Need Advice Please; Shopping for AIW Cards
 

A bit of a challenge in 2011!... After researching most of the info on this site,and searching online & local for any available AIW cards,I found a few things that need to be considered,especially with my cash-strapped budget!..(#1) The card will most likely be used or refurbished, and missing I/O cables & some need power cable too!(@S-Video.com).(#2) What is the return policy of vendor +re-stock fee?ect....So here is what I found so far: (1) AIW x800xt used pullout for $15.00 ,but is AGP ,not PCI according to vendor,would this card run with MMC 9 or so? And how to test it?(no xp system yet).......(2)AIW 7500VE PCI ,(would prefer PCI, is 7500VE compatible with MMC 9 or so? and what is VE?)..wheew!....(3)AIW 9600 PRO NTSC AGP for $125.00..... 7 day return policy,25%re-stock!....(4)Tons of AIW 9600 PRO, but PAL only,can these be "hacked" to NTSC?....(5)A few 2006 edition PCIE & AGP but not MMC compatible? (I'm assuming that no PCIE cards will work with MMC? (6)Some AIW DELL,HP,ect.. cards here and there,Will those type cards work with MMC??....I wonder if I'm crazy for trying to take this on,but my precious home recorded railroad, and garage band vids are whats driving this project on for about 3 years and counting now,so far with dis-appointing results!

Yes, likely used.
Sadly, yes, often missing the breakout box / dongle (the purple wire).
Need power? No, that's doesn't sound correct. The card is powered off the motherboard rails.

Given that the card is used, expect an "all sales final" type scenario. Although on eBay, there is a no-lemon rule for seller.

x800 XT is PCIe, not AGP. Vendor is mistaken. See the full list of ATI AIW card models.

Yes.

Then you can't test it.

It will work with ATI MMC 8. There's really no reason to go for ATI MMC 9.

Price is still lower than new 5 years ago. That's easily the best ATI card ever, too -- the 9600 Pro.

All ATI All In Wonder Radeon cards capture both PAL and NTSC analog. Only the analog tuner is PAL or NTSC. In the post-analog DTV era, that doesn't matter now. It just pulls snow unless you're wanting to record some local religious or government type channel that has a low-power analog license.

All of those work with ATI MMC 9. Again, see the list linked above.

As long as those are ATI All In Wonder Radeon cards, it should work. Long, long ago, around 2001-2003, computer makers like Compaq, HP, Dell and Sony would offer ATI AIW cards in their higher-end systems. The cards actually came as de-boxed retail kits, not OEM. (I don't believe ATI AIW ever came as bare OEM models.)

:)Thanx for the quick reply!Cleared up a lot!!!,I kept mentioning MMC 9,But just want of course the version with video soap and all,which is on your site anyway.Iv'e read the ATI AIW history over and over,and what threw me was part of the text about the PCIE cards being more of a PVR ,not really capturing in mind,and MMC 9.x removing video soap,ect...and mpeg 4,Horrible!....Sounds like I shold grab a 9600 Pro,download MMC from this site,and build an XP system, with AGP Motherboard.....4x or 8x???Single core or dual core???....Better Results than going the (easier?) PCIE card route,and trying to get the PCIE card to work with MMC 8.x????

The later versions of ATI MMC 9.1x (used on the PCIe cards) dropped features like VideoSoap, and changed to a more robust TV guide type program. The hardware was also supposed to better be integrated with Windows Media Center, which is really built around watching DVDs and recording TV shows.

That was available in ATI MMC 8.7, 8.8, 8.9, 9.0 and 9.02, at minimum.

That would work quite well. 4x AGP, single core is safest, dual core can work (but if you follow the recent posts by "rappy", there may be some that do not properly work -- still working on that). XP, 9600 Pro, etc -- great setups. You can capture lossless or uncompressed AVI, or capture DVD-ready MPEG-2, or even sub-broadcast 15-20k quality MPEG-2 (better than DVD or DVB, not quite broadcast).

Video isn't easy. ;)

But this is one of the least painful routes.
If you're simply converting already-good VHS to DVD, then also consider certain LSI-chipset based JVC DVD recorders.