A few of the differences with the AIW Lineup?

[gregor7777]

Hey everyone. First of all, I will not be gaming with my new box so that is not a consideration, but bascially I'm wondering which one of the AIW's I should get.

ATI Radeon or ATI Rage 128?

I have a few questions about them:

1) Is there any difference in the DVD playback between the two?

2) Is there any difference in the quality of the TV-out?

3) Any other big differences that bear mentioning for a new divx/dvd box?

I know the Radeon had a digital audio output also, but I don't think the rage had one. Am I correct?

Thanks for the help in advance.

Greg

 

[AkumaBao]

Well, the diffence that I notice is that they are two different video chipsets. If you're just wanting to watch TV & DVD's, but no gaming, I would go with the AIW 128 & 128 PRO. The Radeon is more for gaming. The only problem with the AIW series is that they still really haven't fixed the drivers very well. It almost more trouble than it's worth. Also if you want to do video editing, it's not good at all if you're wanting to convert analog video. If you just want the DVD & TV, go for a TV capture card, and a decent AGP video card. It would probably be about the same price, but you would have less trouble. There are other manufactuers that make these types of cards, but I can't give you any personal experiences with them.

 

[gregor7777]

I appreciate your reply Akuma. What is the problem with the video editing? Is that a driver issue?

 

[rbV5]

Here is a link that shows the differences in the AIW models, and yes , you're right about the digital audio (S/PDIF) output, only the Radeon. The Radeon is a newer part and only slightly more expensive, I'd go that route between the two.



<< The only problem with the AIW series is that they still really haven't fixed the drivers very well. It almost more trouble than it's worth. Also if you want to do video editing, it's not good at all if you're wanting to convert analog video. >>



Yea right, compared to what? I've used an AIW Radeon and Radeon VIVO for over a year now, drivers are solid..have been for quite some time now. The new MMC 7.5 (only released for the 8500dv so far) makes them both even better. I also use both for vid cap/editing, and they are both excellent analog capture devices, and certainly capable of high quality video in the right hands.

 

[gregor7777]

Thanks for the link. That was the kind of thing I was looking for. Has anyone owned both these cards and noticed any difference in pircture quality of the TV-out? I guess that is my last deciding factor.

Thanks for the help so far guys and girls.

 

[Slapstick]

The driver problem with the AIW Radeon is that certain channels are missing, the most common is channel 20, which for me is no big deal since it?s just a repeat of another PBS channel, (supposedly this didn?t show with older drivers). Also for me, MMC 7.1 crashed Win2k on more than one occasion but MMC 7.5 fixed that, (you can find links to get MMC 7.5 over in the Rage3d forums and it works well on the AIW Radeon). Can?t really comment on the picture quality between the 2 but the AIW Radeon has a better picture than the Hauppauge WinTV card it replaced.

 

[rbV5]

<< The driver problem with the AIW Radeon is that certain channels are missing, the most common is channel 20, >>



AFAIK, that was a problem with beta drivers in XP, the fix is to rollback to the earlier supported drivers, run the tuning wizard and then reinstall the betas. Never had channel problems in Win2k, and since I currently use my VIVO with a VCR tuner, its no trouble for me.

The real point I was making is that for all the whinning about the drivers, the AIW cards actually work, most of the driver issues are from improper installations (Most of the betas don't have a proper setup, and require you to installl manually, which can be trickey) and using the unsupported drivers, which fix some things , while breaking others. The fully supported drivers have always worked with the multimedia features for me, and I've also been able to mix and match the video drivers and the Rage theater drivers for a good combination of gaming performance and multimedia performance. Right now I'm using 6.13.6006 drivers with mmc 7.5, havent done enough testing to say for sure, but everything seems to work fine.

 

[Slapstick]

Actually ATI acknowledges the problem with missing channels in both the AIW Radeon and 128 using the latest official driver release. Here is ATI?s blurb on it Channels 20 and 62 no longer available after installing display driver update

That being said, I think the AIW lines are great products and when the prices come down a bit I plan to pick up an 8500 DV.

Edit: fixed link

 

[rbV5]

I'm not disputing the missing channel(s), I was just repeating a fix I saw on Rage3D, also try going to the MS 5.1.2001.0 driver set (Native XP driver) install MMC 7.x and then upgrade to a newer driver set>reinstall MMC 7.x and retain your old settings when asked. I'm not using my AIW right now, so I can't confirm the fix. Another option is to use 3102 win2k drivers(work in XP also if channel 20 or 62 are that important) or use a VCR tuner for channels 20 and 62(or all of 'em like me) Kind of a PITA, but kinda minor as well.

 

[gregor7777]

I have a satellite system anyhow, so that will act as a tuner. Then the AIW will just recoord whatever it being sent, without it having to do any tuning at all. You guys have been a great help. I'm going for a deal on the AIW Rage AGP, I'll post how it works out.

It's good to hear that ATI has released some new software and drivers. I hate companies who leave their hardware out in the wind to die.