ATI AIW - which brand for PAL & any problems?

[Jkun]

All the reviews I find tell me little in terms of analog picture capture quality, and they are almost all for the ATI USA (thus NTSC) cards.

My experience - a long time ago I might add - with the AIW system wasn't good. Noisy image, poor tuner.

So my question is, has ATI in these years improved on this? Do they offer the same analog capture quality as for example a Terratec Cynergy400 TV card (much appreciated in this forum I believe)?

Which brand is best - for capture quality - in Europe (PAL)? There are so many here (Club 3D, Sapphire, Hercules/Guillemot, HIS,...)

J-kun

[kropotkin]

I would recomand you to stick with a separate capture card, the Terratec are an excelent choice, as you will skip some possible issues.

[Flying dutchman]

The Terratec gives excellent input quality. If your motherboard is VIA-based, make sure you try before you buy.

The Terratec AVI capture software has some stability issues, mainly on slower systems, but you can use any WDM-based capture program.

Intervideo Windvr 3 is a good choice if you want to do realtime capture into mpeg-2. You'll need at least a 2 GHz CPU for DVD quality.

[Jkun]

I know the Terratecs are good (on my personal Xmas wishlist). Unfortunately, the PC I need to upgrade has no PCI free at the moment, and trying to convince the owner of dropping one of his PCI cards is not something I look forward to.

I already had a real hard time talking him out of one of those crappy MPEG2 USB extensions (USB1.1, NOT the highspeed USB2 version)

Thanks!

J-kun

[Flying dutchman]

If price doesn't matter, a Hauppauge Winpvr 250 is a nice one, too. Hardware-based high-resolution Mpeg-2 capture.
Because of the low data rate it's easy on the PCI bus and the hard drives, so it might even work in VIA boards...

[Jkun]

Yes, but again, this takes up a PCI slot. The idea is to get a combo card like the Marvels. Since Matrxo gave that up, ATI AIW's is the only thing left.

J-kun

[Flying dutchman]

Are any of the PCI boards dispensable?

[Jkun]

In my opinion yes, more than one but the owner disagrees.

J-kun

[Flying dutchman]

Some PCI combi boards are really cheap (such as firewire+USB2), and some can be had as CNR riser cards instead of PCI cards (such as network adapters, audio etc). There's even some good USB audio stuff on the market.

If the PC has USB2, isn't a GOOD USB capturing device an option? They have much improved lately.

[Jkun]

PC doesn't have USB2.0, only 1.1, and has some specialty PCI cards that were pretty difficult to get to work properly according to the owner. He is very unwilling to change his configuration now that it works well. Convincing him an AGP card change would not cause problems (I hope!) was already a hassle.

Some people expect the impossible... right now... for free...

*edit* just found out Sapphire, Asus are the only manufacturers of ATI cards, all others buy from them. This according to The Inquirer. If this is correct, why do they all have different AIW cards?

Also, FlyingDutchman, there are new drivers & sw for the Terratec for a week now. Have your problems with their software improved?

J-kun

[Flying dutchman]

Hadn't noticed yet, thanks for the tip.