ATI All In Wonder Radeon 7500 PCI for SECAM?

[autephex]

Have been reading a ton of information on this site, extremely helpful and appreciated

I am in the midst of putting together a video capture system for some PAL & SECAM VHS tapes, and was wondering if anyone could verify that the ATI AIW Radeon 7500 PCI card would do the job (specifically for SECAM) ?

Also is there any disadvantage to getting the PCI card versus AGP, in regards to video capture?

Thanks

[autephex]

Also, I already have an adapter cable for video input on ATI cards - its a grey cable with RCA & SVideo inputs on the end. Is this cable good enough for capturing video or is the purple box better to use?

(I understand the Radeon 7500 will work with either, just thought that the breakout box may give better quality)

[sanlyn]

Outputting proper video from SECAM or PAL source is up to the player, not to the capture card. I understand that SECAM is a telecast standard, not a tape manufacturing standard -- if I'm wrong, corrections here are accepted.

The 7500 comes in separate versions for NTSC and PAL -- no 7500 can handle both, it's one or the other. The purple dongle is used to connect one end to the card, the purple box at the other end accepts a/v connections from a player.

I don't know what the gray box and cable is that you mention, maybe it's an SCART adapter for European source players that terminates in component or composite a/v connections. You can't insert that directly into the capture card. If it's actually a simple, passive, non-electronic s-video "converter", it's worthless.

[msgohan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanlyn

Outputting proper video from SECAM or PAL source is up to the player, not to the capture card.

The VCR needs to output the correct signal, but the capture card also has to be able to decode the video standard or the video will be garbled, black & white, etc. For DirectShow, the Video Standard is chosen from among the driver's supported list using the Capture Filter properties.



(The image is from the VC500's options, not the 7500's, just for the record. I have no idea what that card supports.)

[autephex]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanlyn

Outputting proper video from SECAM or PAL source is up to the player, not to the capture card. I understand that SECAM is a telecast standard, not a tape manufacturing standard -- if I'm wrong, corrections here are accepted.

I've got a Panasonic AG-W1 on the way, which can play & output NTSC/SECAM/PAL, as well as convert between each format. So I could output an NTSC or PAL video from a SECAM tape, but would obviously rather use the original SECAM format instead of using poor VCR conversion.

The tape in question is definitely a (retail) SECAM VHS from France, very old tape. As far as I've researched, there is conflicting info on what SECAM specification is used for these French tapes, whether SECAM-L or SECAM-B, but it is SECAM.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanlyn

The 7500 comes in separate versions for NTSC and PAL -- no 7500 can handle both, it's one or the other.

Are you sure about that? According to a response in this thread from kpmedia, regarding what cards are capable of capturing SECAM signals:

Quote:

Originally Posted by kpmedia

The only cards I know of off-hand are the ATI All In Wonder Radeon series (PCI, AGP, PCI-Express) video capturing cards, as based on the Rage Theatre and Theatre 200 chipsets, and when using ATI MMC or VirtualDub for capturing the video.

The specific model of this card is: ATI All-In-Wonder VE Radeon 7500 64MB (P/N: 102A0290100), and it does use the Rage Theatre chipset.

lordsmurf said in this thread:

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

The ATI All In Wonder (ATI AIW) cards are compatible with PAL and SECAM.
- Windows XP required (for now )

...

For PAL/SECAM VHS content, I would always choose the ATI All In Wonder cards

And this thread also mentions AIW cards accepting SECAM input:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-capture/3203-ati-wonder-cards.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanlyn

The purple dongle is used to connect one end to the card, the purple box at the other end accepts a/v connections from a player. I don't know what the gray box and cable is that you mention, maybe it's an SCART adapter for European source players that terminates in component or composite a/v connections. You can't insert that directly into the capture card. If it's actually a simple, passive, non-electronic s-video "converter", it's worthless.

I know how the dongle works, just wondering how the cable adapter which connects the same way and for the same function compares regarding quality.

The part number for this grey adapter is ATI 6110004900, and you can see what I am talking about here:
http://www.svideo.com/4head.html

I have one from my old AIW Radeon 7200 card. In any case, I've gone ahead and ordered the purple box.

[sanlyn]

I'd always heard that a PAL/SECAM player would output standard PAL. If you guys say so, then I've learned something. Thanks for the input. Now all you need is a TV that that can display SECAM.

[autephex]

It depends on the VCR, but the panasonic AG W1 lets you select between NTSC/PAL/SECAM for both input and output, and can also convert between all 3 formats on the fly.

I'm not worried about playing on a TV, only capturing the Secam video on computer by playing it back in original Secam output. Once captured digitally, the format of secam becomes irrelevant

[themaster1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by autephex

The tape in question is definitely a (retail) SECAM VHS from France, very old tape. As far as I've researched, there is conflicting info on what SECAM specification is used for these French tapes, whether SECAM-L or SECAM-B, but it is SECAM.

retail tapes: secam-B
tv broadcasts: secam-L

I've said it in a thread before (i'm in france so i ought to know..)

[autephex]

thanks for that, themaster1

very hard to find this info on the net

[sanlyn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by themaster1

retail tapes: secam-B
tv broadcasts: secam-L

I've said it in a thread before (i'm in france so i ought to know..)

Thanx for the update, themaster1.

[NJRoadfan]

Poor SECAM landed up with two different incompatible tape storage formats. "Native SECAM" (SECAM-L) VCRs didn't make it out of France outside of multi-format playback decks. The rest of the SECAM markets got MESECAM (SECAM-B) decks instead.

[msgohan]

From what I've been reading, MESECAM isn't related to SECAM-B technically.