Cow of a time with VIVO on Leadtek GF4 Ti4200

[khat]

OK, the situation is this. I run Windows XP Professional on a P3 650 / 384Mb / Intel 440BX system.
I picked up a Leadtek A170 64Mb Geforce 4 MX440 with VIVO the other day to replace a TNT2. I wanted to get the obvious advantages the GF4 offers over the TNT2 but am not more than a casual gamer so don't need the whole shi-bang. Plus VIVO looked nice.

I installed all the bundled video editting software before I realised I needed to first install the bundled nvidia wdm video capture drivers (v 1.12). Thus I got some errors about no capture device installed. Once I uninstalled the software and installed the drivers and then reinstalled the software (MGI VideoWave and the myVIVO thing). I expected the video input to show up fine. But the software complained that the driver cannot be opened because another program was using it. I tried both VirtualDub and Windows Movie Maker and they both complained that the driver cannot be opened. This is after lots of reboots and other stuff.

So I fiddled and fiddled and fiddled and eventually got it to work after a) removing MGI VideoWave and changing everything from NTSC to PAL I could fine (I am in Australia).
So everythings great both TV out and TV in wored fine.



OK, I was so happy with the change that the card made to my system that I took the card back and got the 64Mb Leadtek A250 Geforce 4 Ti 4200 with the DVI port and VIVO.

Now I cannot for the life of me get the Video In to work with the Ti 4200. I removed all the drivers before I took the MX out. Installed all the drivers then the software. I get the following messages:
Bundled myVIVO - "Cannot preview video stream".
VirtualDub - "You cannot use this device when another video application, such as DVD, video conferencing, video editing, TV viewers, or WebTV for windows is already using it. To use this device for your current application, close the application that is using it."
Windows Movie Maker - "Either your capture device is in use by another application, or the output from your capture device is not recognised by Movie Maker. Please close any other applications that use capture devices, or change your device settings to output a supported format."

I have checked that my formats are all on PAL and that is about all the settings I can fiddle with.
I have checked msconfig to make sure myVIVO or whatever isn't openingon startup.
I have tried the nvidia WDM drivers versions 1.11 (Gainward), 1.12 and 1.16 all from here http://bunny.xs4all.nl/software/nvidia.html except 1.12 is bundled with the card.
In all cases I have rebooted after every change and first thing I run after the reboot is the video application software. Always the same messages comes up.

Last thing I did was boot into Windows 98SE (I have dual boot on this PC). Installed everything and Video in works perfectly in Windows 98. But I don't use Windows 98 and I need to to work perfectly under XP.


On a second note. The TV output on the A250 runs at either 640x480 or 800x600. With the A170 I had 640x480 or 800x600 or 1024x768.
Is there anyway I can get the option of 1024x768 back again for the Ti?


If anyone can please help, it'd be great.

 

[memories2002]

im no pro....but just check up if your motherboard is agp revision 2.0 compliant or not ie. agp 4x.

[mine isnt, and im wondering what i can do apart from replacing the mobo if i want a gf4ti4200..]

 

[aznet]

khat I just posted on another thread why the ti4200 are limited to 800x600 res, there?s no way for getting the 1024x768 back cos the chipset (Philips 7108 doesn?t support any hi-res output to TV). See this thread;

Questions about the Leadtek ti4200 128MB (new VIVO)?

..also I might have a solution to your VIVO problems as I had the same problem with my card. Problem is with the MyVIVO app from Leadtek that insists on starting up when your computer starts. Simple answer is to uninstall the MyVIVO app and use something like Virtualdub for all capturing. All drivers 1.12, 1.13 and 1.16 work fine ? I?m using the 1.16 at the moment.

 

[khat]

memories2002: I have a Gigabyte 6BXC (Intel 440BX) non AGP 4x. Only 2x. It's an awesome board for 100 FSB. Geforce 4 works fine.
For you, there is only one way to find out

aznet: Thanks I'll check out your article. What I really want is the ability to run my monitor at least 1024x768 preferrably at 1280x1024 and have the TV out running simultaneously where the whole screen fits in the viewpoint. I really don't care the actual resolution, as long as I can see the screen. At the moment if my monitor is over 800x600 the TV out pans around the screen. Can I force it to resize the image to fit in 800x600 while my monitor runs at a higher res?

Thanks...

 

[khat]

My woes continue.

Today I formatted a new HDD and dropped it in. Installed XP, Installed the Winfast GF4 drivers, Installed the bundled 1.12 drivers for the Philips chip then installed the myVIVO software.
Same problem.

Uninstalling the myVIVO software did not rectify anything. Perhaps I need to format the drive and then install the GF4 drivers then the 1.16 wdm drivers and not the myVIVO?

I sure hope the loss of the 1024x768 resolution on the TV out is paid for with better TV in capability? Why would they stick an inferior chip onto a superior video card?

Also: Am I better off using the Detonator drivers than the bundled winfast drivers?

 

[khat]

Hmm, well it looks as if I have found the source of the problems. It was that myVIVO thing.
I formatted again and installed the Winfast Drivers then the 1.16 WDM drivers. Then it works under Virtual Dub and under Movie Maker.

So to work out whether it's the myVIVO or the 1.12 version I installed the myVIVO. From that point on the Video In never worked again.
I tried to uninstall the myVIVO software, and it did uninstall completely. But the problem was still present. Virtual Dub and Movie Maker both come up with those same error messages.

[sigh] looks like I will be reformatting and installing a third time running. Not as if I don't do it enough at work I guess.

BTW: After a reboot, the myVIVO stopped working in Windows 98 too. It's a pity as I was fairly pleased with the output that myVIVO gave.
What are some good capture programs that does MPEG-2 codecs? I'd use virtual dub, but I think it only does MPEG-4 and Divx etc. Not so great for on the fly conversion on my PC.

Whatabout WinDVR? Is Movie Maker ok?
Fullscreen preview would also be great.

 

[mellondust]

I sure wish they would make all this VIVO stuff a lot more user friendly! It is all a pain in the but to figure out how everything works. I still can't get mine to output to a tv although I can get video in. The only way I got it to work was using a program that came with it and trying option after option in the control tabs to enable it. N-view is still a sorry mess of "what the heck is going on here" for me too.

 

[khat]

I can absolutely assure you that it's come a hell of a long way. Talk about being thrown in the deep end, you should have tried the earlier TV out models.

My only wish is that they'd ship programs that work with the hardware. I don't mind troubleshooting or trying options, but I shouldn't have to spend 8 hours+ fiddling with drivers and performing formats when it's a problem with the bundled software.

 

[khat]

Ack - horrible.

It turns out that you cannot use video in while you use tv out. All that time I spent and it was this simple?
It's not my week.

 

[Barrei]

MOOOOO , MOOOOO