OK, MMC 9.04 does indeed work with the T550P so you can all add it to the very short list of programs.
However, MMC 9.04 is not what one might have expected.
I have posted a quick write-up of it here with a few screen shots:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,13701143
I think it's a fluke the 550P works in 9.03/4 because I've even managed to get my TV IN on my GeForce3 to work with MMC back in the day when it was V7 or 8.
I believe MMC will work with any capture card, perhaps not being stable or usable but still smart enough to try and use your capture device.
OK, well, I can believe that some older versions of MMC (v6 maybe v7) wouldn’t be too particular about hardware since these versions (and earlier) were archaic in a number of ways.
Getting video in (if not VIVO) on a third party product doesn’t sound all that unlikely IMO,….but again, probably only with early versions of MMC.
The MMC of today has an install program (separate from the MMC program itself) with a hardware detection mechanism that governs which if any components of MMC will be installed. This is evident by the fact that the MMC experience differs depending on what ATI hardware is installed on the given system.
There seems to be every indication that ATI had intended to support the T550P in MMC. ATI’s recent stance on the subject seems indicative of an abrupt and inexplicable about-face.
When an entity such as ATI plans to implement support for a new product in their proprietary software, the transition is unlikely to take place overnight. It is far more likely that modifications would be spanned across a number of versions. MMC 9.03 and MMC 9.04 may have had predecessors that simply omitted the necessary detection in the install program. Conversely, the same may be true of MMC 9.06 and MMC 9.08. That is to say that newer versions of MMC may run (possibly better) if the T550P was detected and accepted by the install program.
Who knows how far ATI got with respect to supporting the T550P in MMC!?!
When an entity like ATI decides to drop support for a products in their proprietary software, instead of removing the supporting code, it would be much easier to simply disable the hardware detection within the install program. Much like a vestigial tale, its still probably there,….its just not wagging
Anyway back to some earlier “T550P and MMC 9.04” questions:
1)
Q) Does the combo even work?
A) Yes
2)
Q) If it does indeed work is it better then MMC 9.03?
A) Not necessarily superior but seems more stable in some respects IMO.
3)
Q) Does TVoD work?
A) No!
4)
Q) Is the PQ badly interlaced and distorted like MMC 9.03 or is it as it should be?
A) The PQ is similarly poor. It looks a bit better IMO but still bad overall.
5)
Q) Are all the traditional MMC record options made available?
A) I did not see any evidence of record functionality of any kind for the T550P!!!
6)
Q) Can MMC 9.04 take advantage of ALL the advanced features of the T550P!?!
A) Only the most basic of functions seem viable.
7)
Q) Seeing as MMC 9.04 is real but had a very limited release and ATI went from MMC 9.03 to 9.06 officially,…. Is there a MMC 9.05 somewhere!?!
A) That’s between God and ATI,…. Just between you and me,….. I don’t think they are telling.
I am currently building a HTPC and I know next to nothing about what I am doing.
The box is put together with a Sapphire 550 Pro but so far only the onboard VGA. The ATI 9200 seems to be an adequate and economical choice for a dedicated HTPC with no gaming. I want to run the computer without a monitor using the TV for that purpose. I am a bit confused about the purple dongle connections. It seems to be s-video in but so is the only connection on the TV VIDEO 1 is s-video in. If the video card s-video connects to VIDEO 1 then what connects to the dongle?
Any thoughts that might be helpful?
Cheers
there is a own A/V cable to connect from dongle to the cardOriginally Posted by camos
it's like a S-Video cable with audio and compesite
nwgat.wordpress.com
Right, I got that part but my TV has a total of one s-video connection which is in the VIDEO 1 group. The s-video connection from the big end of the dongle goes where? If it goes to the TV then where is the s-video connection from the graphics card (not the 550 Pro) supposed to go? I have tried connecting from the dongle out to the TV but it didn't display anything. From that I am assuming the s-video on the graphics card is the one that should connect to the TV.there is a own A/V cable to connect from dongle to the card
it's like a S-Video cable with audio and compesite
Testing is a bit difficult because there is no TV cable in my computer room and I have only one monitor connected to a KVM to use with my computers. There is a network connection at the HTPC and TV location now and I'll pick up a graphics card tomorrow if necessary. I just didn't want to buy anything I didn't need.
Cheers
The s-video connection from the purple dongle is for recording - eg. vhs and dvd etc. It is an s-video IN connection.
The s-video connection on the graphics card is an s-video OUT connection - it goes to the tv.
To clarify, plug the purple dongle into the sapphire 550 card's svideo port. It's not actually an svideo, it just looks like it. The real svideo for the card is on the purple dongle.
If you want to hook your htpc up to your svideo on your tv, you will have to get a video card that has svideo out. I'm going to go ahead and guess your onboard video doesn't have that. You probably don't want to use that onboard video if you're planning on using Windows MCE. MCE requires a directx 9 card to work properly. The onboard 9200 is a directx 8 video card. I used a 9200 for MCE in my first htpc, and it worked, but I had a lot of strange issues. The picture would get choppy from time to time, and sometimes the whole MCE app would crash with some form of directx error. I finally upgraded to a radeon 9550, since I'm not playing games on it. I think I bought it for around $60, and it is a directx 9 card. I've had zero problems with my system since then.
If you are going to stick with the onboard 9200, my suggestion is to grab sagetv.
3Cs, You nailed it. That was what I was confused about. Before I started on this HTPC project I contacted Sapphire tech and was told the Theatrix would display on my TV using only the 550 Pro and the onbord VGA would be adequate even though there was no s-video on it.
backlund, I was planning on getting a Radeon 9200 but thanks to you I will get something a bit newer like the 9550.
Appreciate the help.
Cheers
Yeah, if you aren't playing games, or HD TV the 9550's are a cheap dx9 card. If you want to do HDTV, go with one of the Geforce 6 series cards, as they are supposed to be great for HDTV broadcast. Most of us don't apply to this for a while.
Hi, would like to know a few things before I head out to buy the PAL version of the sapphire theatrix... sorry if they've been answered before, but going through 105 pages is no joke
1) I have several LDs in NTSC format. Would I be able to record them on a PAL card? I don't need the encoder function, just a raw avi file. Is that possible?
2) Are there different recording options for US NTSC and japanese NTSC? ie IRE 0 or IRE 7.5
3) Do the 3D filter work for composite inputs?
Thanks.
Hello, forum!
What did you do to fix sound with your card?
I've got Sapphire Theatrix 550 Pro. I tried AMCap, InterVideo WinDVR3 and Mainconcept PVR - I get video but no sound.
Another issue is quality - what should I use to get the same quality I get from ATI TV Wonder Pro and DScaler 4.1.11?
Thanks in advance!
has any one tried successfully setting the resolution other then the standard 720*480/720*576? and the audio bitrate, anyone manage to get the card to encode in bitrate other then 384kbps?
The TV Wonder Pro is crap; I don't think you'd like to get the same quality.
You can't capture audio with those programmes (at least I couldn't when I tried).
raindance: I am sure that the NTSC version of the Sapphire captures at 7.5IRE (you need a 7.5IRE source, if you feed it a 0IRE one, you'll get darker colours).
I do get 3D comb filtering from the composite input.
Someone posted in a few pages back that it wasn't possible to capture NTSC with a PAL card.
If your main ambition is to match TV Wonder Pro quality... then there's something terribly wrong with your setup
Your sound problem is all about software... not hardware. Unfortuantely ATI has not given us the software to go with their hardware.
Jonas
ok thanks for the reply...
that's bad news for me... I have several Japanese LDs... if I were to capture at IRE7.5, the dark colour info will be lost... i guess i'll have to give this card a miss
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