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[DocLotus]

Hi;

Just installed my new ATI A-I-W 9600 Pro (with FM Radio) & noticed something that I have not seen before with MC...

All TV images seem to be jerky & steppy.

The same images look fine with the ATI TV tuner.

Any ideas ?

[Griff]

Hi Doc

Did you use the drivers off the disk

Or did you download them?

From what I have always seen the drivers off the disk are old.

[DocLotus]

I've done both.

The drivers on the disk are only 2 months old. This is a really new card that came out in October with the latest drivers at that time.

I've also downloaded the latest complete driver set but the same thing is happening.

TV on the ATI software looks great but is jerky with MC.

[Griff]

OK

Shot in the dark

What if you unloaded ATI MMC?

[DocLotus]

By MMC you mean the ATI Multimedia Center?

I think MC needs a TV program installed before it will show TV.

One time I did a clean install of Win XP, then installed MC... no TV on MC until I installed the ATI software.

[65tang]

Intresting, I have the TV-Wonder Pro capture card, downloaded all the newest drivers and TV is very Jerky and slow.  However If I use the ATI software, it works fine.  leads me to believe its a software issue, especialy after hearing your problem.

-thoughts?

[Griff]

TV is very Jerky and slow

?

Im using a AIW 9000 Pro with Cat 3.9 drivers.

No Prob. here. (or on a AIW 7500 on another mach.)

Maybe Yaobing can shed some light on this?

Griff

[Yaobing]

Maybe Yaobing can shed some light on this?

Not much light to shed - usually I do not say anything unless I know what I am saying. But since you asked   -

leads me to believe its a software issue, especialy after hearing your problem.

The argument can easily go the other way. AIW 7500, AIW 8500, AIW 9000 Pro, Hauppauge WinTV, etc. all work fine with MC. I would think the problem is with ATI's newest devices, namely AIW 9600 Pro. Maybe there is something in the latest ATI driver. I am using Cat 3.4 drivers with my AIW 8500DV. I am going to try the latest Catalyst driver and see if there is any problem. Sometimes the latest driver is not the best driver.  ATI may do something that is not compatible with the general DirectX code that I use. This could explain why you do not see problems in ATI's Multimedia Center. If the problem is specific to the particular hardware, instead of the Catalyst driver, then I will not be able to test it until I get a card.

[DocLotus]

Hi guys;

This is great

Am going to throw a wrinkle into this foray...

I just removed my ATI A-I-W Radeon 7500 which did not have the jerky problem with MC.

Installed the 9600 Pro & the problem started (but only with MC for the playback).

Well... guess what... they both use the same software.

ATI has the same software for all of their Radeon processors... 7500, 9000, 9600, 9700, & 9800.

Sooo... as all is well when using ATI's TV I'm beginning to think that there is something strange going on between MC & the 9600 Pro.

One other note... just to be sure that there was not something weird with the software I was using for the 7500, I re-downloaded the same software again & re-installed it for the 9600 Pro.  Still jerky with MC.

[markp99]

AIW 9700 Pro here.  No problems, using latest drivers from ATI & ~latest MC10...

[JimH]

See if you aren't using something else that's stealing CPU cycles.  A plug-in, for example.

[Stebajo]

I removed my previous message because it was wrong, my HD was completing a large file... sorry.  

No problem with AIW 9800Pro in PAL B, DirectX 9.0b, Driver 'catalyst-7-962-031202m1-012924c' & Windows XP Pro.


Media Center Registered 10.0.42.

Stebajo

[DocLotus]

"See if you aren't using something else that's stealing CPU cycles.  A plug-in, for example."

CPU is under very little load when running TV... usually around 18 - 20 %.

Also nearly 80% of my 1 GB of memory is free.

Besides, the TV is fine when using the ATI software.  This only happens on MC.

[JimH]

The fact that it works with ATI software but doesn't work with MC doesn't eliminate the possibility that the problem is in the ATI driver.

ATI may be running something in the background that causes problems.  Settings may differ.

[DocLotus]

Just wondering... ? ?

This is the first A-I-W card to use Philips's new TV tuner module. It is very different from past modules in that it now incorporates an FM Radio tuner as well as the TV tuner.  There are now TWO antenna inputs on the module... one for the TV & a second for the FM Radio (which works very good by the way).

The module is also slightly smaller then ones used in the past.

I'm beginning to think that this new tuner may be the culprit.

One thought... this will probably be the module that ATI uses in all future A-I-W cards as FM Radio has been the one thing missing from ATI's multimedia lineup & has been the most asked for improvement to the A-I-W.

JRiver may have to get their hands on a 9600 Pro to resolve the problem.

[KingSparta]

I have a 9700 i think it is, and when I tried the newer drivers one time i had problems. the last time i installed windows xp i dont have a problem now.

not sure what the problem was, but it did not bother me much since i don't normaly use my computer for the TV or DVD's any more.

[DocLotus]

Hi King;

Aint Windows wonderful ?

[phelt]

FWIW, I believe that many of the ATI Catalyst driver builds include a hotkey poller, installed as a system service. For me, disabling this service is Step 1 after installing Catalysts. A few 'inexplicable' software issues have been cleared up as a result. YMMV.

[DocLotus]

Hi Phelt;

Where do I look for the "Hotkey poller"/

[DocLotus]

Another tidbit...

Don't know if this helps any but here goes... ?

Was watching a news program which had a stock market banner running on the bottom of the screen.  The text was unreadable due to the jerkyness.  It looked like a series of still images real close together resulting in a kind of blurry text that was unreadable.

Closed out MC, opened ATI's TV module & the same text was fine... no jerkeyness.

[Griff]

Where do I look for the "Hotkey poller"/

ctrl. panel/adm. tools/ component services.

On left side, ck. on services at bot..

Then on rt. side youll find it.

[DocLotus]

Thanks Griff;

I'll give it a try.

[DocLotus]

This just keeps getting weirder & weirder.

I disabled the ATI Hotkey Poller.  It made no difference.

I also removed the 9600 & re-installed my 7500.  The TV is normal in both ATI's TV viewer & MC... with no Jerkiness.  This was using the 9600 software on the 7500.

I then installed the 7500 software (v 8.1 I think) & both ATI TV & MC TV were normal with no Jerkiness.

The final test was to re-install the 9600 & use the 7500 software & guess what ? ? ?  All was normal

However; as soon as I re-installed the 9600 software the Jerkiness returned to MC.

Sooo... it is beginning to look more & more like there is something in the ATI software that is causing the problem with MC.

I think there is something weird with the newer software when run in combination with the 9600 as the problem does not show up with the older software.

[Griff]

Probably ATI MMC 8.8  

[DocLotus]

No 8.8.  Won't install.

You got 8.8 to install ?

I can install the following without problems...
8.1... ok
8.6... ok
8.7... ok

Can not install 8.8 on my computer.

Everytime I try it says "Found another version of Multimedia Center on the computer & I must un-install it".

I un-install Multimedia Center but still get the message.

I have gone as far as un-installing all ATI software including the video driver & still 8.8 won't install.

[Griff]

Hi Doc

Sounds like you got some real probs.

You got 8.8 to install

didnt try, but Stebajo did above.

The one he installed was the first ver that supported the FM. ( and there is only one newer)

I downloaded them tonight, will try them tomorrow, when time permits.

Im a little confused:

Because the 9600 had to come with 8.8

I can install the following without problems...
8.1... ok
8.6... ok
8.7... ok

Can not install 8.8 on my computer.

Everytime I try it says "Found another version of Multimedia Center on the computer & I must un-install it".

Did you pull the 7500 and install the 9600 on the same mach.?

Ill ck the drivers out an let you know, late tomorrow.

Take care
Griff

[Yaobing]

I went to Circuit City this afternoon and bought AIW 9600 Pro.

Just installed it. I installed the driver and MMC off the CD out of the box. So I get 6.14.10.6378 for display driver, and MMC 8.6.

First thing I tried, after adjusting the video resolution, is to run ATI MMC. No problem. Exited MMC and started JR MC TV. No problem. Everything seems to be fine.

I followed instruction carefully. It says you must install AGP driver from your computer mother board chipset maker. It's a bit strange. I never had to do it when installing other AIW cards before, and the instruction would not tell me how to determine whether I already have sufficient AGP driver. So I went to SiS site (the chipset maker of my machine) and downloaded the latest driver and installed it.

[Griff]

Hi Yaobing

Thanks for your help.

So I get 6.14.10.6378 for display driver

Thats in-between the two newest video drivers.

I have seen this befor, where the drivers on the disk are not on ATIs site.

and MMC 8.6.

Now thats what bothers me.

Everything on their web site points to MMC 8.8 only for sup. of FM?

Does FM work?

Sounds like ATI knows they have a prob.

So I went to SiS site (the chipset maker of my machine)

Knew there was something I liked about you.  

Thats all I run anymore.

Oh

It says you must install AGP driver from your computer mother board chipset maker. It's a bit strange

Its been like that since their first board.

A real PIA.

Well Thanks again Yaobing.

Its great to talk to ya again.

Take Care
Griff

[DocLotus]

Hi guys;

The 9600 comes with 8.6.

Just had an Eureka moment...
Found the problem!!

Was it the 9600 card... no!
Was it the software that came with the 9600... no!!!
Then what the heck was it?

After I installed the 9600 software, I went to the ATI site & downloaded & installed the latest & greatest Catalyst 4.1 video drivers & downloaded Multimedia center 8.8 (which still refuses to install).

The reason my old ATI A-I-W 7500 TV was OK with MC & the reason the 9600 (using the 7500 software v8.1) was also ok with MC was because there is a problem with the latest Catalyst 4.1.

I completely un-installed ALL ATI software (ATI has a nice single item in Add/Remove to do that).  After words, I did a new install of the 9600 software from the CD (v8.6) & all is well with MC... no more jerky jiggles.

It's really strange as ATI has been touting the so-called fact that Catalyst is rock-solid dependable software.

Seems that ATI is batting a big goose egg (zero) this time around as both Catalyst 4.1 & Multimedia Center 8.8 are both buggy.  Funny, they had been batting 100 percent in the past since Catalyst first came out.  Somebody really dropped the ball on this one.

I would suggest you shy away from Catalyst 4.1 & MMC 8.8 until they get their act together.

I have been working on this problem for over three days now.

Boy, how I hate video drivers!!

[Griff]

Darn Im getting old.

Let me correct something.

It says you must install AGP driver from your computer mother board chipset maker

Ya, you should have the latest agp driver for the chipset.

But I think they meant Video driver.

You should always, befor you load ATI drivers, make sure a MS video driver is loaded. Else there will be prob.

Damm Its late, got to go to bed. Same age as Jim, you know.  

Griff

[DocLotus]

About the FM Radio tuner.

Yes, it does work very nicely right out of the box.

The software is a little too simple for my taste but this is their first try (v8.6).

V8.8 is supposed to add some more functionally to the radio but I could not get 8.8 to install at all.

There are a couple of things that I really like about the FM Radio...

It is built into the little silver Philips TV tuner box on the 9600.  This provides very good shielding.  I have read some reports that the S/N ratio is very good (depending on how clean a signal you get from your antenna).

The other thing I really like is how the TV & Radio are tied together.  If you are watching the TV then select the radio, the TV will suspend & the radio will come up.  After you close the radio the TV will automatically re-appear... neat.

[Yaobing]

Does FM work?

It works. But the first time I tried to switch from ATI TV player to ATI FM Radio player (without quiting the former), it asked me whether I want to suspend TV and play FM, I choose to do so, but FM Radio player started and immediately crashed. No more crashes afterwards.

After playing FM radio, the Line-In audio channel is always muted.

EDIT: That was probably caused by the crash. It does not mute Line-In now.

I can even play FM radio through MC, via Advanced Properties->TV Tuner..., of course.

[Griff]

Hi Doc

Just for my knowledge.

ATI has a nice single item in Add/Remove to do that)

Did it unload just the vedio drivers or everything. (MMC and ect.)

Multimedia center 8.8 (which still refuses to install).

?

I did a new install of the 9600 software from the CD (v8.6)

And you have FM?

So their site is wrong.

Late night Doc, glad your prob. is solved.

Take Care
Griff

[DocLotus]

Hi Yaobing;

Yes, I too had a little trouble with the FM Radio the first time but it worked great after words.  Seems that it has to initialized or something.

Also, if you try to load the radio right after installing the software it will say something about "The TV is not properly set up".  This is because the TV & the radio are built together in the new Philips module (the little silver box on the A-I-W card) and it requires the TV to work.  No big deal once you get it running.  In fact I really like the way they work together.

This is my 8th TV tuner (and my 3rd ATI A-I-W) card.  I have also had several separate FM Radio tuner cards over the years.  They have always been a pain as moving from the radio to the TV (and back) required a lot of steps as far as loading, unloading, muting, & un-muting was concerned.  The 9600 TV / Radio solves all those problems by being integrated together.  This is a very nice solution indeed.

[DocLotus]

Hi Griff;

It's called "ATI - -uninstall utility" and is the first ATI listing in the Windows Add / Remove screen.

It uninstalls all ATI software including MMC & the video drivers.


8.8 still will not instal.

Everytime I try it says "Found another version of Multimedia Center on the computer & I must un-install it".

I un-install Multimedia Center but still get the message.

I have gone as far as un-installing all ATI software including the video driver & still 8.8 won't install.


Yes FM Radio is included on the 9600 v8.6 software & I'm now using it as it works.

What ATI is saying about the 8.8 software is that it adds some more functionally to the radio that is not in 8.6.  They have added auto scan & a station check box list similar to the TV channel list.

Would be nice if I could get 8.8 to install but it won't.

[DocLotus]

I guess the moral of this story is in two parts...

1: Don't get too overly confident about ATI software (especially new updates) as I had.  Sometimes, just sometimes, the updates may be buggy.

2: Get the software running completely before you download any new updates.  Usually, the CD that comes with the software is a fairly stable version of known abilities. Make sure you get to know all the software inside & out so you will be able to recognize when something is not right after installing a new update.

I have been using ATI cards since 1991 & their software used to be a total nightmare to install.  I had many a sleepless nights trying to get them to install or work correctly.  But that was before Catalyst & all Multimedia Center software since.

Catalyst had been rock solid for me from the very first versions which I ran on my old A-I-W Radeon Pro, then the 7500, & now the 9600.  ATI makes a lot of noise that Catalyst was built to address users concerns about installation & stability issues & that it will always be reliable.  They went on to say that there will be 12 new releases each year (one a month) to keep Catalyst up to date with all software conflicts.  Up until Catalyst 4.1 (the latest) they succeeded very well.  Someone dropped the ball with Catalyst 4.1 & MMC 8.8 by not checking it out with other vendors TV viewers.

In ATI's defense let me say that they are writing code to work with their software & not others such as MC 9 or 10.  Catalyst 4.1 does work ok with the ATI TV software; it is only a problem when using MC as the TV viewer.

Now that I got everything working on my new 9600 Pro, I think I will be very happy with it.

I believe that ATI will address the problems on an upcoming version which I will faithfully try out.

[DocLotus]

Hi Yaobing;

How did you get the FM Radio to play through MC ?

I must be doing something wrong as I can't seem to get it to work that way.

[Yaobing]

Hi Yaobing;

How did you get the FM Radio to play through MC ?

I must be doing something wrong as I can't seem to get it to work that way.

Bring up TV Options dialog window, and go to "Advanced Properties" tab. Double click "TV Tuner ..." in the list box.
In the resulting dialog window, select FM Radio from "Tuning Mode" drop-down box, and use spin buttons on "Channel" box to change frequency. Click OK or Apply.

That is the only way to play FM radio on a TV card on MC.

[DocLotus]

Can't seem to get it to work.

For 88.7 FM would you use 87,700,00 or 88,700, or 88.7 ?

[Yaobing]

Can't seem to get it to work.

For 88.7 FM would you use 87,700,00 or 88,700, or 88.7 ?

88.7 MHz is 88700000 or 87,700,00.
If you use up or down button to change frequency, it would change by increment of 200,000 (from 87,700,00 to 87,900,00 for instance).

[DocLotus]

I did that (use the button).

But where does it show up after words ?

How do I play it ?

I keep setting the frequencr, selecting Apply, then OK but I don't see it anywhere.

Should it not show up under the Channels list window ?

Should I not see it in the main MC window ?

There needs to be something to click on after words to play the station but there is nothing.

[Yaobing]

I did that (use the button).

But where does it show up after words ?

How do I play it ?

I keep setting the frequencr, selecting Apply, then OK but I don't see it anywhere.

Should it not show up under the Channels list window ?

Should I not see it in the main MC window ?

There needs to be something to click on after words to play the station but there is nothing.

After you clicked OK or Apply button, the device should play the station. It does not "show up" anywhere. The Channels list still will only have TV channels. The display window will be blank (black) but your PC speaker should have the radio sound.

[DocLotus]

Still does not work

So If I can get it working, I would have to do this for each station that I want to play ?

Not very convient

What about the TV tuner/Add button ?

I added all 10 of my FM stations to it but there seems to be no way to tie that information (text) to the actual station frequency.

Seems to be more for url's then actual station frequency.

I have tried url's before for my local stations & had all kinds of problems with them.

Any other ideas ?

[Griff]

Hi Yaobing and Doc

Thanks for the info. above.  

FYI

Tried the latest drivers.

The uninstall utl. has some bugs. (but its nice not having to unload one by one anymore)

After I ran it, I went back to add/remove.

Seen it didnt uninstall DAO. ( so did it manually)

Also on reboot it didnt pick up the MS video driver, so I just cancelled the find driver screens.

Loaded the new video drivers, no prob.

Loaded DAO, once again no completion screen, but it was ok.

Dvd had a little prob. because the download from ATI only gave me the verification prog. and not Install (setup.exe).

So I used the one from Cat3.9.

Now Doc is going to hate me  

Had not prob. installing ATI MMC 8.8.

Everything works fine on my AIW 9000 pro.

Take care
Griff

[DocLotus]

"Now Doc is going to hate me.
Had not prob. installing ATI MMC 8.8.
Everything works fine on my AIW 9000 pro."

Bo ho

I'm Jealous

The problem I had with 8.8 may be something to do with the 9600 Pro & apparently works on the 9000 Pro ok.

Did you also install Catalyst 4.1 ?

Have you looked at the TV on the 9000 yet ?
How do fast moving items look ?
Check out a news cast that has a banner running along the botton of the screen.  When I used Catalyst 4.1 there was a lot of jerkiness, so much so that the banners were unreadable.  Also, all fast moving items were jerky like there were only 15 frames per second instead of the normal 30 FPS.

[Griff]

Hi Doc

Did you also install Catalyst 4.1

Yep, everything from Jan 2004.

Have you looked at the TV on the 9000 yet

How do fast moving items look

Everything looks fine.

But since this unit, I run on antenna, I compared MC and ATI and they both look equal and fine.

The problem I had with 8.8 may be something to do with the 9600 Pro & apparently works on the 9000 Pro ok.

I dont know.

For what its worth, I think something happen on install/uninstall of ver 8.8 on your sys. and left garb. out there.

The next time you atemp a load of 8.8, you might want to see if there is a c:/ati/support/mcc-8-8-0-0. If so delete the mcc-8-8-0-0 dir.

You might also want to run a reg. cleaner.

There is also another dir undr c:/prog./ati, but I have not dug into that one.

Hope this helps ya.
Griff

[DocLotus]

Hi Griff;

I'll give it a try... in a day or two.

Right now I'm a little burned out with video hell.

[Griff]

Hi Doc

I call it driver Hell.  

But they are getting better since the cat crew and Nvidia giving them a run for the money.

The install pack. for the 3 video items works great.

The uninstall pack. works ok except for a couple bugs.

Now they need an install pack for the 3 others. ( Dao,Dvd and MCC)

Quality wise ATI is still the best.

Sit back, have a couple of beers and go for it

No, just kidding.

Take a break.

Catch ya, latter

Griff

[DocLotus]

"I call it driver Hell. "

Yeh... that too

[Yaobing]

Still does not work

So If I can get it working, I would have to do this for each station that I want to play ?

Not very convient

What about the TV tuner/Add button ?

I added all 10 of my FM stations to it but there seems to be no way to tie that information (text) to the actual station frequency.

That inconvenient way is the only way now. There is no real FM radio support at this time. Maybe later.