digitalFAQ.com Forum - ATI All In Wonder 7500/9600 vs ATI 600 USB

Quote:

Originally Posted by TaranScorp

These new units you are recommending the ATI 600 USB, are they better in capturing then my Trusty AIW AGP 7500 card and ATI AIW AGP 9600XT card. I haven't heard of these new USB capture devices but if you can capture higher quality VHS to AVI I might buy one.
Thanks, Rich aka TaranScorp

For most things, the ATI 600 USB and ATI All In Wonder Radeon class cards perform the same. Here's a quick rundown for you...

BOTH cards can:

Capture NTSC MPEG-2 at DVD-Video resolutions and bitrates, with or without matting of the overscan area, using the supplied ATI software (MMC for AIW, CMC for 600).
Capture NTSC MPEG-2 at low-end broadcast resolutions and bitrates (in the 12-20Mbps range), using the supplied ATI software.
Capture NTSC or PAL AVI, using VirtualDub. Note that the 600 takes a few extra non-obvious steps for setting up the capture, as it defaults to NTSC, and PAL settings must be manually input.

The ATI 600 CANNOT do these things, but the ATI AIW cards can:

Capture PAL MPEG-2, DVD-Video or non-DVD (broadcast specs)
Capture AVI with the supplied ATI software
Video Soap clean-up filtering with ATI software

The ATI 600 can do these things, but the ATI AIW cannot:

Work in Windows Vista and Windows 7

Conclusion: So I'd have to say that the 600 will not be an upgrade, in terms of having better video quality. My biggest interest in the ATI 600 card has been portablility. I can move it between multiple computers, including Vista and Win7 systems.

Important and slightly related information...

The ATI All In Wonder Radeon cards were marked by series 7000, 7200, 7500, 8500, 9000, 9200, 9500, 9600, 9800, 2006 SE ... and probably few others I'm forgeting. Some of the first 7000 series cards were available in PCI, but the rest were all AGP slot cards. A few of the last AGP cards were 8x slot cards only, worked in fewer systems, like the 2006SE. The 7000 series cards used the Theatre 100 (Rage Theatre) chipset, while the 9000 series cards used the Theatre 200 chipset. The 200 chipset had somewhat better MPEG recording quality, maybe 5-10% at most. It was simply more efficient at the GPU processing on-card.

The ATI USB 600 card uses (I believe), the Theatre 500 chipset. Of course, newer doesn't mean better -- it just means it was created/built at a later date.

Hope that clarifies things for you! :)

Honestly, I'd still buy an ATI 600 card. It's nice to have.
Get one for under $50 shipped at Amazon right now, great price: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B00138EOH8

Thanks.

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