ATI AIW 9800 flashes white at top of screen during Video8/Hi8 tape playback
 

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to set up an analog capture workflow for my old Video8 and Hi8 tapes, but I've run into a problem that I can't seem to solve.

Capture Setup

• ATI All-In-Wonder 9800 SE (Theater 200 capture chip)
• Pentium 4 2.8 GHz
• Windows XP SP3
• VirtualDub 1.10.4
• Sony CCD-TR1100E (Hi8 camcorder with Line TBC and DNR)

The problem
The ATI card generally works very well. Colours look good, capture is stable, and I don't have any obvious dropped frames.

However, when I play back tapes using the Sony CCD-TR1100E, the top portion of the image (approximately the upper 15% of the frame) flashes white at a fairly rapid rate, maybe around 10 Hz, almost like a strobe effect.

This only happens after pressing Play to start the tape playback. If I view the live camera feed or just display the blue screen with no tape content, the image is completely stable without flashing.

I've shared a capture demonstrating the issue: https://youtu.be/h4IVz6nemck
At first, the video shows the signal is stable. At 2 seconds in the video, I press Play to start the tape and the flashing starts. The flashing is also visible on the tape footage.

To rule out the camera itself, I tested the following

• I have a cheap EasyCAP-style USB capture device using the 2861 chipset. Using the exact same camcorder and tapes, the image captures correctly with no flashing at the top of the frame.
• If I connect the Sony CCD-TR1100E directly to a TV, playback is also completely normal.

Because of this, I suspect the issue is related specifically to the ATI capture card or its interaction with the playback signal.

Possibly related to Macrovision Detection?
While researching, I found discussions on this forum suggesting that ATI cards can sometimes be sensitive to timing irregularities or may falsely detect Macrovision-like signals. I tried a few of the commonly discussed ATI anti-Macrovision workarounds and driver modifications from this thread, but these either didn't help, or caused severe image corruption and artifacts.

I've tried several driver versions, but unfortunately, all driver versions exhibit the same flashing behavior:

• Catalyst 10.2
• Catalyst 6.2
• The driver package recommended on DigitalFAQ

Alternative playback device
I also own a Sony DCR-TRV120E Digital8 camcorder. When I use its analog S-Video output, I don't get flashing, but I get strange horizontal coloured lines across the image, which seems like a separate issue.

If I transfer through FireWire/DV instead, the capture works correctly, but the highlights appear crushed and I haven't found any way to adjust levels because the DV output is fixed.

Because of that, the Digital8 route isn't currently my preferred solution.

My questions

• Has anyone seen this type of white flashing at the top of the image on an ATI AIW 9800 SE / Theater 200 card?
• Could this be a false Macrovision detection issue?
• Could the CCD-TR1100E be outputting a signal characteristic that the ATI card is particularly sensitive to?
• Would a Panasonic DMR-ES10 in the signal chain likely help?
• Are there any known settings, driver versions, or registry tweaks that specifically address this behavior?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. The ATI card performs excellently otherwise, so I'd really like to get this setup working.

Thanks!

My first guess would be that it's a lack of a Frame TBC or Frame Synchronizer. You're not seeing the classic flagging where the top rows distort/wiggle like a flag, but you are still seeing something that looks like the frame sync signal to the ATI is not stable enough for it to capture without that flashing effect. So my guess would be a Frame TBC or a Frame Synchronizer (like an ES10) would resolve that.

If you provided more info on the horizontal colored lines issue with DCR-TRV120E, perhaps that is an issue that could be resolved in post and you could capture via S-Video out from that. Without seeing anything specific, my first guess is perhaps you are just seeing color noise from a camcorder recording that could be reduced or eliminated with the often referenced Camcorder Color Denoise (CCD) Virtualdub filter, which excels at removing random bursts of color noise seen in analog video that are not present in the same place in every frame of the video.