install the wrong WDM driver for the Windows 98 operating system. Once I figured that out and used the DrivXP device driver directory it was smooth sailing.

All subsequent driver discs renamed the device driver directories to clearly distinguish them.

The MyDVD program always accurately figured out which Input had the video signal and which sound card and Input to use for the audio signal.. so it was really click and go when capturing.

-- merged --

This may only be very temporary, since its shared from a dbox account.

ok.. uncle

I tried to share some samples.. but dbox offered it up in a web player that looks terrible.

You could download the file before playback to see the real video image.. but it takes minutes per file.

i will have to rethink this.

I'm curious: Why the sudden interest in old capture software?

There was a lot of almost-good (but not quite) capture software that existed in the 2000s, especially the early 2000s. A program than always disappointed me was PowerVCR II, which could have been great. Then you have capture mode of MainConcept v1.4. Both were primarily MPEG, but a few dev-side tweaks could have made those lossless as well.

Most capture software was beta-grade at best.
ATI MMC was outstanding, and VirtualDub was decent.

Most people don't realize that I wasn't a big VirtualDub user until about v1.8 or so, where it matured. v1.9 was outstanding, while v1.10 screwed up some stability before EOL (then forked to VirtualDub FilterMod aka VirtualDub2, which improved non-capture aspects).

You also had some passable software like iuVCR. Not great, about the same quality level as OBS (not suggested, issues). Maybe AmarecTV, maybe DScaler. Each of those "works", but not anywhere near as well and stable as VirtualDub 1.9 or ATI MMC.

I disliked all-in-one (AIO) software, especially authorware that had craptastic capturing. Sonic DVDit! was decent for authoring, horrible capture (dropped frames, due to the software itself).

Sonic had Scenarist, the industry standard for authoring. It is/was an engineering-interface convoluted authorware. Then you have Spruce DVD Maestro, which made the interface suck less -- just less. DVDLab was the $99 version of those, some years later, same crap user-unfriendly interfaces.

Sonic's consumer version was dummy software, DVDit! and MyDVD. It was somewhat better than TMPGEnc software, but far worse and weaker than Ulead's DVD Workshop. DVDit! 2 was "upgraded" to MyDVD 5, and I felt ripped off. I never used Sonic software ever again.

I still remember encoding MPEG in Terran's Cleaner 5.
Years and years ago, Windows 2000, my workflow was ATI MMC (AVI, or max-bitrate MPEG) > Cleaner > DVDit!
Or on Mac OS9, Matrox RTX (forget capture software) > Cleaner > DVD Studio Pro
I find this ridiculous: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-list...language=en_US.
Somebody wants $400 for a 20-year-old program that works worse than ANY current encoding freeware? What a moron.
Although any buyer would have to be a double-moron. (Spock, Star Trek IV, "and a double-dumb@ss to you!" :laugh:)

Still, interesting findings from you.

I always hope you can sniff out clues to make ATI AIW work in x64, or find the LSI HDD specs for ISOBuster.

Interesting info

Like a lot of info from Time Lords like yourself.. I have to read.. think a bit and re-read over and over again to fully absorb

I wasn't on the scene when all of this went down

My interest started while documenting the precise chips used in a Toshiba RD-XS someone was ragging on as unstable

From there I wondered what happened to that chipset and found it in some old Dell cards sourced as NTSC tv tuner cards.

I knew NEC backed a lot of efforts by Toshiba and they seemed the origin of the first DV encoders that went into the Canopus and GrassValley gear for years and years.. so moving on to MPEG2 they had a head start

That the same chips ended up on super cheap tuner cards less than 7 dollars on eBay led me to hunt down Monsoon.. and a key for that.. just to see how good it could capture.. and if they could be used Uncompressed.. they could

Then I caught a note in a forum that an old version of MyDVD used to work on the same Luminate cards.. the reference was very unclear and "staticy" like a message tossed in a bottle long ago.. it worked.. and there was a USB version of the NEC capture card.. it worked.. and fabulously on Win7x64.. in fact Windows 7 had complete 64 bit drivers for the Luminate NEC chips.. super simple to setup.

So then I started trying other cards, PCI, AGP, PCIe, USB and different brands.. I found this (one) piece of software that was tiny, smaller than Virtualdub.. and easier to use.. was almost fool proof..

ATI MMC is very hit or miss with me.. versions, installation.. order of installation, dependencies, service packs.. making sure old cards are not installed. Then setting up MMC.. lead me to just get depressed thinking about using it.

VirtualDub is a little better.. but also a lot of games.. and prayers that the right crossbar control will show up.. and that it will work.

Instead of seeking the one special card or USB device that could be relied upon to work, without a lot of setup.. I had given up.. this suddenly looked very appealing.

I've come around to thinking MPEG2 720x480 at 8 Mbps looks very very good even compared to Uncompressed.. and its far easier to jump right in and start recording.

I never know where my poking around will lead.. i've found wondering around can be "productive".

But I'm almost done for now

I was thinking I need to get back to transferring your baseball CP programs to another 3575 drive un-CP and get that back to you.

I learned a lot about the switching power supply (in theory) but I'm a bit scare to put Scope leads to the ground and trace the problem through the power supply. I found another used one that works.

The second TBC havent had much luck... it seems to be a power regulator issue.. but they are so rare I'm scared to do any serious work on it.

I guess this was exciting for a while.. but now I'm bored.

Its not a job for me.. its just a very useful tool.. not something documented as an option anywhere else that I can see.. certainly no one I know would think of using a $20 software app ten years old with a $10 capture card 15 years old that worked out of the box on Windows 7. - That it worked with lots of other more popular and well know stuff was just "interesting".. thrill is gone now.. my buzz is killed.

No one else seemed interested enough to comment either.

If you fry the non-working TBC trying to fix it, what exactly would be lost? It still wouldn't work. :laugh:
Go for it.
Or if you want to pass it along to another member here (somebody I have in mind), doing some TBC research, I can probably arrange for that to happen.
Email me. (Or PM me for email.)

Sometimes many read, few comment. Several dozen looky-loos are here. In 10 more years, another you could be here reading, and have an ah-ha moment that leads to new software for old hardware, drivers, whatever. Seriously, it has happened before, on this site.

I've had people ask "15 years ago, you mentioned blah blah blah, can you tell me more?"
Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't.