Successful ATI AIW capture box build using Intel Sandy Bridge + Z77!
 

Happy holidays everyone!

So, considering the most highly recommended capture cards here on the site are ATI AIW cards, and require Windows XP, I wanted to take on the challenge of building a dedicated (VHS) capture box using brand-new, up-to-date platform hardware. Obviously this limited me to one of the few AIW cards that was PCI-based instead of AGP-based. The result-- I built a dedicated, working video capture box using the following (key) components:

MSI Z77A-G41 Motherboard (LGA1155 Socket, Z77 Chipset)
Intel Pentium G870 (Top end of Intel's Sandy Bridge Pentiums, Dual-Core @ 3.1GHz)
ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon VE 7500 PCI Edition (Theater 200 Chipset)
Soundblaster Audigy ZS2 soundcard (XP-era card I still have because it's AWESOME)

Other details -- leftover computer case, Corsair CX500 500W PSU, leftover G.Skill 1600MHz 2x2GB Ram.

I installed XP Pro SP3 (forgot I had slipstreamed SP3 into my USB installer, oops), installed ATI drivers, MMC 8.8, and everything is working great!

I should note that I found the 7500 PCI card *brand new in the shrink-wrapped box* on eBay for $37.50 shipped, which was awesome. Upon opening the box, all the accessories were also sealed, disc and manuals were there, so it wasn't re-shrink wrapped or anything.

Anyway, I hooked the analog composite-out from my HD camera into the AIW card, and purposely jerked the camera around quickly to try to produce video errors resulting from fast motion. The recording dropped 0 frames in the 2 minutes I recorded. I'm using the multi-thread HuffYUV codec, capturing to AVI with the settings specified in the "Capture AVI..." guide, except the ones labeled "fastest" i changed to "best."

Next I need to pick a couple of tapes that I know have bad time-base errors, and see if the JVC SR-V10U's TBC cleans up the signal enough to avoid dropped frames, and actually let it run for a significant amount of time... but it's 3AM and I'm going to bed soon.

I hope you guys found this interesting :)

Now, one question -- I'm writing this within Chrome on said machine (yeah, I connected it to the internet... with no virus software. Oops!) When scrolling in the browser, it's very choppy. Same with XP window animations, etc. I tried fiddling with hardware acceleration settings in XP, but they didn't seem to help. Anyone have any suggestions?

XP SP3 doesn't cause any problems on my capture box. Having the right combination of drivers is more important. Your choppiness is likely the ye olde video drivers that came on the MMC 8.8 CD. I fixed the problem by installing the last Catalyst driver revision before ATI switched to the broken unified drivers that the PCIe AIWs require. The capture drivers from the CD remained installed and MMC 8.x still works. I don't have the exact revision handy as that machine is 500 miles away at the moment, but I, recall it being 6.x or so. I certainly don't miss ATI driver hell!

This is good advice.

Thanks,
-JMP

I'll try this out and see if it helps... thanks!

Before I beat my head against the wall... should I go for the 6.12 driver? I found a site that has every ATI driver ever, basically:

http://www.oldapps.com/ati.php

If anyone knows the history of the drivers better than me (JMP?) let me know. Otherwise I'll go ahead with the 6.12 and cross my fingers :)

By the way, I downloaded the 6.12 file from that site and scanned it with AVG... the files appear to be legit/harmless.

I'll get back to you later today with what revision I installed. I honestly forgot about this post since I caught the flu the day after I read it.

I have Catalyst 6.2 installed for the actual video card display drivers, which I think is the last version before ATI went to the "unified" capture driver system (shows up as T200 Unified AVStreamer in device manager and breaks MMC 8.8). For the Rage Theater video capture side, I think I still have the MMC 8.8 distribution drivers installed. They are dated 10/21/2003, version 6.14.10.6227. This setup works perfect with both VirtualDub and ATI MMC 8.8.

The file you are looking for is called "6-2_xp-2k_dd_ccc_wdm_enu_30152.exe". Extract it and cancel any setup programs that start. Manually run the setup.exe in C:\ATI\Support\6-2_xp-2k_dd_ccc_wdm_enu_30152\Driver. This will only install the video driver and leave your capture drivers alone.

Thanks! The past week and a half have been busy but I'll give that a shot tonight.

Certainly know what thats like. I'll actually be in your general neck of the woods most of the week. Ugh, I hate long commutes.

Well, this is weird.

I tried the 6.2 driver... no improvements.

Then... I tried the actual CD that came with my card (since I actually managed to find it new in box, it had the CD). Works great! I just assumed that since the disc had MMC 7.x on it, everything on there was useless... for my particular case, I guess the packaged graphics driver was the best one. Go figure.