Digital VCR Missing in MMC 7.7 ??

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RQ

I have an AIW 7500 and am running MMC 7.7. (I realize this hardware/software
is a bit dated now.)

I recently had occasion to try to capture some video, and discovered that,
contrary to what the help files and manuals which came with the card say,
there is no Digital VCR icon/button on the tv control panel. It's not just
greyed out, it's simply not there.

(When I got the system, and the AIW card over three years ago now, I seem to
recall having tested the video capture function and it worked fine, although
it's possible I'm thinking of the AIW card (an even earlier version of the
card and software) which I had on a previous system.)

Before I go through the process of upgrading the MMC software, I'm wondering
if there is anything else which might be going on here which would explain
why the Digital VCR function appears to be missing?? According to the
documentation, it should be there in that version.

(I did some upgrading of the MMC software in the first year or so that I had
the system -- which I suppose could have introduced some kind of
problem--and recall having had some hassles in upgrading (as I believe
others have noted from time to time on this newsgroup). So I basically
adopted an approach (with the ATI software) of not upgrading it (and risking
creating problems) unless there was a specific reason to do so.)

Any suggestions/comments appreciated.

RQ
 
RQ said:
I have an AIW 7500 and am running MMC 7.7. (I realize this hardware/software
is a bit dated now.)

I recently had occasion to try to capture some video, and discovered that,
contrary to what the help files and manuals which came with the card say,
there is no Digital VCR icon/button on the tv control panel. It's not just
greyed out, it's simply not there.

(When I got the system, and the AIW card over three years ago now, I seem to
recall having tested the video capture function and it worked fine, although
it's possible I'm thinking of the AIW card (an even earlier version of the
card and software) which I had on a previous system.)

Before I go through the process of upgrading the MMC software, I'm wondering
if there is anything else which might be going on here which would explain
why the Digital VCR function appears to be missing?? According to the
documentation, it should be there in that version.

(I did some upgrading of the MMC software in the first year or so that I had
the system -- which I suppose could have introduced some kind of
problem--and recall having had some hassles in upgrading (as I believe
others have noted from time to time on this newsgroup). So I basically
adopted an approach (with the ATI software) of not upgrading it (and risking
creating problems) unless there was a specific reason to do so.)

Any suggestions/comments appreciated.

RQ
Click to expand...
7.7 does have the PVR function. Still using it with My AIW128Pro. The Icon
is a circle with a T sticking out of it when not in use and a TV box when
being used. Cant think of any reason why it wouldn't work if you assigned a
drive with space for it. Do you have the DVD Player installed. It contains
the MPG2 CoDec.
 
I have the DVD player (version 7.6) installed, and use it semi-regularly. It
works fine.

According to the MMC user's manual which came with my card (MMC version 7.5,
but the tv part has been upgraded to 7.7), the icon is a little video
camera, but that icon does not appear on my control panel. (I also appear to
be missing a couple of other icons, such as stills capture.) (The only icons
I have are zoom ratio, closed caption, parental control, next connector, and
mute) And when I go into setup, there is no Digital VCR tab. (The user's
guide says there should be such a tab there.) So it looks like the entire
capture function is just missing for some reason.

I still have the 7.701 (excl DVD) upgrade .exe, and could try rerunning it,
but I recall that ATI's upgrade process is very "klunky", and not very
"intelligent"/user-friendly, and if specific steps aren't done in exactly
the right order etc, things can get screwed up.

Any further comments/suggestions appreciated.

RQ
 
I have the DVD player (version 7.6) installed, and use it semi-regularly. It
works fine.
Click to expand...

The DVD player is not needed to capture MPEG2. Its absence just
prevents playing it.
According to the MMC user's manual which came with my card (MMC version 7.5,
but the tv part has been upgraded to 7.7), the icon is a little video
camera, but that icon does not appear on my control panel. (I also appear to
be missing a couple of other icons, such as stills capture.) (The only icons
I have are zoom ratio, closed caption, parental control, next connector, and
mute) And when I go into setup, there is no Digital VCR tab. (The user's
guide says there should be such a tab there.) So it looks like the entire
capture function is just missing for some reason.

I still have the 7.701 (excl DVD) upgrade .exe, and could try rerunning it,
but I recall that ATI's upgrade process is very "klunky", and not very
"intelligent"/user-friendly, and if specific steps aren't done in exactly
the right order etc, things can get screwed up.

Any further comments/suggestions appreciated.
Click to expand...

I have the AIW 7500, which I use on a regular basis to capture. Have
you checked the device manager to see if the capture drivers are
functioning properly?

I use MMC version 8.1, modern skin. For the capture and graphics
drivers, either Catalyst 3.2 or 3.6 works okay. This is under Windows
2000.
 
In the (Windows) device manager, it says the device is working properly, but
is there some way to check individual drivers? (The driver details lists a
bunch of driver files, but I'm not sure how to tell if I'm missing any, or
if any aren't working properly.)

I'm wondering if I'm missing the Catalyst Control Center? Could that be the
problem? There appear to be no files or folders on my system with "catalyst"
in the name, and no files in my ATI program directories that appear to have
some derivation of that name. Is it installed under some other name? Would
the TV, DVD and other programs work without the CCC? Would this have been
provided as part of the original driver install (from CD)? (My original
installation CD doesn't seem to contain any files or folders relating to
that either, although video capture was supposed to be (and I think was)
originally available.)

(p.s. I'm running under Win XP SP2)

RQ
 
Catalyst is ATI's name for the display drivers for all of the Radeon cards.
The WDM drivers that come with them are for the AIW and VIVO variety
Radeons. MMC is ATI's software to use on all of thier multimedia cards(AIW,
TV Wonder, HDTV Wonder & etc.) but support for older cards get dropped.
I.E. last version for my AIW128pro was MMC7.2. I'm useing 7.7 w/o problem
but the Gamma slider doens't work.

IIRC you wont see any file folders with the Catalyst name. These are
display drivers so it's not the problem. PVR function worked long before
CCC. If Device Manager doesn't show a problem it will be very difficult to
fix it. Your better off IMHO to bite the bullet and reinstall everything. A
newer version might help.

Looks like you could be using MMC9.02. If you drill down into the previous
drivers it looks like The Catalyst 4.10 was the last to have it. If it were
me I'd start with this unless somone has a better suggestion. Read all of
the Release Notes. Order of installation is important.

This should be helpful.
go to http://www.ati.com\install
Good Luck
 
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