Rich, ATI AIW Pro (8 meg PCI version, NOT the 128!)

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Video CD : One Thread

Rich, or anyone else out there who can help!

I have the ATI AIW Pro (8 meg PCI version with rage pro chip) and am wondering how I can use this card (if at all??) to capture directly to mpeg-2 for SVCD. Everyone keeps telling me to go to Rich's site because he is the ATI guru, but his site addresses the ATI AIW 128, not the Pro card that I have. I have visited the ATI site and cross checked the difference's between the 128 and Pro cards, and they look pretty similar, so I'm assuming that I can do the SVCD stuff that Rich refers to....

Can someone please inform stupid 'ol me how to do this?

-- scot (scot.virnoche@med.ge.com), September 21, 2000

Answers

Hi, I think I already answered you directly from a personal email you sent to me ... But I'll cover it here again for the benefit of others. The AIW PRO and the AIW 128 are entirely different cards. The "comparisons" on the ATI web site are a little misleading. But the main differences is the 8 mb Pro model is only 8 mb Video RAM and more importantly it's firmware is based on a 64 bit chip. The 128 series start out with the lowest RAM of 16 Mb and are using a 128 bit chip. In simple terms the 128's are more powerful. I highly doubt you would be able to get real time mpeg 2 with the "Pro 8 mb" card. You might be able to get low bit rate Mpeg-1 with a third party capture program like the Cinax WinVCR. ATI adds to the confusion by the confusing names they have used. There is an AIW 128 PRO. And an AIW PRO. I wish they would have called it what it was .. an AIW 64 PRO. At least then consumers would see the difference. You have a 64 bit model.

-- Rich (richa@home.com), September 22, 2000.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ