ATI TV Wonder Question

[Guest]

Im thinking 'bout buying the ati tv wonder so i can watch and record some tv on my pc. My question is, does it work for Windows 2000 Pro??? I heard it can, but not all the features in the software will work. Is this true?? I dont want to buy it if it doesn't work for 2000. (I also dual boot with Windows ME, but I hardly ever use it) So let me know of any compatability issues with the TV wonder and Win2k. Thanks alot!

T-Bird 1.0, 266
Iwill kk266
Crucial 192mb
Voodoo3 2000 (I know! I ain't a gamer!)
Dual Boot Windows ME & 2000 Pro

 

[littleberry]

I have been using the TV wonder with the Radeon DDR (ati)
and also the savage s3 with no problems at all (440bx, pIII,
win98se/winME). But when I installed w2000, I could not get
the TV wonder to work (it froze up w2000 on the reboot).
ATI has drivers you can download, and I tried all the usual
ways to get the drivers installed (removing "unknown" devices, removing conflicting progs, etc.), but I can never
get w2000 to reboot after installing the four drivers
(the ati website says there are five drivers???).
Question: Does anyone know of a really GOOD tv tuner
(as good a tv wonder) that really really really does
work with win2k and the ati radeon ddr video card?
Littleberry

 

[littleberry]

I managed to get the ati tv wonder card to work with win2000
but there is a lot of bad news along with this little bit
of good news. The good news - it does work with win2000.
The bad news - a) it is a tangled web of discombobulation
to actually get the drivers installed. I am not even sure
I can repeat the process, but there are 5 drivers that have
to go in and don't remember exactly how I did it but you have to pull your hair out several times and then somehow
by magic they all got installed.
b) It doesn't work as good as it does with win98se, in
that the video is a little bit jumpy. You notice it
if you are used to the smooth video using the tv wonder
with win98se, and it is really not good enough to watch
for entertainment. You can use it to see what is going
on, but you will not want to watch it like you would
with win98se. I know this for a fact, because I have
both win98se and win2000 installed (dual boot) on this
system, and so everything hardwarewise is exactly the
same and the win2000 drivers do NOT play the incoming
video stream smooothly like the win98 drivers do.
So far, I don't know of any other tv card that works
at all witn win2000, so this may be the only choice.
Littleberry

 

[Guest]

hey littleberry, thanks for the info.
now im kinda hesitant in buying the tuner cuz it doesnt work good in win2k. but i also dual boot with winME. I know you said it works for ME, but is the tuner just as good compared with ME and 98?? How's the capturing???
I hardly use ME, win2k is my main OS...so i'm not too sure about buying the tuner unless ATI releases a new and better driver (which i highly doubt)

 

[littleberry]

I can't tell any difference between ME and 98SE as fas as
the tv tuner goes. It is very good at watching tv on your
pc. I only use it for live viewing, and snapping individual
stills. I do all my capturing with pinnacle's dv200, so
I wouldn't recommend the lesser capturing capabilities
of the tv tuner. When viewing tv, you can click an
area for zooming, and I find the interpolated zoomed
area very impressive - it keeps real time and looks
pretty good. You can "minimize" the tv window, and it
becomes your windows wallpaper, putting the tv in
fullscreen mode in background to your other icons and
windows. I find it works the very best as the perfect
playback window for dv files played via pinnacle's
plug-in for premiere. The clip is sent out via the
firewire and then back in via the composite video for
the tv tuner, and the correct aspect ratio is shown
in real time by the tv-tuner as it is being played back
with no jitters. This is all on win98se, of course.
win2000 is a real dissappointment, plus a definite
headache getting it installed. Win98 is better, but
then you are stuck with the 2 gig file size limit.
Littleberry