New ATI Tuner Card.

[bubbaganoush]

Hooray for mmc support!
The video quality isn't as good as MCE though. Seems like the video filters aren't being put to use.

[hrlslcbr]

Great. Finally we have a new version that works (but we still don't have AC-3 encoding...)
Hey Mike, one little question; which of the four parts (components) do I have to download ? (I assume that I can't download the DVD decoder because I don't have a MMC CD).

Cheers.

[bubbaganoush]

The DVD decoder is just for the DVD Player part of MMC.
I think the Encoder and UCI are required other wise the MMC installer will complain.

[hrlslcbr]

The DVD decoder is just for the DVD Player part of MMC.
I think the Encoder and UCI are required other wise the MMC installer will complain.

Cheers.

[satnav4]

What my signature is not saying is that my responsibility is Europe, middle East and Africa. I don't have experience with HDTV Wonders, because they simply don't work anywhere in my region. At least it confirms that MMCs before 9.09 potentially caused problems in MCE, used in combination with Theater 550 Pros.
Coming back to the sense of MMC in MCE, it's a matter of taste. I personally like MMC because of it's bigger flexibility and the RF remote. I still have to admit that some things are better solved in MCE, like e.g. MP3 browsing. But there is no disadvantage of running both in parallel, giving maximum flexibility. For example we enabled picture in picture for MMC, got that in MCE?

Mike

Re MMC 9.13, does it now support the 550 card? I own 2 cards, and when I finish cleaning up after Hurricane Katrina, I will give it a try. I happen to be a fan of MMC even though I also have BTV 4.

Thanks for your input. Please pass my regards to Michael B.

To Octavean and SHSPVR, thanks for keeping us up to date.

S.

[Mike K]

Hi MMC fans,

MMC 9.13 supports Theater 550 Pro. You need to download part 1,3 and 4, since you will have a DVD playback software already. The encoder gives you bigger flexibility for non MPEG2 recordings. It runs in software, but this has always run very well in the past.
Language support is optional, needless to say...

[theatrix]

Hi Mike,

Can you confirm if ati are going to release new drivers for the theatre pro that will allow greater control over the filters ? This chip has big potential, if only we could unlock it !

Any info would be great.

Thanks

[Mike K]

You mean you have to "unlock" its potential? I think it is a good product as it comes...

Anyway, the interfaces for some tweakings are open. Within Graphedit, you can access/modify parameters for AVStream Analog Capture:

Comb filter settings
Comb filter thresholds
Noise reduction filter
Noise reduction thresholds
Capture volume

So it needs the application to support these, which I have to admit we currently don't do in PowerCinema or MMC. But it's not like we have hidden the settings.

[theatrix]

Thanks for the reply,

It is a great chip as it stands but im having trouble with actually seeing any difference when tweaking the filters within graphedit.

What I have noticed is that the preview output is much better than the capture output, is this because the filters automatically try to enhance the preview but are then disabled for capture ?

Im using this card exclusively for capturing and enhancing old vhs pal tapes to both mpeg and uncompressed avi and want to make best use of the features as I possibly can.

Thanks,

Mick

[SHSPVR]

Mike K

So it needs the application to support these, which I have to admit we currently don't do in PowerCinema or MMC. But it's not like we have hidden the settings.

That ture but sliderbar would be better then type number in and dosen't automatic apply the filter settings you have manaul apply it and hopylee it start working.

[dutchfudge]

You mean you have to "unlock" its potential? I think it is a good product as it comes...

Anyway, the interfaces for some tweakings are open. Within Graphedit, you can access/modify parameters for AVStream Analog Capture:

Comb filter settings
Comb filter thresholds
Noise reduction filter
Noise reduction thresholds
Capture volume

So it needs the application to support these, which I have to admit we currently don't do in PowerCinema or MMC. But it's not like we have hidden the settings.

If you hadn't noticed Mike, it has been one year since the launch of this capture card. It's not a "good product" yet. You shouldn't have to be a PC guru to change the setings for a video capture card.

I am a power user, but I find graphedit to be a daunting task. Is there a good, easy tutorial for graph edit available?

thanks

[Mike K]

I'm not saying you all should use Graphedit to watch video... It's an engineering / debug tool. I just wanted to point out caps are there.
The best source to learn about Graphedit will be MSDN.
http://search.msdn.microsoft.com/sea...&qu=graphedit+
Is it easy? No...

[Myrdhinn]

Is it a positive these tools really do anything? I've tried ChrisTV and ChrisTweak which allowed to change values/move sliders and it did absolutely nothing, nada, didnt change anything. So I was assuming these settings had to be in the drivers to work.

[hrlslcbr]

Hi MMC fans,

MMC 9.13 supports Theater 550 Pro. You need to download part 1,3 and 4, since you will have a DVD playback software already.

Cheers mate

The encoder gives you bigger flexibility for non MPEG2 recordings. It runs in software, but this has always run very well in the past.
Language support is optional, needless to say...

Does that mean that I don't need to install the 'encoder' part (I don't need anything like MPEG-4 or WMV, only hardware MPEG-2 and uncompressed avi)?


When are we getting AC-3 support? (you must hate me by now... always asking the same thing )

[SHSPVR]

hrlslcbr if want AC-3 support that bad so they say First Capture Device with 2-channel AC-3 Hardware Encoding (InstantDVD+MP3)

[hrlslcbr]

hrlslcbr if want AC-3 support that bad so they say First Capture Device with 2-channel AC-3 Hardware Encoding (InstantDVD+MP3)

It's not that I want or need it THAT bad, but it was one of the 'features' the sapphire theatrix had, so...
(besides, for DVD authoring it'd be great - capture and then author without the need of transcoding anything).