ATI AIW USB - what is wrong with my capture setup?

[22west]

Hi,

Looking for help on this. See attached video.

Workflow is :

PC : Pentium 4, 2.53 GHz, 2.5 GB RAM, Windows XP, SP2.
VCR : HR-S7600U with Digital TBC ON
Video Capture Card : ATI AIW USB (good quality, gently used by LS) S-Video Input
Audio Capture Card : Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Capture Software : VirtualDub 1.9.11 Build 32842

The driver I used for the ATI AIW USB is :

ATI-AIW-SetUp-File.part1.rar
ATI-AIW-SetUp-File.part2.rar
ATI-AIW-SetUp-File.part3.rar

I found that driver here :

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post62406

I have played with the default VirtualDub parameters in several ways and cannot get rid of this.

Note: The horizontal green lines are are not on the original source, they are caused by the capture. There is only minor flag-waving on top of the source video. This same effect happens with all my sources (different tapes).

Thanks,
22west

[22west]

OK - so I removed the ATI drivers and re-installed them again. This time the video is much much better - it is not jumping any more - it is very smooth. The only issue I have now is I am still seeing the horizontal lines, some are green and some are not. See attached pics. Note also that the original tape does no have these lines at all - I attach an image of the same frame right off my CRT. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
22west

[bookemdano]

CRTs are very forgiving of the many flaws of VHS. Capture cards are the opposite.

What happens to the lines if you turn off the TBC on your VCR?

Do you have a frame TBC in the capture chain? If not, why not?

You may want to pick up a Panasonic ES15 or ES10 to use as an alternative if the JVC VCR's TBC is causing the green lines on your capture.

[22west]

Hi,

Actually the lines are flickering in the capture screen even before I run the tape - strange. It still continues with the TBC off. See attached video right off the VirtualDub capture window on my PC.

I have a TBC-1000 and an ES16 (Canadian Version of the Deck) and I can try them but it seems like its just some kind of card noise in general . . .

I switched to another USB port for the card but no change.

[bookemdano]

Do you get the lines even with the VCR off? With it disconnected? Via composite and S-Video? If so, then yep the problem must be the capture card.

I may be wrong here, but I'm not aware of an "All in Wonder" USB. I thought that the AIW were named that because they incorporated a GPU as well as the tuner, meaning they were all PCI/AGP/PCIe internal cards. The external USB boxes were all just tuners so fell under the "TV Wonder" umbrella. There are several different models over the years--which one exactly do you have?

Anyway, what about electrical interference? Maybe a bad power supply on the capture card, or grounding issues at your location. Are the computer and capture card plugged into the same outlet? Maybe try swapping out outlets and power strips/UPSes.

Might be worth pulling the Santa Cruz and any other extra stuff from the machine just to remove variables and see if it makes any difference.

Also, have you tried MMC to see if the lines appear there too? That would eliminate any issues with virtualdub.

[22west]

Hi bookemdano,

See answers below:

• Do you get the lines even with the VCR off? Yes.
• With it disconnected? Yes
• Via composite and S-Video? Yes, I tried both. I didn't bother to confirm the coax input
• If so, then yep the problem must be the capture card. The "green lines" problem does not appear to be the card. See below.
• Have you tried MMC to see if the lines appear there too? That would eliminate any issues with virtualdub. Good suggestion, I did this and the MMC had the same issue.
• I may be wrong here, but I'm not aware of an "All in Wonder" USB. This is the TV Wonder 2.0 model but it is coined AIW because it contains the Theatre 200 Chipset. There are several discussions in this forum in this. See here : http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...tv-wonder.html
  

Still having faith in this hardware - I dusted off a 2008 laptop with Vista and wiped it clean with a fresh install of XP SP2 - this is exactly what I did on the desktop PC that I discovered this issue with. I installed VirtuaDub and the MMC card drivers on the laptop and did a capture test - the capture is not 100% great, its a bit out of phase but the main thing is the horizontal green lines are gone. I think I am now into trying the full frame TBC.

So, this is clearly some noise issue in the original desktop PC hardware, this I need to fix. I will start combing through the desktop now with some of your suggestions. Swapping power outlets, pulling the Santa Cruz sound card etc. The video card in that desktop PC is an old Radeon 9600 XT with a capture port - there could be an issue there. I don't recall installing the drivers for that card - maybe there is a generic one in place. . .

Thanks for your help.

22west

-- merged --

Another quick note - I just added another couple of RAM to the laptop and the capture is much much better now - just using the VCRs line TBC.

[bookemdano]

Good troubleshooting. Looks like you're getting it narrowed down. Please keep reporting your progress!

[babirusacapture3]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 22west

OK - so I removed the ATI drivers and re-installed them again. This time the video is much much better - it is not jumping any more - it is very smooth. The only issue I have now is I am still seeing the horizontal lines, some are green and some are not. See attached pics. Note also that the original tape does no have these lines at all - I attach an image of the same frame right off my CRT. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
22west

I have a quad boot machine with one boot an old Windows XP install (graphics card currently in the computer not compatible but not sure that should matter since I don't think VirtualDub needs to use a GPU it still seems to be able to capture (and show preview if preview instead of overlay is checked). Issues are there whether captured with disabled or overlay or preview).

Anyway, I just got an ATI AWI USB 2.0 card and it's showing similar issues to what you have but much worse.

About 2/3rd across the screen a vertical section with tons of lines like that and then scattered up and down the entire frame various lines like that. In motion they dance all over.

They are there whether I feed it from a VCR or Hi8 Camcoder. They are there whether I use a TBC or not. Whether I use Composite or S-Video. They are there even just from the TBC putting out color pattern. They are there on VCR pause screen. The audio is pretty bad, lots of hiss and pops and clicks. In fact, I unhooked all inputs and the audio was still registered as constant hiss and pops and clicks.

No problems apparent hooking anything up to a TV or to a different brand capture on W10 using VirtualDub or other software.

Then I got another ATI AWI USB 2.0 and it shows the exact same issues, same messy line about 2/3rd across up and down the entire screen, etc. etc. I mean exact same inteference looking patterns and broken up lines and jittering and bad audio except the audio is crazy bad it's just 100% hiss can't even make out any of the actual audio at all just pure hiss.

Are these cards know to use the type of caps that tend to go bad? It's 100% not my sources/TBC. It's either the cards or something incompatible with them an my Windows XP install or USB port. I don't see how it can be computer interference since using same computer other capture HW shows no issue so it's not somehow messing up signal in the composite or s-video cables Maybe it could be a bad USB cable? I did use the same one and only with this device.... still seems unlikely, but guess I could dig up another of the type needed to hook up to this. Or the power supply that came with it since used same supply on both tries. That would be some crazy level of interference it would have to put out though. Seems unlikely. Also the second one seems to have even a bit worse lines and way worse audio which seems to hint at not the dongle power supply interference (same distance away each time) or bad USB cable (probably wouldn't even be able to connect at all to begin with if it was bad).

Also have video samples but here a quick two screen caps:

[BW37]

ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 is said to have specific power supply and heat issues. Forum contributor jwillis84 has delved deeply into them. Using the search feature on the forum for “ATI USB 2.0 heat” (Google, not Advanced) will bring up lots of useful information and suggestions.

In post 8 of this seemingly unrelated thread, he makes a specific power supply recommendation.
https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...deo-worse.html

Hope you can find something helpful there.

BW

[babirusacapture3]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BW37

ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 is said to have specific power supply and heat issues. Forum contributor jwillis84 has delved deeply into them. Using the search feature on the forum for “ATI USB 2.0 heat” (Google, not Advanced) will bring up lots of useful information and suggestions.

In post 8 of this seemingly unrelated thread, he makes a specific power supply recommendation.
https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...deo-worse.html

Hope you can find something helpful there.

BW

Thanks! Eventually I did. It was nothing to do with power supplies or cables or heat or anything though. I kept going down the rabbit hole and found a VERY old thread where a few were discussing getting the ATI AWI USB 2.0 to work on OS more modern than XP. The main FAQ here seems to say XP required but in that thread some seemed to get it to work on everything pre-W10 which was a surprise after all the warnings about XP only.

I gave the Vista install a try following instructions there (I actually have a quad boot setup haha, XP/Vista/7/10.) and.... somehow magically it now works (didn't test the second unit yet, probably it will still work although I do still wonder about the audio on it since on XP the audio was 100% static unlike the other unit).

So for me, it actually works on Vista but not XP! Perhaps something got bungled in my XP install attempt though. I could retry, but there is no point since I don't even have XP using graphics card at the moment since it needs an older card to work. It would be nice if I could get it to at least work on 7 since my Vista boot takes ages but I have a feeling my 7 install might have too many OS and DX advancements installed.

Wish I could get it work on 10 but the drivers install but then don't take. SOme speculated some enforced driver certification BS.

Oh I should note when I first started under Vista it worked and then I went to capture device settings and it showed the proper NTSC-M and then the proper levels sliders page but as soon as I closed that Windows the overaly went to pure black and no matter what I did it would not work anymore and going back to capture divece settigns I could not enter any slider values, it locked on 0, would take no typed entry and moving slider it instantly slid itself back to 0! Annoyingly the program I think writes all settings into the nasty registry instead of a nice config file in it's directory. Maybe some registry clashing who knows what. Maybe could delete it or manually change it there. But then I found that I could bring up the Levels.... window and slide the values there (can't fine tune slide and can only hit 129 not 128, etc.) but anyway it then worked again.

Also with Vista it recognizes my giant many TB hard drives unlike XP which is nice too. And I can get a few key things running the background so machine not 100% tied up and not able to record shows in the background.

The issues in XP are so odd looking they totally mimic a hardware failure and yet obviously are not. I was 99% sure of hardware failure with the capture dongle until the second one produced almost exact same video pattern although the fact that the audio was worse did still have me tending to think maybe it was some bad caps or something or other. But anyway, yeah card seems to be capturing fine in Vista. Literally nothing else changed by my Vista install attempt for my XP install attempt. All same power supplies, cables, sources, etc.

I may try to re-install in XP just for kicks, but I wouldn't do it there anyway.

Main thing is to try for 7 next.

And see if there is some way to somehow get it going in W10 which would be ideal. At the least having it going in Vista is much nicer.