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[DocLotus]

Sounds like some brave soul needs to come to the rescue with a FM Radio plug-in

Won't that be wonderful

[DocLotus]

Hi guys;

Been away for a day or two.

Been a little busy

Was running Flight Simulator 2004 & discovered that it was reporting that I had a ATI 7500 video card & not the 9600 actually in the computer.

This plus the installation problem with MMC8.8 led me in other directions.

Found the problem with MMC 8.8 not wanting to install. I scanned the Registry for "7500" & found around 20 ATI 7500 & Radeon 7500 hits.  I deleted them all & rebooted.  The computer booted ok except the screen was totally black... no video.

But, I finally got the MMC 8.8 to install.  All it took was a little re-formating of the hard drive & a clean install of Win XP Pro

Glad I have VERY good backups

I re-installed all my software & all Windows & Office updates... 65 for Win XP Pro & 10 for Office XP.

Thank god I have a very fast DSL line (up to 2.9 MB per sec). or I would still be downloading updates

I installed MMC 8.6 form the original CD that came with my 9600 Pro & everything was OK.

I then installed Catalyst 4.1.  It installed fine except (yep, you just knew there was going to an except didn't you) the jerkiness was back but now it effected BOTH MC10 & the ATI TV tuner.

Also, MMC 8.8 would now install (first un-installing MMC 8.6 as per the instructions).  However, when it got done the TV was GONE

I finally un-installed all ATI software, re-installed from the original CD.

I then did what I always do when it comes to ATI software... completely ignore the instructions & installed MMC 8.8 on top of 8.6.

Guess what ?  It worked

Catalyst 4.1 is still a problem on the  9600 Pro so I'm not using it, will wait for the next version.

[DocLotus]

Don’t know if it is MC or the newer ATI Catalyst video drivers or a combination of the two.

I have a new ATI A-I-W 9600 Pro video card (with FM Radio tuner built into the TV tuner module). One very nice card indeed  .

The original software that came on the CD works fine with MC TV.  All Catalyst drivers since then make MC TV unusable as the TV image is very jerky.  It appears like there are only 5 or 10 frames per second being viewed.  I don’t know what is causing this.

It looks like jerky stop motion.  Moving banners at the bottom of a newscast are unreadable.

Still & very slow moving TV images look ok.  It is only faster moving images such as someone talking with their hands, someone running, or moving banners at the bottom of a newscast that look very animated & jerky.  Anything that is moving more then very slowly cause the jerkiness

I have reinstalled the original drivers from the CD & ever thing was ok again.

Problem is I can’t update to any of the newer drivers (there have been three new ones so far & they all cause the jerkiness).

Also, yesterday Microsoft Update site said it had new updates for me to download & guess what… there was a new ATI driver in it.  Yep… the jerkiness is back.

[DocLotus]

Yes, it does look like a driver problem but is has been going on for the last three versions of Catalyst.  All of them work fine with the ATI TV, it's just MC TV that is jerky with these new drivers.

I know what ATI is going to say... something about "we build drivers to work with our software.  If another vendor is having problems with them then it is up to that vendor to resolve the problem in their own program".

I will be interested to see if this problem grows as more ATI A-I-W 9600's are put into service & the Catalyst software is updated.

[JimH]

Doc,
Have you reported this to ATI?

Jim

[DocLotus]

Yes I have... twice.

But, unlike JRiver, it is almost impossible to make actual e-mail contact with anyone.  Also they don't seem to have any active forums.

They use a "Problem report wizard" but seldom get back with you.  The fix sometimes shows up in a future version of the software.

[Griff]

Well

Doc has FM

Yaobing has FM

I put together a AsusTerminator 2 (T2-P Dlx) for my main mach.

It has FM.

Now that make 3 of us.

How many more do we need to get FM incorp. into MC?

 

Griff

[gpvillamil]

Me too.

The ATI drivers are the devil to install, aren't they?

[Griff]

gpvillamil

Your name is to long.

So do you mind if I call you mill?

Ya, its a pain.

but the cat crew is doing some good things.

I have been buying thier AIW cards ever since the first one.

TOP SHELF.

Nvidia cant even compare.

Have you ck. out their mp2 or mp4 encoder?

Divx and ect. cant compare.

But I know a lot of the crack site people will dissagree.

"Group Think"

 

[DocLotus]

Hi Griff;

Agreed, Catalyst is a big step in the right direction for ATI.

I started using ATI video cards back in the nasty old days of DOS; that was in 1989.  My first ATI was an ?All In Wonder?; not the A-I-W cards as we think of them today.  There was no TV on the cards back then.  It was a ?dumb frame buffer? card with only 256Kb of memory.

Video driver updates were a nightmare? no Internet to download drivers.  You had to connect to a BBS (Bulletin Board) to download a driver.  If you were lucky, & your card was a popular model, you could call a local BBS for no charge to download the update.  If the local BBS did not have it then you would have to pay long distance charges to call ATI?s BBS in Canada; a very expensive proposition indeed.  As a result not many people updated their drivers at all.  For that matter, you would almost never update any software other then to go to the store & buy a new version.

Once you had finally succeeded in downloading a new driver update you then were faced with ?driver hell?.  The actual install seldom went smoothly.  I recall some installs that I would mess with for days only to finally give up on.

There was one nice thing about DOS & having no Internet? I got a lot of actual work done on my computer.  Now days it seems I spend much of my time chasing down drivers, updates, revisions, bug fixes, swatting SPAM & looking out for viruses.

So there was a positive side to the dark days of DOS.

In the dastardly days of DOS all I had to install was a video driver & it seldom went well.

Sooo? I would say that ATI has for the most part done an outstanding job with Catalyst.  Considering all that Catalyst & Multimedia Center does, the install for the most part has always gone pretty smoothly for me.

[DocLotus]

Hi Griff;
 
This is for anyone upgrading from one ATI card to another.

Check this out...

http://www.atitech.ca/support/drivers/misc/catalystutils.html

it is an ATI Complete Uninstall Utility that I had never seen before.  I accidentally ran across it on the ATI site the other day.

They say it uninstalls EVERYTHING ATI on your computer, even demos.

This one utility could have saved me from having to reformat my hard drive to get rid of the 30 odd ATI A-I-W 7500 references in the Registry that was causing some of the problems I was having with the 9600 Pro.

I would suggest that anyone who is upgrading from one ATI card to a newer model should run this utility as it may save you a lot of grief in the future.

It's too bad ATI does not provide the option to run it with a new install as it would have helped me a lot  

[DocLotus]

Hi everyone;

Thought I would pass this along.

I just installed the latest Catalyst video driver version 4.2.

It still has the MC TV jerkiness problem; same as v 4.1

Oh well, maybe the next one will work ?

[Griff]

Well

gpvillamil  makes 4.

So how many do we need now, Jim

 


gpvillamil:

Get any where, with the ST61g4 and the AIW 9800?

Doc:

Im jinxed.

Just ck. MC/TV and guess what I am seeing.

Yep, the same as you.

The only diff. between befor and now is the new mach. with the latest cat. drivers.

Thanks for the info on the uninstall prog.  

Griff

 

[JimH]

This may be an ATI driver problem.  You could try installing older versions.

[DocLotus]

Hi Jim;

As I previously said (much earlier) in this post, the problem is only with the newer Catalyst video drivers in combination with the new Philips TV tuner.

I tried my old ATI A-I-W 7500 with the new drivers & all was well with MC TV.

I then installed the new A-I-W 9600 Pro & tried an older version of the audio drivers & all was still well with MC TV.

It seems to be only with the new Philips TV tuner & the newer video drivers that the jerkniess problem shows up.

This has happened on the last three versions of Catalyst video drivers.

[JimH]

Doc,
Forgive me.  I am forgetful.

If that's the case, then we probably won't chase this right now.  The reason is that I think ATI will be willing to chase it sometime later this year.

[DocLotus]

Yes, they have been notified by me twice about the problem.  In fact, I also sent them a very detailed e-mail yesterday outlining the problem.

The only thing I hope they don't do is to say that they create software to work with their hardware & that it is up to other vendors to make it work with non ATI programs such as MC.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that a future ATI update will resolve the problem as I currently can't use MC for my TV viewing any more as the jerkiness is very bad.

[JimH]

I split the discussion on USB TV cards to this thread:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=19553