Announcement

**Sciascia** · 5 January 2004, 22:51

Yes, ATI has come a long way. The TV out has improved dramatically in the last year, no delays anymore in the overlay. I did some tweaking the other day to get the Pand B frames upped (6-P and 1-B) in my long play DVD setting for capture and it turned out great. It wasn't a very good signal to begin with and was very high motion. I set the bitrate to about 4300 avg and I was stunned at the results. As you know editing MPEG2 isn't fun but Womble works great for cutting out commercials. I was so happy with it and I could fit an entire football game onto one DVD. The video soap is a very powerful tool for TV captures. The only problem is that the default setting is a little high and you can see it working. I backed it down to about 10% and it did just enough to iprove the quality without looking like it was filtered.

I still prefer AVI_IO for AVI capture. Maybe it is the old Matrox guy in me, but it works.

**Fred H** · 6 January 2004, 15:54

It’s a very welcomed thread, Mark.
Finally a non Matrox card is discussed here, regarding the video editing/capture etc.
I couldn’t find any Radeon related discussions forum where the video aspects come before the gamers threads. Or the video are not discussed at all.

Sciascia, I remember the day when you started with your first Radeon 8500 card. You said something like "...good bye Matrox.” Well said. You were a kind of pioneer, I think, and nice to see you again here in the “Desktop Video” forum.

Now, I can see more and more system setups here, which contains some Radeon capture/video cards.

In the small type text below the “Desktop Video” in fact, we can read:
Video editing with the Rainbow Runner, Marvel and RT2000 hardware. Covers all issues both hardware and software related.
But, all those cards are obsolete today and it’s not wrong to discus other video capture systems just here.

I was here from the beginning, and am still fighting with my old Marvel G400, but I plan to renew my system, which will contain some Radeon AIW or VIVO card. Maybe I’ll upgrade not only the video card but the complete PC.

Although the g450eTV has been a great card, I do eventually want to move to a LCD monitor and the g450eTV has no DVI output.

The same reason here, a TFT/DVI monitor.

In addition, I'd like to be able to do at least a little gaming.

The same here.

The TV quality is great, a bit sharper than the g450eTV and the record functions are fantastic.

Great news. I feel encouraged.

I can record MPEG-2 with the motion compensation slider at 100 (max) in the ATI software with only about 30% cpu usage on my P4 3.06.

This is some bad news for me, because my cpu is only a 1.33 GHz older Athlon. It is not even good to run Premiere 7Pro because the missing SSL instruction set. Therefore I must upgrade my computer. I mean a new PC and I’ll “donate” my actual box to my wife…

However, I try to upgrade only the video card in a first step.

As for gaming, well, I only play Call of Duty and Allied Assault

The same here. Sometimes a flight sim here. But, generally speaking I do not capture and edit videos all the time, and a more expensive video card, like Parhelia or Matrox 750 + X.R10 or X.R100 + more powerful computer are not justified in my case.

I have not yet experimented with the TV out.

It IS the major question I’d like to ask here. How the TV output quality is, and more: can you output and record video to a VCR (via SCART in my setup) Someone reported issues with Gforce FX5200 cards, unable to record video to VCR.

I generally burn my projects to DVD+RW

The same here, but as I asked before, sometimes I’d like to put my own videos to VHS tape, in case I would show my home videos to people who don’t own any DVD players.

From Sciascia,
As you know editing MPEG2 isn't fun but Womble works great for cutting out commercials.

I just recorded a long video with Ulead MSP7 Video Capture to 2 large files of 1.9 and 1.8 GB. I captured with the Marvel G400 to 704x576 PAL MPEG2 because the Marvel G400 is unable to capture 720x576 DVD compliant MPEG2. Captured two segments, because a mistake by an unwanted stop and restart the capture. I then joined the segments to one large file with the MSP7 Video Editor to the same format, 704x576, to spare rendering time. The authoring was a pain. Of some unknown reason Ulead DVD Movie Factory tried to author (average bitrate of 4000) the file to 6.1 GB, which is too large to burn. TmpgEncDVDAuthor not even accepted the 704x576 MPEG2 headers as valid DVD compliant. IfoEdit did and I was able to keep the size below 4.3 GB and burned a DVD+RW. It plays on my stationary player, BUT with issues. I can’t forward more than 2x and it simply crashes if I try to speed it up to 4x or 8x etc.
I am very tired with the Marvel for its limitation, for the hacked drivers in XP, for only VfW, for low, only 16 MB RAM etc. I am sure you can capture 720x576 PAL with the Radeon.

I still prefer AVI_IO for .AVI capture.

I love it. But the darn Marvel simply destroyed the capture devices table in my AVI_IO, when I tried to setup a web cam in the MSN Messenger.
The Messenger tried to setup a WDM driver, without luck and disturbed the already hacked Marvel VfW drivers for Win XP. It simply stopped Ulead Video Capture to work.
I suppose the Radeon 9700 is able to capture with WDM (you said the Womble works fine, it is a WDM editor).
Did you try Messenger to accept its capture drivers for web cam with the Radeon?

Finally, the PowerColor Radeon 9700Pro AIW is available here in my country and I think it is worth to be considered.
However, the Hercules 3D Prophet AIW 9800SE is a few bucks cheaper, here.
The PowerColor Radeon 9800 Pro AIW is too expensive.
The ATI AIW 9000 is not available here, anyway.
Asus Radeon 9600 XT is cheaper here, but it is only a VIVO card, missing the TV tuner, and maybe other futures? In fact the TV tuner is not a must for me (I am using the built in TV tuner in my VCR)
Any suggestions, please?

I hope that this thread will be completed soon with more replies and ideas.

Edited:
BTW, Mark. You should edit your signature...

Fred H

**Indiana** · 6 January 2004, 19:36

Originally posted by Fred H
It IS the major question I’d like to ask here. How the TV output quality is, and more: can you output and record video to a VCR (via SCART in my setup) Someone reported issues with Gforce FX5200 cards, unable to record video to VCR.

No problem recording the TVOut of my Radeon9700Pro to the VCR.

I suppose the Radeon 9700 is able to capture with WDM (you said the Womble works fine, it is a WDM editor).

Yes, the capture drivers for all Radeon AIW or VIVO cards are WDM.

Finally, the PowerColor Radeon 9700Pro AIW is available here in my country and I think it is worth to be considered.
However, the Hercules 3D Prophet AIW 9800SE is a few bucks cheaper, here.
The PowerColor Radeon 9800 Pro AIW is too expensive.
The ATI AIW 9000 is not available here, anyway.
Asus Radeon 9600 XT is cheaper here, but it is only a VIVO card, missing the TV tuner, and maybe other futures? In fact the TV tuner is not a must for me (I am using the built in TV tuner in my VCR)

Again, the AIW9800SE is MUCH slower than the AIW9700Pro and even slower than the 9600XT.
(You might be able to hack an 9800SE into a full 9800 by enabling the deactivated 4 pipelines, but it is quite uncertain if it will really work without errors..)

To the VIVO cards: The latest MMC 8.8 (this is ATIs software-suite containing videoplayers, a TV/capture app and the like) even works on my seperate PCI non-ATI capture-card - so it should definitely work on the VIVO as well.
(Sometimes those cheaper VIVO-cards don't come with the TV/capture app on the driver-CD, then you can download and install it - you might have to choose the manual install and manually select the TV app for it to be installed on the VIVO).

You do not get the seemlees integration of the AIWs with a VIVO card, e.g. you cannot do timed recordings with automatic selection of the TV channel, since the VIVO doesn't have it's own tuner and of course cannot change channels on the VCR...

**Hulk** · 6 January 2004, 22:50

Fred,

Thanks for the reminder about my signature, I updated it.

For those of you concerned about XP and activation, not only did I upgrade the video card, but the primary hard drive as well. In addition, I upgraded the cpu about two weeks earlier. I had no problem re-activating Windows XP and MS Office online. It seems as though the MS activation policy is pretty liberal.

I also had an AIW 128 and AIW 128 32MB Pro quite a few years ago. The TV tuner was excellent. The capture capabilities of the ATI software were very limited, and the TV out simply horrible. There was always a black border at the bottom of the TV image, it only operated in the clone mode, and the quality was not very good. In addition, the AIW didn’t work well with programs like avi_io one VFW was either added or deleted from the drivers, I’ve tried to forget about that whole mess.

The g450eTV had a great tuner, solid capture using avi_io, and the great DVDmax TV out feature. It was and is a great card.

I was upgrading primarily for two reasons, 3D gaming and DVI. Here’s what I was looking for in a new card:

Decent 3D gaming capability
Good capture
TV tuner
DVI
TV Out

I knew from reviews that the 9000Pro was an okay gaming solution. No where near the latest hardware, but I was not prepared to spend $300+ for what I knew would be the same card in every way except for gaming features. If this card didn’t work out I didn’t want to take a big loss, if it did I could always upgrade to a better AIW card if I needed more gaming horsepower.

You’ll also notice that I wasn’t concerned about dual monitor support. To tell you the truth, I plan on upgrading to either a 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 LCD monitor, either will provide enough screen space for my typical workflow.

I also knew the DVI input would be okay on the AIW, and I had a good idea the TV tuner would be of good quality. The capture ability and TV out quality would have to wait until I actually purchased the card.

As I mentioned in my initial post, the ATI capture utility is very nice. You can set up four templates for recording that can be selected quickly. I have two MPEG-2 templates, an MPEG-4 template, and a PICVideo set up. Processor usage is remarkably low, but I do have a higher end cpu. I wouldn’t be surprised if your Athlon could do MPEG-2 capture using this card.

I don’t think I’ll be using avi_io anymore, the ATI software is working that well for me. Also, my g450eTV used to restart the computer when the video signal was lost, the ATI card will simply record static as it should. Finally, editing MPEG-2 capture is easy since MSP7 smartrenders the ATI MPEG-2 files, something it wouldn’t do with the g450eTV MPEG-2 files.

The final question is the TV out. Will it have the black border at the bottom of the screen? I’m betting it will. How will the quality be? I don’t know yet. And is there any feature like the Matrox DVDmax? I have heard that there is but haven’t really investigated it yet.

Since my DVD player is connected to my VCR downstairs, it’s easy enough to burn a DVD+RW and play that on the DVD player to record to the VCR. So, if the TV out quality is bad I still have a workaround. That was my plan B for TV out if this card disappoints in that area.

I’ve very satisfied with this card. Everything works as it should and I’ve had no stability problems. I’ll update this thread with the TV out functionality when I get some time to do some testing.

Mark

**Sciascia** · 7 January 2004, 00:00

I think that the black line has been gone for several driver sets now.

**Fred H** · 7 January 2004, 05:52

Sciascia,
A short question.

You own an AIW 9700 and, sure you have the instr. manual.

My motherboard is not AGP 8X compatibel. It is only AGP 4x/2x.

I couldn't find more data about the PowerColor AIW Radeon 9700, but I'd like to purchase one.

So, my Q. is: If the card is only AGP 8x or could I run it in AGP 4x?

Thanks in advance and regards,

Fred H

**Jkun** · 7 January 2004, 06:55

What is the max resolution on your AIW DVI output?

Most ATI cards seem to max out at 1280x1024.

I checked the Sapphire and Club3D cards here in Europe, neither website has any information regarding this.

J-kun

**Flying dutchman** · 7 January 2004, 08:18

I haven't used TV-out for ages.

I process captured AVI video for DVD purposes only, and I use VirtualDub for postprocessing before compressing it to mpeg-2.
In virtualDub I use the "levels" filter to guarantee that the white level is at 235 and the black level at 16, so there are no brightness/contrast issues whatsoever on my TV. I use a mild noise filter (DNR) to make it easier on the mpeg encoder which boosts output quality dramatically. The result is then burnt on DVD+RW.
If I need a VHS copy, I simply make it off the DVD player downstairs - no need for TV-out on my PC!

I find realtime software MPEG-2 compression less than satisfactory. It's OK if one needs to make a quick DVD but the quality is no match for offline encoding.

Hardware encoding is a different matter. I consider buying either a DVD recorder or something like the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250. Any experience with that one?

**Sciascia** · 7 January 2004, 09:07

Jkun, I am not sure as to the other ATI cards and I am using the dongle to use an analog monitor, but my max res is 2048x1536 (my monitor can't go that high). I am not sure if DVI output would be different.

As for the 2X/4X question you can look here for the specs. As it looks, 2X/4X and 8X are all supported by the 9700.

Flying Dutchman, I have only done realtime MPEG2 captures from the built in tuner and that is with a less than great cable signal. Truth is that I used to always use MJPEG and then frameserve through V-Dub with close to the same filtering to make it easier on the encoder and then use a standalone encoder to do it. If there is no serious editing involved, realtime compression is great. If you need to do some stuff like intense transitions (really anything that requires the stream to be recompressed) it is going to look bad regardless if it was captured using SW or HW. MPEG jst isn't good for recompressing. The only other realtime SW MPEG2 compression that I ever used was with MSP and it looked terrible. ATI's is a lot better.

But the quality in realtime is pretty impressive. I am not the absolute pickiest guy, but I do know good quality when I see it. 13 years as a Broadcast Engineer, I know video. SW compression has come a long way since the original Marvels, especially MPEG2. I am happy with mine and if it comes to worse case I can always use MJPEG and PicVideo to capture.

**Hulk** · 7 January 2004, 10:42

I am going to test the TV out later today.

I always capture analog via huffyuv or PICVideo and encode using TMPGEnc for "good" projects.

The only time I'd use the ATI MPEG-2 RT encoding is for taping a TV show I want to watch later, or to create a basic DVD from a VCR or camera tape for a client that only wants "what's on the tape with no editing for a cheap price."

I would be very surprised if the black bar is not there. I am also curious to see if MSP7 will use my ATI's TV out for previewing my projects and scrubbing from the timeline.

Mark

**Jkun** · 7 January 2004, 11:50

Sciascia, DVI digital ouput is very different from the analog output.

If you're lucky, a consumer card reaches a max of 1600x1200. The ATI chip is capable of this. However, it seems some extra components are needed for going over the usual 1280x1024, so many manufacturers don't go this high.

J-kun

**Sciascia** · 7 January 2004, 12:52

With the CPU speed that you have you can probably tweak the P and B frames a little in the registry for the RT MPEG2 capture. It defualts to 2B and 4P, but to get a lower bitrate (actually better use of bits) without losing quality, you can go higher. I found a sweet spot at 6P and 1B per I frame. This gives me a GOP of 16 which is still DVD compliant. I also tweaked the videosoap for quite a while and for me sports at 10% was great. Of course I was recording sports so it probably had something to do with that. It defaults at 74% so that is quite a difference. It seemed to smear or creat jumpiness that high. Not dropped frames, just odd video irregularites.

Of course this profile that I tweaked was a custom one and the bitrate was set to be at 4.3M avg, max of about 5M and 100% motion detection. Very low PCU usage and not one single drop for an entire footall game...with commercials and half time show. Edited with Womble MPEG2VCR and just ripped out the commercials. Fit onto one DVD without a problem.

There is no black bar...atleast that is what Neo told me.

**Indiana** · 7 January 2004, 16:42

Originally posted by Hulk

The final question is the TV out. Will it have the black border at the bottom of the screen? I’m betting it will. How will the quality be? I don’t know yet. And is there any feature like the Matrox DVDmax? I have heard that there is but haven’t really investigated it yet.

There is no black border when you use the overscan option. TVOut quality is decent, as long as you use the 800x600 res and have the overscan activated. In 1024x768 the image gets blurry and the overscan doesn't really have any effect, so there are small black borders.
No big deal, since the TV cannot display more than 800x600 pixels anyway.

And yes, ATI kinda "stole" the DVDMax feature, the option to look for is called Theater mode - with this enabled every overlay displayed on the primary will be put out fullscreen to the secondary display (regardless if the secondary out is connected to another monitor or a TV)

**Hulk** · 7 January 2004, 18:25

Indiana,

Right on the money! After enabling Theater mode and enabling overscan, video is now directed to the TV with no black borders.

In addition, scrubbing from the time line and RT preview to dual head device from MSP7 works perfectly. This is more than I had hoped.

There is one thing that is minor but I would change it if I could. ATI's TV out will work up to a maximum resolution of 1024x768, having anything higher is not necessary anyway since as Indiana states, TV resolution is 8x6 max for a good TV anyway, but if you have your monitor resolution set higher than your TV out resolution then the TV when displaying the desktop will scroll when moving to the edge of the screen instead of just rescaling the monitor resolution to the resolution the TV is set at.

For example, I am running my monitor at 1164x868 (or whatever that resolution is, can't remember). If I leave the TV out set at 1024x768 then the TV will scroll a bit when the mouse gets to the edges of the screen. Not a big deal really since whenever video is "piped" to the TV, it is full screen as it should be.

All in all I'm very happy with this card and would definitely consider going with a top of the line Radeon AIW card in the future to get all of the video features and top-notch 3d for gaming.

ATI has really got their act together with these drivers over the past few years. I guess we can than Nvidia and the now defunct 3dFX for lighting the fire under their backsides!

- Mark

Announcement

New video card - ATI AIW 9000Pro

New video card - ATI AIW 9000Pro

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