Dell Dimension, WinXP, what ATI AIW is best?
 

New lurker / New paid member
I have Dell Dimension 8300 w/AGP with Win XP SP2 32 bit to dedicate to conversions.

What ATI AIW board is happiest / less buggy install ?
(7500, some 9000 series or X800 XT)

Feed will be from:
JVC 9600 thru TBC AVT-8710 "green version" to AIW ? using the "Monster brand" S-VHS cables. (ACE Hardware had them)

I like the 9200 the most because they have relatively few electrolytic capacitors, tend to be on the less expensive side, and don't require hard to find adapter cables for the display, but supposedly anything with a Theater 200 chip performs the same for capture purposes.

There is a USB option with the theater 200 chip in it. https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...-tips-ati.html

Dell Dimension 9200 video is PCIe, what board are you running ?

Dell Dimension 9200 video is PCIe, what board are you running ?

Welcome, and thanks. :)

Least PITA = 7500 AIW AGP with DVI

Good. :congrats:

Not good. "Brand name" cables often have fat headers, and are too tight to insert/remove. VCR, TBCs, and capture cards can be damaged easily be the not-better "better" cables. There's really no reason to have super-duper shielding on s-video cables. Since I bought most of my gear new, I still have JVC/DataVideo cables that I use. But cables go bad, and I replace with cables that have headers/shielding that are between "thin junk" and "fat brand name". I've already damaged VCRs and TBCs, and I'm extremely careful.

I'm fine with that.

Beware. :warning:

There are at least 3 versions of this card. All have Theatre hearts, but other variations exist. This is one of the few times that obvious external physical properties exists, thus giving a 50/50 chance. However, it's not something that can be seen easily in images online, only in-hand. Unfortunately, swapping happens, hence "chance" and not "assurance".

All of the versions "work fine", but one version is a complete PITA to install. I avoid those, or at least try. I still get burned, from time to time.

The interesting aspect is that I never even noticed these "bad versions" until maybe 2019. Same date as bad DataVideo TBC-1000s were dumped on the market. Where was this problem gear for the past 15+ years? It's like a reject warehouse was sold, all contents auctions off to resellers. At that time, bad DataVideos hailed from Canada and the northern USA, while the bad ATI matched that almost identical (and ATI was a Canadian product). But that was years ago, the crap spread all over, so no telling anything by location anymore.

There's also a lot of non-working cards out there, likely due to heat failures over the years/decades. (And yes, as usual, that includes eBay "working" and "tested" cards. Such BS from know-nothing resellers.)

And the drivers are buggy, under specific conditions:
- if USB installed after AGP/PCI AIW, the USB is glitched; fresh XP install required
- if USB installed first, then AGP/PCI AIW installed later, USB again is glitched, XP reinstall required
... but even if only USB, never AGP/PCI AIW, then fresk XP install still suggested
... and PCIe probably the same as AGP/PCI.
I believe it's actually related to XP, whereas the card was probably made for use with WinME. (Don't use WinME.)

So if the correct version, correctly installed, it's excellent. I know. :screwy:

This is why I try to be the "easy button" for sourcing cards, offering those in the marketplace (when available) taking the mystery out of it. Anybody wanting one can PM me, and/or see my marketplace listsing.

AIW PCIe is not great. Too much image offset (large overscan shifts), and the on-board hardware audio is terrible. At least avoid the x1800/x1900. I've read where the earliest PCIe may be fine, but no direct opinion on those specific pre-x1800 versions. Be wary.

Thing to keep in mind with the USB version (ATI TV Wonder) is that it can't do MPEG2 capture in ATI Multimedia Center. But if you plan to do lossless capture only, then that doesn't matter. MPEG2 capture is a good compromise for non-critical content that looks pretty good visually while preserving interlacing, but takes up much less space. Sure, you could just capture lossless and then compress to something else later as well, but it is extra steps.

I don't believe that's true, but now you're going to make me verify. :laugh:

Not that MPEG should be used by most people now anyway. That's mostly still something that VHS>disc hobbyists do now, as you can dump 15mpbs MPEG-2 to BD discs as-is. Better than DVD, lightly compressed interlaced SD.

Definitely probably wrong, it'd chew up too much hard drive space if it couldn't do compressed captures in some form, but I thought that was the main disadvantage - something about MMC not having all features, or it could be if doing compression, that it is done in software as opposed to being hardware assisted as I believe it is on the graphics cards. If that were to be the case, it may require a better spec'd machine for compressed captures.

If there is no disadvantage, then why bother having an AGP setup if the USB version is identical performance-wise?

I have a USB TV wonder, but I haven't opened it yet, so I haven't tested that myself - yet. It'll be on the massive list of items tested eventually and I guess then we'll all know if it is any different than the graphics card performance-wise.

It's not "the same", and it does have difference that matter. Audio, heat, and some other considerations. I'd not use the word "disadvantages" necessarily. This card is really something that needs case-by-case consideration.

FYI, there was no seal on those units, so "unopened" is rarely accurate. But for your case, I hope it is.

Theatre 100/Rage and 200 have on-chip Ligos assist, it's not housed on a separate chip.

Now then, MMC not having "all features" may be accurate. That I don't recall off-hand. I'd have to fire up MMC sometime, poke around.

My first capture device was the Tevion USB clone purchased from LS, with the 200 series chip. If you do not have a proc amp to adjust your video levels (such as brightness/contrast) to keep things in gamut, then I suggest to avoid USB.

As I recall, the Levels adjustment on those via Virtualdub doesn't do much, because it doesn't have any internal proc amp-like controls. I recall getting spikes in my Preview histogram when I tried to make Vdub Levels adjustments to keep things in gamut. So I had to rely on my DataVideo TBC with Proc Amp to fix levels issues. Which is the way to go when you have it. But sometimes I don't use it. It's precious gear, and I don't want to wear it out on tapes that don't really need it's help.

I upgraded to a PCIe capture card with the same chipset, and can at least do some Levels adjustment with it in Vdub when I don't have a Proc Amp in my capture chain. Technically, it's probably not as pure of a way to adjust levels, but I'm fine with it when I'm using a Panasonic ES10/15 without a Frame TBC/Proc Amp.

When I was researching like you on the forum, years ago, I came away with the AGPs were among, if not, the best. I just didn't want to invest in another PC just for AGP motherboard. But if I had an AGP, I think I'd be looking for an AGP card.

I only do lossless capture. So I cannot comment on MPEG2.

The theater 200 chip is something like 0.75 inches x 0.75 inches, so it wouldn't fit in one of those. Other forums suggest it uses a texas Instruments chip 5150 chip.

Jwillis' post in that link just above does suggest that the ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 is indeed only a raw capture device, but the ATI software does all of the compression in software rather than hardware like the graphics cards do. This means if you were to to do a capture, you could be potentially using 30-40% CPU or more if choosing a compressed option, whereas the ATI AIW cards tend to use sub 10% when capturing MPEG2 just as an example.

Oddly enough, his post suggests that the ATI TV Wonder works with Mac if used with the EyeTV 3.0 drivers which would be very interesting if still true. Not sure if you can save any lossless formats within EyeTV's software though.

The 600/clones have the TI chipset.

No PCIe has TI (that I'm aware), so I'm guessing you mean AIW Theatre 100/200.

He's not correct here. ATI Theatre Rage/100/200 was never "all hardware", not "all software". It has Ligos.

The Rage Theatre chipset, used with ATI MMC, was reported to be a hybrid hardware/software MPEG encoding system, based off the professional Ligos GoMotion MPEG encoding technology. The updated Theatre 200 card refined the quality of video input, as well as offloaded about 5-10% more of the MPEG processing into the chip and off of the main system CPU.

No lossless. The software is pre-10.6, so almost impossible to install on anything from the past 15 years. (BTW, I have it, if anybody needs it.)