ATI All In Wonder Hacks, Drivers, Codecs and MMC

[Deeg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

That card pre-dates the Radeon/Theatre, and is completely useless by even legacy standards. It was already obsolete 15 years ago. That's not what you want for video capture.

Ah well, it's worth the 75 cents I paid for it for the cables then. Thanks for the super quick response!

[kb5050]

Whats truly Amazing is you CAN still get one of these on AMAZON.
Mine after XX years, is hanging on with a swapped out cooler fan, and the socket and plug have a slight glitch, and both pins were broken. I hold it on using a couple of paper clips and a little jiggle and keep my VGA1 socket propped into the right position and held on by faith.

Anyhow this amazing card is offset by several flaws, by today's modern version.

Among the failures, is the FM tuner. While it works, it has incredibly horrible tuning ability, having to alter all of the frequency steps. I think that is because the software, was meant for even i.e. 100.2 100.4 etc, when American standard is odd steps. 100.1 100.3 100.5 etc. Also the auto set function does not work, around a computer device, and so at best it sort of works. Volume on both the TV and FM portions is also low in the LIVE modes. So thats about all in the hardware dept that they never got right with it.

Now in the software dept, it is iffy getting the capture driver and audio drivers to install. Yes I know your supposed to install them in a particular order. Catalyst first, then WDC components, then UCI components, and then MMC components.

I had the 8.8 version, that worked good, when done from the CD, but alas it BROKE on me, cracked, and although I thought I had made a copy of it, which works except for the DVD decode part (who cares about that).

Also before doing anything, you MUST have a properly working sound card, so be sure that works or nothing will install right.
There are advantages to a better sound card, such as to use SB Live or even better Turtle Beach Santa Cruz or Montego card, or really any sound card that has an extra line in jack. But a simple sound card is ok.

The one area you do want to focus on first configures the display driver, and if you're hooking up the Composite or Svideo TO a TV set, then get all the display stuff adjusting, and configuring, and turning on the TV display first. That sets up things that help the TV and Capture part to work properly.

Known fact that you have to do a Custom install for MMC8. Number one that Hydravision I do not care for, Guide PLUS is also no longer functional which is a shame considering how awesome it was.
Despite that you uncheck EasyShare, you end up having to be either client or server, so I usually check Server, since it's not likely you will have 2 of these cards in the same household.

I do NOT reccomend running the SETUP on the main to let it autoinstall everything. I DO reccomend manually doing each of the 4 parts, and rebooting between each step, and then to pray that the capture driver is loaded before MMC is able to install, or then you will have to fix capture driver.

Can see if there are nothing popped out in Device Manager underneath Sound Card area.

So after you do get it all going, the one thing that still is messed up, is that even when attempting TV recording, is that some Over The Air Analog Cable channels, if you happen to have older Analog cable, will still shut down due to Macrovision. So because the whole feature of being able to schedule (like Tivo) your recordings, it all gets killed because of Macrovision.

If you want to record OTA digital then Walmart sells a box, for 20 bucks, that you stick a Flash Drive onto, and just use that to schedule and record.

On the 9600 card, I found the dll file swap was the only one that MIGHT work.
hit or miss on that. Sadly VCR tape is still faulty, so finding a VCR that goes past that. You will not have problems with home camcorder movies, even 8mm. Only with the commercial movies.

Quite frankly is your sole purpose was to convert them, then for all the aggravation that AIW will cause you, your better off to purchase an Easy Cap, USB stick, but also grab version 4.0 of the VHS to DVD software as it has much better functions for larger media DL layer and Macrovision is NOT an issue with those adapters, and you will get far better results.

[sanlyn]

I disagree with most of this, for reasons mainly dealing mainly with apparently not having lesrned to use your AIW at its best, starting here:

Quote:

Originally Posted by kb5050

Now in the software dept, it is iffy getting the capture driver and audio drivers to install. Yes I know your supposed to install them in a particular order. Catalyst first, then WDC components, then UCI components, and then MMC components.

Iincorrect order.

I haven't used MMC since 2000, would never use it to capture lossless, and its player never kept up with the times. So anyone who would buy an AIW and use it for radio tuner or DVD set-top recorder would never get past the noob stage. I figure if you're using MMC to capture VHS to lossy codecs it was a total waste of a great capture card. The remark about trading in for an EZCap was probably the funniest part of your post. Have your eyes examined first, and if you score really low on the eye test you're probably ready for an EZCap. My 9600XT can stomp the guts out of an EZCap any time.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kb5050

a swapped out cooler fan

I hate the buzzy little fans on AIW, and usually ripped them off the card. The heatsink was plenty adequate, especially when the case had decent cooling.

Quote:

Anyhow this amazing card is offset by several flaws
Among the failures, is the FM tuner.

You don't buy an ATI AIW card to turn it into a radio. That was a dumb feature for AIW cards. Ignore it.

Quote:

Now in the software dept, it is iffy getting the capture driver and audio drivers to install. Yes I know your supposed to install them in a particular order. Catalyst first, then WDC components, then UCI components, and then MMC components.

1. display driver
2. WDM (or Catalyst)
3. MMC

You can actually skip everything else. A few older MMC versions forced the UCI (MDAC/DAO), as did the PCIe MMC 9.1, but most allow skipping.

Quote:

Also before doing anything, you MUST have a properly working sound card, so be sure that works or nothing will install right.

Everything will install just fine. MMC may not launch, and VirtualDub will just be mute.

Quote:

or really any sound card that has an extra line in jack. But a simple sound card is ok.

Not really.

Quote:

Known fact that you have to do a Custom install for MMC8. Number one that Hydravision I do not care for, Guide PLUS is also no longer functional
Despite that you uncheck EasyShare

Correct. Don't do "automatic", do custom. Only install the ATI MMC recording/TV/VIVO (has different names for different versions). Uncheck everything else, don't install it.

Quote:

I do NOT reccomend running the SETUP on the main to let it autoinstall everything. I DO reccomend manually doing each of the 4 parts, and rebooting between each step

I agree, but this is complicated. It only works with a disc anyway, and those discs are getting harder to find. And many are dated, using old drivers that should not be used anymore. I want to update the first post of this thread after I finish the glossary entries.

Quote:

and then to pray that the capture driver is loaded before MMC is able to install, or then you will have to fix capture driver.

I don't get this part. I test WDM via VirtualDub these days. MMC only after it works.

Quote:

if you happen to have older Analog cable

I've not seen analog cable in 8 years now. Everything has been digital cable for a long time.

Quote:

will still shut down due to Macrovision. So because the whole feature of being able to schedule (like Tivo) your recordings, it all gets killed because of Macrovision.

I like to record MLB from the local Fox on cable (usually because the game runs late, I'm tired, so just record it to watch in the morning). It has some nasty anti-copy. I chain the output of the cable box to an AVT-8710, and then into a DVD recorder. No issues.

Quote:

If you want to record OTA digital then Walmart sells a box, for 20 bucks, that you stick a Flash Drive onto, and just use that to schedule and record.

Great. Do that. It's not a task for an ATI AIW card, and never was.

Quote:

On the 9600 card, I found the dll file swap was the only one that MIGHT work.
hit or miss on that. Sadly VCR tape is still faulty, so finding a VCR that goes past that. You will not have problems with home camcorder movies, even 8mm. Only with the commercial movies.

Buy a TBC. Video is too chaotic to try and capture without one, regardless of the source.
FYI, I have some available in the marketplace forum.

Quote:

Quite frankly is your sole purpose was to convert them, then for all the aggravation that AIW will cause you, your better off to purchase an Easy Cap

No. Bad advice.

Analogy: You want to race. But that big muscle car is "too hard" to maintain, "too expensive", etc. So do you instead by a Honda Civic, and proclaim it better? Of course not. At least not without being laughed at, along with an eye roll. It's a low-quality tool for the task, and doesn't provide the needed quality at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanlyn

I haven't used MMC since 2000, would never use it to capture lossless, and its player never kept up with the times.

MMC was v6 in 2000, terrible software.
- v7 was somewhat better, but lacking. v8 pre-8.7 mostly v7 improvements.
- v8.7 was truly new ATI MMC, lasting into 9.0.x versions.
- v9.1 gutted MMC, and then was ended.
So you can't compare 2000 to now, or even to 2005.

Nor should you even bother looking at the non-input/TV/recording/VIVO part of MMC. The player, DVD players, etc, was all decent for it's day, but quaint since the rise of VLC. Remember, back then, we suffered from Windows Media Player and payware DVD players (PowerDVD usually).

Quote:

I figure if you're using MMC to capture VHS to lossy codecs it was a total waste of a great capture card.

There's nothing wrong with lossy-format MPEG work.

[sanlyn]

Agreed mostly with lordsmurf, but I hasten to add; When i bought my Toshiba RD-XS34 DVD recorders I immediately realized how inferior MMC was even at high MMC bitrates (I don't mean "bad", I just mean "less good"). I fail to see how a card that small and low-powered could compete with a good set top machine for MPEG capture. Of course at the same time there were several other very crappy DVD recorders from other makers, which MMC could outdo. I just had very little use for MMC, especially after seeing what could be done with lossless captures.

Lossy MPEG from VHS can be good enough for many people, I guess. I captured a couple of taps that way. But I discarded the tapes, and today I'm sorry I did.

[lordsmurf]

The XS34 was not perfect. It had issues of its own, namely off-value IRE like most other recorders of the time. In thi conversation, "MMC" doesn't matter. You're comparing the Theatre chips to the Toshiba's (not Zoran, forget offhand what it had).

I still have XS34/35/36 discs when I tested with gshelley at VH. The finer details were cleaner that ATI AIW, but the fix was bitrate. A 15mbit stomps an XP mode Toshiba disc, which wasn't even 10mbit at the highest VBR peaks. The LSI was arguably cleaner that Toshiba, especially when chroma filtering VHS tapes, though fine detail/sharpness was the tradeoff. The XS32/34/35/36 has some interesting cleaning filters, but was weak on chroma.

But that conversation is somewhat derailing this thread, being about ATI AIW drivers/hacks.

[Tigershark78]

Hallo Admin,

i found a Rage II AIW Card and a Rage Pro PCI AIW Card for my Retro-PC-Project on Ebay. Unfortunaly the Driver-CDs are unreadable scratched. Can you help me please?
The First CD got the Number: 180-G01005-314 and the second one 180-G01023-524.

Greetings from Germany
Tigershark

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tigershark78

Hallo Admin,
i found a Rage II AIW Card and a Rage Pro PCI AIW Card for my Retro-PC-Project on Ebay. Unfortunaly the Driver-CDs are unreadable scratched. Can you help me please?
The First CD got the Number: 180-G01005-314 and the second one 180-G01023-524.
Greetings from Germany
Tigershark

Those two cards are too old, and do not use the Theatre chipsets.
Not suggested.
Not quality.

The ATI AIW 128 (16mb) and AIW 128 Pro (32mb) PCI are the oldest cards with Theatre chips. I do have the CDs for those, if ever anybody needs them. However, those pre-Radeon cards can be quirky, especially with WinXP.

[rwilli]

This may be the wrong place to post this but it is ATI AIW related.
Wow, I didn't think anyone was still using AIW cards. Thanks for this forum and all of the information and downloads provided.

I have a home built system built around Intel Q6600 CPU, 4g ram and an AIW HD PCI 3600 series Radeon with 512m. It's obviously an older system but has served it's purpose well used mainly for TV and some time shifting as well as web browsing and MS Office. I had been running on 32 bit Vista Ultimate but with MS no longer supporting

I recently upgraded to 32 bit Win 7 Ultimate. (motherboard doesn't support 64bit) With the Win 7 install the AIW tuner stopped working .

I tried to find software but nothing worked or was specifically available for Win 7 so reinstalled the drivers from the original CD. This worked OK once I had the WDM drivers installed. I'm now using Windows MC with both analog and digital inputs from cable. I previously had to use the Catalyst Media Center since Vista Media Center didn't see the digital tuner. Win 7 definitely an improvement there.

I'm half afraid to try to update drivers as the newer old drivers seem to cause issues.

Although I'm pretty sure there are newer drivers out there that will work on Win 7.

The WDM/Unified AV Stream driver I'm currently running is 6.14.10.299. The Radeon driver is 8.56.1.16 (from windows update with another available). I'm going to look at the files you have on post 48, see what I can come up.

[lordsmurf]

The AIW HD PCI 3600 does not have the Theatre Rage/200 chipsets, so nothing in this thread or others would apply. That's a different card, different generation. Compared to the AIW cards discussed here, it's new. The HD PCIe cards are based off the inferior Theatre 650 chipsets, which had known issues with AGC. Because of the AGC flaws, the cards are unusable for video.

It's amusing to me:
Two posts up, the card was too old.
This past post, the card was too new.
You much pay close attention to the card models/chipsets, and locate the Goldilocks cards.

[rwilli]

That’s interesting. I guess I don’t try to use all the features either good or bad. It does TV video and recording I use some while at the computer.
Still think it’s good to see all the posts and info for the AIW. I didn’t read all the posts just first 5 and last page. Although old and outdated nobody is making an all in one anymore. I’m sure there are other solutions but then I would have to find something else to toy with.
From the first post it appears post 48 has the newest old files for the AIW HD? Maybe I should leave it alone since it works. Nah .
I have an AGP system stashed away. It had a TV tuner capture card built around Nvidia graphics. I may have to look at getting an older AIW to put in it to see what I can do with it just because.
Maybe I’ll get some of my VHS tapes on to DVD.
Thanks

[ExUSAF_AV]

I have the ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 7500 card I bought years ago and it used a dongle to input the S-Video. I've read this thread and especially admin's input about the ATI All-In-Wonder installation CD 181-G01116-110, which I downloaded. However, I noticed this CD has no drivers for anything after Windows 2000. Now I do have a Windows 2000 Disc and have the hardware to recreate this setup but are there any drivers for Windows XP since I do have an existing Windows XP machine and I'm not sure Windows 2000 supports SATA drives?

[sanlyn]

The drivers on Disc 181-G01116-110 worked for Win2K and WinXP and the 7500 AGP (XP used the W2K code base).

You can mount SATA drives with W2k and XP but the motherboard will force you to use them in IDE mode. There are no SATA drivers for w2K/XP AFAIK.

[NJRoadfan]

SATA drives work fine in Windows 2000. AHCI controllers are supported on later motherboards too.

[sanlyn]

I've never seen AHCI drivers for W2K or XP, but it's possible that some motherboard maker somewhere could be including them. Meanwhile I've built three XP PCs of my own with SATA drives in IDE mode that are working well.

[lordsmurf]

My AIW systems all have AHCI and SATA2. It's a motherboard feature/limitation, and chipset drivers, not OS.

[sanlyn]

I guess I built my Biostar and Gigabyte XP's a little early in the transition period. But no working problems so far.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ExUSAF_AV

I have the ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 7500 card I bought years ago and it used a dongle to input the S-Video. I've read this thread and especially admin's input about the ATI All-In-Wonder installation CD 181-G01116-110, which I downloaded. However, I noticed this CD has no drivers for anything after Windows 2000. Now I do have a Windows 2000 Disc and have the hardware to recreate this setup but are there any drivers for Windows XP since I do have an existing Windows XP machine and I'm not sure Windows 2000 supports SATA drives?

Only WinXP should be attempted with ATI AIW. Don't waste time on 2k/98/ME/etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanlyn

I guess I built my Biostar and Gigabyte XP's a little early in the transition period. But no working problems so far.

After 2013, I built these for myself:

• AGP card on an Asrock board from 2008, Intel dual-core, 4gb RAM, 1tb+2tb capture space. It's still a costly board, ~$100 used when you find it.
• PCI card on high-end motherboard from around 2012, Intel dual-core, 4gb RAM, 2tb capture space. This system wasn't an easy build, took me months.

Before my 2012 health issues, I'd been running multiple IDE and SATA (using IDE) systems. Several of those boards came out in 2008 as well, so I know exactly what you're talking about. The transition lasted from about 2005-2010, and what board did what (with what drivers) really varied. It got worse when you tried to moved HDD from an old system to new, OS balks at AHCI changes.

Video capture itself is fine on both IDE and SATA. My main wants for SATA2 was transfer speed, as I do final pass work on my Skylake build.

[AwesomeMarioFan]

Hi,

I have two ATI TV Wonder Pro PCI cards - on one system that I have I was able to get everything installed properly after a few hours of trial and error - but I ended up having to use the version of ATI Multimedia Center that came on the installation CD (8.2) versus the newer version (9.16). It was giving me an error saying to check the video driver in windows. The older MMC version also gave me this error, until I installed the video driver, but this did not work for the newer version. Is this a known problem with newer versions of MMC?

Also, the other system I have runs Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, and when trying to install everything from the CD, the installation goes fine until the MMC part. At this point it comes up with the "Preparing for installation" window, then exits completely without installing MMC. Is it possible that it can't see the device correctly? This error occurred with my other system as well until I reinstalled windows completely, but I was looking to avoid doing that again.

One more side question - what are the best settings to record with when using MMC? I was thinking of using MPEG2 set to DVD quality with deinterlacing enabled, but wasn't sure if this was the best option.

[digitgls2]

Re: ATI All-In-Wonder installation CD 180-V01084-100 parts 01-14 for the 9000-series ATI AIW Radeon AGP cards

Thank you for these archives! I noticed that all of the downloads (parts 01-13, 32 MB each)) have the same files and the same ATIsetup.exe - 526 files, 71 folders, 650 MB (681,585,370 bytes), even part 14, which is listed as having only 19.32 MB in the original RAR, also seems to have the exact same files. Are these simply mirrors? Thanks again - Scotty