ATI Video Recording Probs

[Helevitia]

Greetings fellow MURCers,

I know many of you have purchased ATI since the Radeon came out. Maybe you can help me solve a problem I have.

Problem: Recording Video from TV, VCR, Camcorder, or other device and then trying to play those files back causes the player to crash and I can't play it. Interestingly, the file will not play with WMP or any other file player program I have tried.

Specs:

Radeon AIW 32MBDDR
WinXP
AsusA7V266-E
Athlon 1.2G @ 1.3G(200MHz FSB)
512MB Mushkin DDR PC2100
RAID 0(2xIBM 40GB ATA100)
Audigy PLatinum
HP CD-RW 10x4x32


This is the only stupid thing I can't get working. Other than that, the Radeon works very well in WinXP for everything I am doing. Any Ideas?

Thanks,

Dave

[DentyCracker]

Try using a non mpeg2 compression scheme to capture. Or install a DVD playing software and use that to playback.

[Indiana]

Do you have the latest ATI MMC (their multimedia tools)? It's at version 7.5 by now.
Sorry can't help much further, although I had a RadeonDDR VIVO before the R8500 that's now in my rig, I only seldomly used it to capture because I found the quality of my Hauppauge WinTV to be superior...

Besides, at least at the time I had the VIVO installed, ATIs capture software was not really that good. Even when I did use the VIVOs input for capturing I still did not use ATIs software but VirtualDub.

[Helevitia]

Thanks Denty, that was it! I used mpeg1 and it worked. So now my question is, how did you know that might fix the problem? Also, will I never be able to use mpeg2 to record? Is there some kind of limitation I don't know about?

Thanks again,

Dave

[Indiana]

Mpeg2 SHOULD work, your configuration should only affect the max resolution you can capture and, of course the number of framedrops you're getting. But not crashing.
Which version of the ATI MMC do you have? Which drivers?

[Helevitia]

Originally posted by Indiana
Mpeg2 SHOULD work, your configuration should only affect the max resolution you can capture and, of course the number of framedrops you're getting. But not crashing.
Which version of the ATI MMC do you have? Which drivers?

Hey Indiana, I am using 7.2 of MMC and I am using the ATI drivers that Windows update recommends. I have not tried the newest beta drivers. I may give that a shot. No mpeg2 works. Only mpeg1.

Dave

[Indiana]

So you might want to try MMC 7.5 and see if it fixes this thing.
A few dl links:

http://file2.mydrivers.com/display/MmcDvd75.exe

ftp://ftp.nix.ru/drivers/tv/ati/mmc/mmcdvd75.exe

http://www.hellasystems.de/ftp/Grafik/ATI/MultiMediaCenter/

Hope one of these works. MMC7.5 looks much better than the older versions and is said to fix some AIW related things - but it screwed up the aspect ratio for DivX files again. Not a big problem, though, just use another player for DivX.

[Helevitia]

Wow! Didn't evewn know there was a 7.5MMC. I will check that out when I get home tonight. Thanks!

Dave

[Helevitia]

Thanks Indiana, that fixed my problem. It wasn't the file that was the problem, it was the player. Unfortunately, everytime I install something new form ATI, I usually find somethign else broken adn todya was no exception. If I try to switch between TV and playing a file, the screen garbles up adn the mouse garbles up or it freaks out and crashes the box. It never ends.

Dave

[Indiana]

Yeah, that's ATI, it seems .
Although I never had a really serious problem that I was not able to fix (being an owner of a RadeonDDR and a Radeon8500), there are sometimes blatant errors that make you wonder if there's ANY testing done before releasing something...

[Helevitia]

Suggestions?

OK, I have more questions. Maybe youguys can help me out again.

It seems I have a limitation where I have to run my desktop resolution at 800x600x60Hz when I also walt to display to the TV. This really sucks as I have a 21" Monitor and it looks horrible at that resolution. Plus, it makes it difficult to do anything at 800x600 and especially at 60Hz My eyeballs are going to fall out. Is this really the only way to do this? Ok, now for what I am trying to accomplish...
I want to set my TV out to my VCR so I can record what I am doing on my screen. Specifically, I want to record myself playing a game so i can later go back and watch the video and notice my mistakes. This will probably work but the 800x600x60Hz is going to kill me.
Just for the record, I ran my video out to my composite in and tried to record what I was doing but ran into two problems.

1. It looked absolutely horrible on the captured screen.
2. The game was so slow it wasn't worth playing I knew it wouldn't work but it was fun trying

Dave

[Wombat]

Hele,
You should talk with Dice. He has the 8500DV, and has started to output matches to his VCR, and then encode them later so we can all watch them. He's doing 1024x768 to his monitor and to his VCR.

[Indiana]

1. You should really use the newer drivers. I used the 6025 for some time now and they're quite good (for ATI drivers, that is...). I've now switched to the 6032 ones and didn't really notice any problems - but then this is a quite short period and I'm not the hardcore gamer. This goes for Win2k, can't say anything about XP.
The newer drivers will enable the 1024x768 TVOut resolution with the R8500.

2. Apart from that you should be able to run the two displays at different resolutions and refresh-rates. I'm mostly running my primary 22" at 1600x1200@85Hz while having either a TV at 1024x768@50Hz or a TFT at 1024x768@75Hz connected to the second out. Maybe this is also a limitation of the old drivers you seem to use.

[Helevitia]

Originally posted by Indiana
1. You should really use the newer drivers. I used the 6025 for some time now and they're quite good (for ATI drivers, that is...). I've now switched to the 6032 ones and didn't really notice any problems - but then this is a quite short period and I'm not the hardcore gamer. This goes for Win2k, can't say anything about XP.
The newer drivers will enable the 1024x768 TVOut resolution with the R8500.

2. Apart from that you should be able to run the two displays at different resolutions and refresh-rates. I'm mostly running my primary 22" at 1600x1200@85Hz while having either a TV at 1024x768@50Hz or a TFT at 1024x768@75Hz connected to the second out. Maybe this is also a limitation of the old drivers you seem to use.

I think I see the problem. It apperas you are using the 8500 where as I am using the original Radeon. Thanks for the help.

Dave