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Diamond ATI TV Wonder 600 PCI can use 600 USB drivers?

I was able to get a hold of a few of the Diamond ATI TV Wonder 600 PCI cards. I have read many older posts about installing the Diamond ATI TV Wonder 600 Tuner USB 2.0 in newer systems.

I am just wondering if the Diamond ATI TV Wonder 600 Tuner USB 2.0 drivers will work for the PCI version?

I am attempting to install the card in a Win 7 x64 system.

Any thoughts or help appreciated.

The 600 PCI is a terrible card, using AMD-era crappy Theatre 500/550/600/650 chipset (major AGC issues, picture constantly and randomly changes brightness), completely different from 600 USB.

Different chips entirely.

Drivers for USB do not work at all for PCI.

I see.

After reading several post on the site that the ATI and DIAMOND where essentially the same thing but just rebranded. I thought @jwillis and @sanlyn mentioned it diffrent posts.

- ATI 600 USB
- Diamond ATI 600 USB
- and one other rebadger, forget name offhand, ATI 600 USB

^ Different boxes, paperwork, but hardware identical, even down to ATI logos on stick.

Never PCI.

ATI had several time periods where they made chips, did not make chips and then went back to making chips.

The three "digit" numbers were not specific to a particular time period and were not issued linearly.

Its very complex.

The ATI 600 USB was a time period when they used a Texas Instruments video capture chip and was well regarded.

The ATI 600 PCI was a time period when they went back to making their own chips and using them, but came after the time period when they were using the famous T200 - Theater 200 chip which ATI did make.

The ATI 600 PCI was a non-hardware based video capture chip with reportedly unstable tv tuner. It was very simple by comparison to what came before or after and came at a time when they were trying to incorporate the PCI bus functions into the same video capture chip to save money.. it was very experimental.

You have to understand that ATI (was) a chip company that developed hardware chips, then it got bought by AMD and kind of mismanaged and driven by its marketing department after that. The chips they did make after the T200 were mostly for the home consumer cable box market and not really well received.. and not great for video capture.

During the same time period as the cable box period they also brought in chips like from Texas Instruments for their PCI, PCI express and USB products and gave them all sorts of model numbers. The ATI 200 for example used an old Brooktree Fusion 878a chip for video capture. Understanding it.. or comprehending ATI takes a lot of work.

Its best to look at a simplified chart or 'Buyers Guide' rather than try to figure it out for yourself unless you really want to become a historian on the subject.

There are very few "good" video capture cards or usb devices that will work with Window 7, 10 or beyond.. and they are well known and bought up very quickly.

For the most part, for video capture.. its cheaper and best to start with a Windows XP SP2 computer and find a video capture card or usb device that works with Windows XP SP2. People do not tend to hang on to them and will sell them online when they are done transferring.. its a regular pass over economy to the next user.

Forcing.. or trying to out smart everyone else to make a perfect Windows 10 capture computer these days is just "nuts" if for no other reason than all of the Security updates which constantly break and de-supports any Windows 10 hardware drivers.. that "used to work".

That said:

Window 10-1909 is the current edition.. 2019 edition, nine versions down the road from the original Windows 10.

Windows 10 today is not the Windows 10 your grandpa used ten years ago.

Just because they don't update the model number doesn't mean its does not "different" under the hood.

Many things that "may" have worked on Windows 10 in 2014 just won't work or even install on Windows 10-1909

If you want to play with Windows 10 you have to "pick a version" and kill all Updates.. to prevent it from lobotomizing itself over night when your not looking.

Windows 10 is "special" its a bit like the name "iPhone".. it might be SE1-2016 or SE2-2020.. you won't know without looking very closely.

I’m not doing any AIW / ATI on Windows 10. I have several capture cards for Win 10 that work fine.

I thought you were talking about the TV Wonder in a post in 2017. Might that have been the USB version?

"TV Wonder" was a branding name like Radeon. And it existed for at least a decade. The AIW was the premium product, and TV Wonder was always lower end. Mostly junk, but the ATI 600 USB and ATI "AIW" USB were the only exceptions. The PCI "TV Wonders" were universally crap, starting with the low-end BT/Connexant chips in the 90s. (Even the early AIW non-Radeon have BT/CX, but were dropped by 99/2000 for Theatre Rage/100.)

Similar to VCRs, where any JVC doesn't work, neither does any ATI. Models matter.

I hate that you misread advice, got the wrong item. :(

It happens.

I know I saw post, where I believe @sanlyn, was discussing with somebody about the Diamond ATI TVwonder USB / PCI as an alternative to the preferred cards.

I cant seem to find it now!! :mad4:

trying to go through my browser history is time consuming.

Gosh

Buckets of words could be written over the individual models of ATI AIW and TV Wonders.. and probably should be written.. its a mine field for people pouring over what left these days.

Best advice.. if you find something and its not an exact match for something "recommended" .. then its better to pass on buying it.

1. ATI or AMD
2. AIW or TV Wonder
3. xxx model number
4. PCI/USB/PCIe

All of these matter, pay very close attention to them.

As LordSmurf says.. there was (one) and only (one) exception to the rule for the - TV Wonder -

That was the [ ATI TV Wonder USB2.0N ] it had a genuine Theater 200 chip in it, it goes by shorter names when people get talking fast.. and people confuse it with other USB boxes and dongles that carry the ATI and AMD names.

Its the big gray box (really big) with the Giant "Red" ATI logo on top.

Its gotten quite rare, so finding one is not that common.

I have never found one that was truly broken, although installing the drivers can be trickey for some people.

One person reported a broken one on these forums that I never got my hands on to see if it was really broken.

I suppose the ATI 600 USB could be a TV wonder.. I would have to check to be sure. But it rarely goes by that name, by that time branding things TV wonder had fallen out of favor.

Generally a TV wonder simply did not have an ATI graphics display chip in it.

So the ATI 600, ATI 650, ATI 700, ATI 750 USB variants (could be) called TV wonders.

The idea was a TV wonder was a TV Tuner.. that also captured video.. many TV tuner cards and usb devices did not have plain video inputs.. hence I guess the "wonder" part of the name. (:smirk)

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwillis84 (Post 68305)

I have never found one that was truly broken,

My very first copy of it was overheating, and the card was bad. At first, I thought all models were this way. All copies do overheat, but not to that extent, not that quickly.

It's still not perfect, the audio is slightly degraded, along the lines of the SoundBlaster cards. It's no Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (but of course, what is?) But hard to beat for USB version of AIW, especially when you want to use more modern non-AGP/PCI hardware, using another graphics cards (not AIW PCIe, which has yet more issues than the AIW USB).

Quote:

One person reported a broken one on these forums that I never got my hands on to see if it was really broken.

Seeing as how it was one of my tested known-working cards, it was either shipping snafu, or user error. And I heavily lean towards it being user errors, as a language barrier existed.

Quote:

I suppose the ATI 600 USB could be a TV wonder..

It is. "ATI TV Wonder HD 600 USB" -- but I have no idea what is "HD" about it. :screwy:
Even more wordy: "Diamond AMD ATI TV Wonder HD 600 USB 2.0"

Quote:

TV wonder was a TV Tuner.. that also captured video..

Sometimes, maybe, if it felt so inclined. :laugh:

I knew I would find it!! :)

Here is the thread where @sanlyn describes "recommended alternates for non-AGP systems:" Post #6

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanlyn (Post 42694)

Welcome to digitalFAQ. :salute:

I assume you've been through the forum's capture guides. There are several parts to the guides shown on this page: http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video.htm. The VHS to digital business starts with the heading "Video Capturing / Concept Guides" That section includes
- "Introduction to Capturing & Recording Video"
- "Understanding Your Source"
- "Playback Hardware Suggestions (VCRs and TBCs)" and a couple of other chapters.

Farther down near the middle of the page at http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video.htm is an important section under the heading "Restore Video". There is only one chapter: "Introduction to Restoring Video". While it's basic intro-only, I suggest you take a look before deciding on the method and equipment you want to use for capture.

Many don't bother with restoration. What they get is noise-infested video that's annoying to watch. They blame results on VHS itself. That blame is partially justified, but what's more at fault is either bad post-processing or no post-processing. Anyone who thinks VHS is supposed to look horrible is either uninformed or simply accepting of low graphics standards. People often won't accept a bad or sloppy photo print or a bad wedding album job from a drug store or photographer without asking for a re-work or a refund. But they accept low quality video work from their own PC's and blame it entirely on the tape. Poor results aren't exclusive to analog sources: we've seen plenty of digital sources that were damaged or ruined using poor transfer and processing methods.

You didn't mention what player you use to play your tapes. Good quality begins with the player, not elsewhere. The quality of the player affects all subsequent operations.

"Out-of-print" suggests retail movie tapes or old TV series. I still have about 15 remaining from my old collection (I saved the worst for last, so I guess I still have some work ahead LOL!). Video based on movie film sources, which includes a lot of TV shows, involves Macrovision. Not all retail tapes are copy protected. Those that are, require a frame-level external tbc. The frame tbc is inserted between the player and the capture device. For analog tape you'll also need another type of tbc, called a line-level tbc. A line tbc is either built into the player or inserted after the player and before the frame tbc.

The type of TBC's referred to are not found as "cards". The capture device you linked to will "work", in that it will create a relatively low quality lossy encoded video that will look as bad or worse than the original tape (usually worse), and in an interframe format designed for final delivery, not for damage-free edits and certainly not for post-cleanup.

The prime VHS capture cards recommended in this forum and elsewhere are the ATI All In Wonder line of AGP cards. You can get better if you're willing to spend 4 figures on something else. They won't work in Linux, which is a limited OS for restoration. We know that AGP motherboards are really scarce, so there is a list of recommended alternates for non-AGP systems:
- Hauppauge 610 USB2 capture stick ~$50
- ATI TV Wonder HD 600 USB2 capture stick ~$50-100
- ATI TV Wonder HD 600 PCI capture card (aka Diamond ATI TV Wonder HD 600 PCI capture card ~$50-100
- ATI TV Wonder HD 650 PCI capture card aka Diamond ATI TV Wonder HD 650 PCI capture card ~$50-100 (not the USB versions! Stay away from the USB versions of these products. Consider yourself warned).

For frame-level external tbc's, two that are easiest to find are the AVT-8710 and the TBC-1000. No TBC is perfect. Their function is to clean the frame sync timing to avoid dropped or inserted frames and to maintain correct audio sync. They also defeat Macrovision. There are other frame tbc's around, many of them well-used shop-level units that require expertise and advanced support hardware.

The other type of tbc that is essential is a line-level tbc, either built-in with higher-end VCR's or found in pass-thru units that are almost as effective. You'll find many threads that discuss products used as pass-thru line tbc's. They will not undo Macrovision. Their function is to correct the line-by-line output within individual video frames. Bad scanline timing creates geometric distortion and other obvious problems due to irregular scanline output. This problem can't be fixed with frame-level tbc's, nor is there any way possible to fix them after capture.

The question often asked is "Can I just capture without the line tbc foolishness and still get good results? No, you can't. And the older and worse the tape, the worse are the problems. Scanline errors are not rare; they're as common as VHS tape noise, which looks worse without a line tbc.

Below are links to 2 samples of scanline errors. The tape was played with a non-tbc VCR. While the bad demo looks like a severe case, it's not as uncommon as you'd think. This sort of top-border flagging and frame slippage happens often with old tapes. Some tapes will play without this severity, some won't.
- A1_Sample2_bad.mpg is the original capture encoded to MPEG, with frame size slightly reduced to prevent TV overscan from hiding some of the problems.

- B1_Sample2_fix.mpg is the tape played with a line tbc pass-thru device.The "fixed" sample shown is a first-stage test repair with only basic denoising, improved afterwards with a better VCR, but here addressing only specific issues. The tape is no longer available.

A less severe but more common example of line "wiggles" produced by typical scanline errors is here: http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/3...=1#post1882662.

For the best results in the entire workflow from capture to repair, to color correction, thru edits, timeline, encoding, authoring, burning to disc, VHS is captured via a device designed for analog sources. It is captured to lossless YUY2 digital media using lossless compressors like huffyuv or Lagarith to reduce file size. The audio portion is captured as uncompressed PCM. Lossless encoding means just what it says: lossless. You can modify a losslessly compressed video, make all kinds of changes to it, and recompress it without the damage inflicted by lossy re-encoding. Encoding to lossy formats (DVD, BluRay, AVCHD, and lossy encoded containers such as mp4, mkv, etc.) are the very last step in the conversion process.

An important question to ask yourself: what are my expectations? VHS captured to any digital media still looks like VHS. It doesn't look like DVD. Nor is it "improved" by directly encoding it to a digital format like DVD -- encoding noisy VHS directly to lossy encoded MPEG or h.264 often looks worse than the original. You get the original VHS noise and defects, plus added to it are digital compression artifacts caused by that noise. In any case, it can't look better than the original. But it can be vastly improved by capturing to lossless media and using some fairly common methods for cleanup before encoding. It depends on how much you put into it.

When people say "VHS to DVD" they sometimes mean recording VHS directly to a DVD recorder or DVD encoder card. That works, if you will, although even the so-so DVD recorders of today can make a better video than a cheap VHS-to-DVD capture device. Older recorders from 2004-2006 are many levels better than new ones. The best DVDR's used LSI processing chips with decent digital denoising -- decent, yes, but far from great, primitive compared with post-process filters today, and given to ghosting and motion smear.

Among several other similar threads, an earlier post in a thread 9 months ago asked the same question you've asked: "Want to capture VHS tapes to Hard drive: what equipment to buy?".
One answer: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post38540

More comments are in this post: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-capture/6778-ati-600-fix.html#post40234
and the post that follows it in the same thread: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post40237

General notes on VHS to lossless vs not-recommended VHS to DV capture: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post39752 and a following post that discusses line-level and frame-level tbc's: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post39774

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