Warning!!!! ATI Blocks VCR Playback Of Movies You Own On AIW Video Inputs!!!

[MrDave]

Way to go ATI.

Not only is the AGC circuit in the Theater 200 very very touchy to begin with, Now you have it set to not allow the playback of ANY Video Input Source with Macrovision Encoding.

Previously you had blocked recording of those sources... Which is understandable. But NOW you completely BLOCK Watching those VCR movies that we own!

No Longer can I use my AIW 9600 XT as a VCR Playback monitor for the kids. I used to be able to put the kids in the guest bedroom, drop in a tape in the VCR and let them watch a movie.

But Nooooooooooo! ATI has determined that using an AIW as a VCR TAPE playback system is something that people aren't going to be using this equipment for. ATI, in their ultimate wisdom, has once again reduced the usefullness of their All In Wonder line!

I understand why you follow the Macrovision accord and block digital recording of VCR Tapes. But honestly, to BLOCK the playing of a VCR TAPE? Whats the Big Deal here????

I do own a Video Stabilizer that digitizes the sync and subsequently bypasses the macrovision on the tape and gets around this problem, and if I use that, I am able to watch the movies. But thats not how it works guys!

What do you think the the owners of VCR's are going to do with their collection of movies they want to watch?

What if Sony decided that VCR Tapes with macrovision are now no longer able to be displayed on all Sony televisions, because the technology is old enough to just block it and nobody would care?

Well thats exactly what ATI just DID!

ATI - Give us Back the Ability to watch our VCR Video Tape Libraries that we OWN, When Using the VCR with the All In Wonder Line of Card and VIVO cards. I suspect all products with the Theater 200 chip are affected by this new problem.

Please, Everybody test this out on your own system then post to this thread so ATI gets the message that we use our ATI Cards to Watch Video Tapes and other Sources with Macrovision on our cards!

[Uber_Tiny]

your sig is too long

[MrDave]

The latest beta of ATITool has a 'remove macrovision' option. Has anybody tried it?

I just tried it.

By default, ATI already had the "Remove macrovision from Video Input" already set.

Upon selecting the option, the Tool re enabled the Macrovision detection. So I rebooted and the same result. Macrovision encoded tapes are BLOCKED from displaying.

So enabling the option again, and a subsequent reboot, and still the same problem.

By Default, ATI BLOCKS all Content with Macrovision from being displayed through the Video Inputs on our cards.

Again I say "Way to Go ATI!"

And we can't just uninstall and go backwards in our drivers, because the newest WDM's remain attached to the system. I followed the thread that shows how to manually set them back to CAT 5.2. which nearly worked, except I had no Video, but I did have analog audio again. So then I used the ATI Full Software uninstall utility and subsequent reboots then reinstalled Cat 5.2 and MMC 9.03. However, the Windows setup knew how to reinstall the WDM drivers that were in the CAT's 5.3 which I thought I had removed all traces of it from my computer.

Again I say...
"Way to GO ATI!"

[LNahid2004]

meh... i havent used a vcr in years

[HillBoy]

OK, that's something I'll try - I'll rollback to an earlier WDM. MrDave was responding to my post where I've notified ATI that the new Catalyst drivers with WDM no longer allow users to playback Macrovision encoded tapes. There is still a continuing issue with the AIW playing back non-Macrovision encoded tapes as well. My AIW 9600XT has severe problems playing back analog VHS tapes which is a pain when you're trying to convert your old VHS library to DVDs. The problem lies with their poorly designed and sloppy drivers. Unless ATI fixes this issue, they are guilty of false advertising because it says on the box that these cards support VHS tape playback & capture.

[MrDave]

I've also verified that Tapes I have of TV shows that I had recorded also have issues. The AGC circuit makes drastic changes in the white level of the entire screen. You'll have a normal looking picture, then you'll have flashes of bright white as if you turned your brightness from 65% to 2000%. Obviously 100% would be as high as you can go. So my Exaggeration of 2000% is meant to explain what the card is doing.

Unlike Macrovision's normal feature of taking a normal looking picture down to extremely dark, this is the exact opposite of taking a normal looking picture to extremely bright. The white flashes do not conform to the macrovision up and down consistent cycles of change. Instead the bright flashes just come and go as they please.

Hillboy is correct in his statement bringing these issue to the attention of ATI. Sure a VCR is an old technology, but when was that an excuse for a slowly degrading set of WDM drivers?

If we lose VCR support, what will be next?

Anistropic Filtering? Oh sure, we don't need that. We have Shader 3.0 coming.

Again, I use an over exaggerated and just plain stupid comparison to get our point across on the grounds that there is NO good reason as to why ATI should block VCR Tape Playback!

So as you guys have stated, VCR is an old technology, who watches it anymore anyhow? People beside you, do, thats who.

So here is another example.
You don't have a DVD player in your computer, but you want to watch DVD movies on the computer screen. So you connect the DVD player to your ATI connection block. Depending on which form of macrovision was used in the movie, playback fails.

Here is the first DVD I tried:
Star Wars V, The Empire Strikes Back Digitally remastered DVD - This disc will NOT Play. The menus are fine, as soon as the movie starts the playback window flashes back and forth between 1/2 second of video and stays like that, unable to play the movie stuck in a constant instant replay of that 1/2 second for ever or until you press MENU and go back to the menu screen where macrovision has not been encoded.

The second disc I tried:
The Matrix DVD. Here the Menus have macrovision. This disc fails playback of both the menus and the movie.

The Third disc I tried:
Star Trek Insurrection. Menus worked, Movie would not play.

The Forth Disc I tried:
Lord of the Rings, Return of the King - Special Extended Version. Menus are fine. Movie playback is fine. Now get this, MMC 9.06 even allows the capture of the entire Movie! Clearly a screw up on ATI's part. Gentlemen, start backing up your movies! The American Movie Association and the Macrovision Group are going to have a hay day with this one guys! When you fix it ATI, please fix the stuff we can't watch, not just add more playback sources into the BLOCKED list!!!

Clearly the problem here is not equipment, but specifically ATI is blocking certain forms of Macrovision protection from being able to be viewed on their AIW 9600XT cards and others.

You say who cares about VCR's? Well what about over 1/2 of my DVD collection possibly being affected by this problem when played on a set top DVD player through my AIW 9600XT to my computer screen. After all this is how the card is/was marketed and sold to the consumer to be used!!!

[HillBoy]

While I admit that VHS is not state of the art technology, I have to agree with Mr. Dave that there was no reason for ATI to cripple the AIW's ability to play video from an analog source. That is unless what we have here is not a deliberate act on their part but rather the result of sloppy driver design and poor quality control.

At any rate, this issue is a serious matter for those people like me who got the AIW in order to perform video conversions of their aging library of VHS tapes. All I want is for some consistency here: if the AIW cards are no longer intended for analog video capture, then ATI needs to STOP advertising them as such. Believe me, if I'd known that the AIW didn't perform as advertised, I would have gotten a non AIW card along with a Hauppauge PVR 250 or 350. As things now stand, I'm stuck with the AIW for now because it makes no sense to spend even more money for another video capture device which would probably cause even more problems with the AIW.

[Vanadium]

I would like to add that i care about these issues.

I have a number of old VHS tapes (homemade_ example: Weddings , HighSchool Grad, etc.) that i've always wanted to convert over to digital. My old AIW 9700 had huge problems when doing this. All i would get is sound with no image whatsoever and that was just for playback. False advertising if you ask me. The best i was able to do was with an older Radeon VIVO card but my recordings would stop about an half hour into it.

Anyone have any ideas on what i should buy for converting VHS to digital ?
(That works as advertised).

Edit: Hillboy posted as i was writing this. This Hauppauge PVR 250 or 350, will this serve my needs ?

[HillBoy]

Vanadium, from what I've been able to determine, the answer to your question is yes: the Hauppauge PVR cards do not suffer from these problems but there's a caveat. The PVR 250 has been replaced by Hauppauge so you'll need to look on the web or eBay. And expect to pay at least $100+ for the card.

[grog]

Come on now.

Macrovision has been an issue with ATI products since the AIW Rage 128.

http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/articles/macrovision_graphics.html

http://www.macrovision.com/

See the thing is use of Microvision is not an option. In the US it is the law.
ATI has to use it. Methods have been used in the past to override the Macrovision. Still you can not blame ATI but you can blame the Motion Picture Industry.

Since Macrovision is provided by the company that makes the "protection" it could be that an updated version was provided which is more of a problem then before. The only real solution is to remove Macrovision before it gets to the ATI card and hardware is out there that does just that.

Greg

[Billium]

grog,

I believe the issue isn't recording/capturing a macrovisionized tape (which hasn't been allowed in their out-of-box software in the past), these guys are reporting that now you can't even watch the tape in real-time - if so, this represents a loss of functionality.

[HillBoy]

Come on now.

Macrovision has been an issue with ATI products since the AIW Rage 128.

http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/articles/macrovision_graphics.html

http://www.macrovision.com/

See the thing is use of Microvision is not an option. In the US it is the law.
ATI has to use it. Methods have been used in the past to override the Macrovision. Still you can not blame ATI but you can blame the Motion Picture Industry.

Since Macrovision is provided by the company that makes the "protection" it could be that an updated version was provided which is more of a problem then before. The only real solution is to remove Macrovision before it gets to the ATI card and hardware is out there that does just that.

Greg

Greg, you misunderstood what we're complaining about. I'm not trying to capture from Macrovision protected tapes at all. The VHS tapes I'm capturing/converting were recorded on home VHS recorders or VHSC camcorders. These are NOT Macrovision encoded tapes yet the AIW 9600XT behaves as if they are - video playback is so scrambled that at first, I was afraid that my tapes had begun to disintegrate. It was only when I took the same tapes to another VHS deck and played the tapes back on a regular TV set that I realized that the AIW was at fault.

What's worse is that with the Catalyst 5.3 driver set, the AIW 9600XT no longer plays back Macrovision encoded tapes at all. I rolled back to the original driver set on the CD and those didn't work as well so I'm stumped as to what ATI is doing with their Theater 200 chipset. Bear in mind that this behavior was NOT present with my old AIW 7500 which used the Theater 100 chipset.

I was able to find a Sima CT-2 on eBay and I'll try it to see if it eliminates my problem but after spending $249+ for the AIW 9600XT, I should not have to spend additional money on 3rd party hardware to make the AIW perform as advertised.

If ATI can't (or won't) correct this problem, then they should at least be upfront and let me RMA the card back for a non-AIW 9600XT so I can replace the tuner with a AverTV, Hauppauge, Leadtek or other TV card that is not crippled like the ATI cards.

[grog]

Macrovision viewing is disabled with MMC 9.06.

I did. But I have not tested this issue and I will confirm this as a problem with MMC. I will report the issue.

Macrovision viewing is disabled with MMC 9.06.
GraphEdit and AMCap work fine.
Seems to be an issue with the way MMC stabilizes images during playback.

VCR connected to ATI HDTV WONDER Analog Composite-IN



Direct Link to Image

http://img185.exs.cx/img185/3568/macrovision8hb.jpg

Greg

Greg, you misunderstood what we're complaining about. I'm not trying to capture from Macrovision protected tapes at all. The VHS tapes I'm capturing/converting were recorded on home VHS recorders or VHSC camcorders. These are NOT Macrovision encoded tapes yet the AIW 9600XT behaves as if they are - video playback is so scrambled that at first, I was afraid that my tapes had begun to disintegrate. It was only when I took the same tapes to another VHS deck and played the tapes back on a regular TV set that I realized that the AIW was at fault.

What's worse is that with the Catalyst 5.3 driver set, the AIW 9600XT no longer plays back Macrovision encoded tapes at all. I rolled back to the original driver set on the CD and those didn't work as well so I'm stumped as to what ATI is doing with their Theater 200 chipset. Bear in mind that this behavior was NOT present with my old AIW 7500 which used the Theater 100 chipset.

I was able to find a Sima CT-2 on eBay and I'll try it to see if it eliminates my problem but after spending $249+ for the AIW 9600XT, I should not have to spend additional money on 3rd party hardware to make the AIW perform as advertised.

If ATI can't (or won't) correct this problem, then they should at least be upfront and let me RMA the card back for a non-AIW 9600XT so I can replace the tuner with a AverTV, Hauppauge, Leadtek or other TV card that is not crippled like the ATI cards.

[HillBoy]

Well, I guess I was lucky because the Sima CT-2 works beautifully for me. I'm currently capturing an old VHS tape set of the PBS series "The Civil War" and the picture quality is perfect. Guess I'll have to live with this for the forseeable future. At least I don't have to replace the video card and for that I'm thankful.

[PalamaNui]

Well, I guess I was lucky because the Sima CT-2 works beautifully for me. I'm currently capturing an old VHS tape set of the PBS series "The Civil War" and the picture quality is perfect. Guess I'll have to live with this for the forseeable future. At least I don't have to replace the video card and for that I'm thankful.

Aloha HillBoy!! Since I believe it is very possible they might pull this unit, we have one on the way as well. Perhaps that would allow us to try this latest set of drivers, since my Wife will be able to watch her videos?! However, there is still the problem of the driver compatibility. Thanks for letting us know this unit works. BTW, which version of Cat & MMC are you using with this?

Thanks again!!

[MrDave]

Both the SIMA CT-1 and CT-2 will digitize the sync. What that means is that the stability of a signal from a VCR tape becomes much more stable than it's origional characteristics. A side effect of this is that VCR VHS Tape Macrovision is removed.

FAIR USE BACKUP TO PROTECT YOUR INVESTMENT - INFORMATION:
These Devices may not remove all types of Macrovision and copy protection associated with DVD's and thus will not allow making Composite or Svideo input backups from DVD's reliably. In the case of Fair Use backups of DVD's, you are better off using a program called Smartripper 2.4.1, which, if you can find it, will be able to rip an entire DVD from the disc onto your hard drive and remove region encoding and encryption and macrovision all at the same time. From there you can make a 1:1 DVD9 dual layer backup or a DVD5 compressed backup using ANY dvd copy software. My favorite is ImageToolBurn which can be found at http://www.coujo.de ImageToolBurn require Nero to be installed on your computer. ImageToolBurn does not compress DVD9 to DVD5, however it is intended to copy a DVD5 VideoTS folder to a DVD5 disc, or a DVD9 VideoTS folder to a DVD9 disc. If compression is needed try some free software, like DVDSHRINK. http://www.dvdshrink.org/what.html
*Edit*
If you used smartripper to move the files to your hard disc and you have Nero 6.xx on your computer, then you can just use the Nero Recode application to compress and burn your DVD9 material onto a DVD5 disc.

[HillBoy]

Aloha HillBoy!! Since I believe it is very possible they might pull this unit, we have one on the way as well. Perhaps that would allow us to try this latest set of drivers, since my Wife will be able to watch her videos?! However, there is still the problem of the driver compatibility. Thanks for letting us know this unit works. BTW, which version of Cat & MMC are you using with this?

Thanks again!!

Aloha PalamaNui! I am using the latest Catalyst 5.3 driver set dated 3/9 without the CCC (I don't want to install .Net on my video editing machine):

Catalyst 5.3
DAO/MDAC
DVD Decoder
Multimedia Center 9.06
Remote Wonder II 3.01

Here's my installation procedure:

Before installation, I ran the ATI Uninstall Utility to remove all ATI software. Next, I reboot into safe mode and run Driver Cleaner 3 to clean off everything. After I reboot, I stop the VGA card detection. Then I install:

Catalyst 5.3 drivers, reboot
DAO/MDAC
From CD - Gemstar+
run ATIWiz for the DVD Decoder which I download from the ATI site & install, reboot
Multimedia Center 9.06, reboot
Remote Wonder II (install software first, power off & connect the X-10 unit & then power on)

After that everything should be working just fine - you can then setup TV channels & listings. The extra reboots are just my way of being careful. I hope this proves useful.

[phreez]

AIW x600 w/ ATItool to remove macrovision

Has anyone used ATItool to remove the macrovision check sucessfully? If so, what versions of ATI software are you using where this works? I have been working on this for hours and have gotten nowhere. I can't even playback a macrovisioned tape, let alone back it up...it just sits there and loops like 1/2 a second.

Thanks,

-phreez

[HillBoy]

Has anyone used ATItool to remove the macrovision check sucessfully? If so, what versions of ATI software are you using where this works? I have been working on this for hours and have gotten nowhere. I can't even playback a macrovisioned tape, let alone back it up...it just sits there and loops like 1/2 a second.

Thanks,

-phreez

Don't know about ATItool but I was forced to get a Sima CT-2 Video Stabilizer to play not only Macrovision encoded VHS tapes but ANY VHS tape. It works perfectly. I found it on eBay where a guy was selling a bunch of them. I have sent this issue into ATI as a bug in the new WDM for the 5.2/5.3 Catalyst drivers.

[MrDave]

ATITOOL Shows that Macrovision has already been disabled by Default. Either choosing Enabled or Disabled on the Video Inputs does not change how the card is malfunctioning. The Malfunction stays the same.

ATITOOL will not help this situation.

[Myrdhinn]

ATi's new 550 is the same .... it's almost like ATi thinks they are an american company not canadian since they are kowtowing to the riaa ans whatever. Just like how the yanks get great prices on ATi products and us poor canucks get shafted you know where. Heh, ATi puts on a promotion for "win our greatest new product.." and in the contest requirements it always says "must be in the US". Harriss-it-is strikes still with the lets make Ontario wannabe americans...

[bpoelstra]

Allow ATI Macrovision INPUT / RECORD

I have the latest v6.14.10.6300 (NSP) and v6.14.10.6246 (SP) hacked drivers to bypass the macrovision detection. These WILL enable capturing of macrovision protected analog source.
Email me at [email protected]
BBB

[tmitc]

I have the latest v6.14.10.6300 (NSP) and v6.14.10.6246 (SP) hacked drivers to bypass the macrovision detection. These WILL enable capturing of macrovision protected analog source.
Email me at [email protected]
BBB

bpoelstra, hi, is there any way you could point me in to the direction to finding the v6.14.10.6300 (NSP) and v6.14.10.6246 (SP) hacked drivers?
Thanks in advanced,
pat

[lastdon]

found this site
http://www.biline.ca/ati_macrovision.htm

and he has a file under april 2nd 2005 for download
that someone could try

[tenndevil]

I'm glad I ran into the thread, by accident....I thought it was just me, we had a snowstorm this past weekend so my wife and I thought we would take the ole home movies and put them to dvd, I had already upgraded to the new cats, It took awhile before I realized I wasn't going to get anywhere, and now I know why, in my last ditch attempt to get somewhere I loaded the drivers off the ATI disk they were cat 3.4 the problem disappeared hmmm, I then tried a number of drivers after that trying to find the most current that would work, well I couldn't so my editing disk will stay with these drivers until my new cards arrive, If they have actually disable all vhs viewing then this makes the AIW card useless and therefore as far as i'm concerned no reason to even consider an ATI replacement. I've got 4 kids and the threee oldest's memories are on tape, because digital video didn't exist back then, they can disable macrovision viewing all togeter for all I care but to stop all vhs playback well.....

[seaquest]

So when did Macrovision start showing on commercially purchased vhs tapes? Because I went through lots of my purchased vhs tapes and I dont see any signs of or indication on the box that it may contain macrovision. Or is it that it is on there and they just dont advertise it on the box.

[tenndevil]

It's been there since the Sony Beta Max lawsuite days, it's like everything else tho, you don't see any DVD you buy stating they use copy protection, and they all use it. There's nothing that states they have to reveal this info.

[seaquest]

Well, after I posted my question about displaying the use of macrovision, I went and got three random purchased movies (Lost in Space, The Rock, and Jurassic Park) to see if I could record a snibbit of it. Lost in Space = yes, The Rock = yes, Jurassic Park = NO. One thing for sure, I know I could record DVD movies into my computer via my AIW9800pro. I have done it twice now just for the heck of it. The way I did it was I hooked up a DVD player using composite and audio out from the dvd player into Line 2 of my VCR and then Composite and audio out from VCR into composite/audio in to AIW9800pro. I was able to record a 2hr concert Fleetwood Mac DVD and a 2.5 movie (dont remember what it was) a long while back. I did this using mpeg 2, 740x480 ntsc, 48khz, 16bit, stereo, and 8mbit stream.
Oh well, Im not worry at all about digitizing vhs tapes. I have a miniDV camcorder and with that you can transfer the data directly via the firewire port for video editing.

[Tired]

Use an older VHS player to bypass Macrovision

I used to back-up macrovisioned VHS tapes without problems. I used to hook an older VHS model (late 80´s like Panasonic 4800 or G20) as the "player" and a newer 2001 Sony model with all these "Automatic Picture Control", "Automatic Gain Control", "AFT" and alike disabled. The tapes were dubbed flawlessly.

Macrovision circuitry only started to be implemented on VCR units in the begining of the 90´s so pre-macrovision units just ignore the macrovison signal and AIW might record them without problems. If you have an old VHS player getting dust, try to hook it on your AIW card.

[Gustave]

Support ticket to ATI

(Trade-up FAQ):
Operating System: WINDOWS XP SP2
Other Operating System:
Driver Version:
Driver Version: CATALYST 5.4
Driver Version:
Other Driver Version:
Summary: Play Macrovision VCR video impossible.
Details: With an AIW 9800 (not in your drop down list!) and Cat. 5.4 and MMC 9.06.1 I can't play videofilms (macrovision). Is this going to be solved in future driver releases? I also can't copy them to DVD (for home use).

Thanks in advance for your answer.

Regards,

Fred
Attachment: None

Hope I get an answer!

[Gustave]

Still no satisfying answer from ATI!

[Jarrett]

It's funny I should see this thread here.

I tried to capture Alien 3 FROM MY OWN VHS tape, so that I could copy it to DVD instead. Playing the tape did not work either. The macrovision I got was repetition of the last five or so frames - unplayable.

[Tired]

Have you tryied DVD Decrypter

Jarret,
Using your ATI board to capture from your VHS tape a film like Alien 3 is a waste of time ! Since a DVD of such a film is easily rented on the nearest Blockbuster store, the best you can do is to DVD decrypt it on your computer... Even with the best settings, your ATI capture board would never achieve the same quality results of a "pressed" DVD. Go to www.dvddecrypter.org and get the program right at once !
Use your ATI board to capture and convert to DVD films you will never find on DVD stores like your home-videos. If you want to capture hollywood films, rip them !

[HillBoy]

Jarrett, look here: http://www.videohelp.com

Gustave, you won't hear anything from ATI because they created this problem when they made the updated version of their WDM in the Cat 5 series drivers. The analog video problems appear to be a side effect that they did test for. I had to get a Sima GoDVD unit in order to finish digitizing my VHS library to DVD.

[Dino1956]

I'm thinking about buying the ATI All In Wonder 9800 Pro Card with all the new Drivers from the ATI site. I'm using the card for VHS Video Capture only. They are old tapes I shot of my old Band performances with a Camcorder. Are you saying there will be some kind of Copy Guard device that will not allow me to copy my own personal collection of Home Videos ? Please Let Me Know ! Before I buy this thing. That is my sole purpose for getting the card. I'm not putting it to TV or playing games. Thanks in advance !

[grog]

There seems to be a lot of confusion on this subject but here is what is known.

1.) VHS - Personally recorded tapes (passed)
VHS tapes created for home use should record fine with MMC.
I just re-tested this feature and it works with old home movies.
I also tested a good number of older TV shows that were recorded to VHS tape and they record fine with the latest drivers and MMC.

2.) Play copy protected VHS tapes. (fails)
This is the bug that I admit we do have with MMC. Technically MMC should allow playing of copywrite material but prevent recording of the same material.

3.) Record copy protected VHS tapes. (fails)
It should fail. That's the law.

4.) Copies of VHS protected tapes. (fails).
I also tested VHS tapes that were copied from commercial VHS tapes.
While many VHS units will let the user do this the original MacroVision is carried with the taped show. So in this case the tapes will not play or record in MMC.

The only issue I know of is the inability to play copy protected content which I will expect to be fixed in a future release.

For the time being if this important to you simply use an older driver set until the issue is fixed.

If playing copy protected "MacroVision" content is not an issue then by all means go for the latest driver set.

Keep in mind that other Composite and S-Video content does not have a problem.

For example, I watch and record Dish Network Sat content via both Composite and S-Video with no issues.

Only MacroVision on VHS tapes and playback of such tapes is an issue.

Greg

I'm thinking about buying the ATI All In Wonder 9800 Pro Card with all the new Drivers from the ATI site. I'm using the card for VHS Video Capture only. They are old tapes I shot of my old Band performances with a Camcorder. Are you saying there will be some kind of Copy Guard device that will not allow me to copy my own personal collection of Home Videos ? Please Let Me Know ! Before I buy this thing. That is my sole purpose for getting the card. I'm not putting it to TV or playing games. Thanks in advance !

[HillBoy]

In response to your post here are my observations.

1) VHS - Personally Recorded Tapes. Not true unless you have an AIW 7500 or older or any card with the Theater 100 chip. I did not even SEE this problem until I got have my AIW 9600XT which uses the Theater 200 chip. I have tested this with VHS tapes recorded on 4 different VCR brands: Toshiba, Philips, Panasonic & DaeWoo and none will playback over channel 3 or the composite input. The video either repeats in place, or has a band of flashing white at the very top or is completely garbled. This is true for recently recorded tapes such as last week's episode of Lost to tapes recorded years ago such as stuff off PBS like the Civil War series. These tapes play perfectly fine in all VHS vcrs but fail to playback on the AIW. The ONLY way I can get VHS tapes to playback over the AIW is to use the Sima GoDVD device and even then, I'm getting the flashing band at the top of the screen with the latest driver set. It has gotten so bad, that I have stopped using the AIW for analog video capture.

2) Correct, my old VHS copies of the X-Files & Star Wars all fail to play.

3) Definitely fails as it should.

4) Definitely fails as it should.

Your conclusions are incorrect especially about using an older driver set. The AIW 9600XT ships with MMC 8.02 and this problem exists even with the drivers that shipped with the card. Exactly how far back should I go? MMC 7.03? Catalyst 3.x? I've tested from scratch by reformatting and reinstalling Windows XP and then installing these older drivers at the beginning. NOTHING has worked. I can watch analog TV from cable & Directv with no problem. I can even feed the signal from the VHS deck through channel 3 or composite with no problems. It's only a problem when I try to playback non copy protected VHS tapes I have made on VHS vcrs or camcorders.

I have been struggling with this issue for over a year now. I emailed screen shots to ATI Support and never received any resolution on this issue other than to install the latest driver set. Now you come along saying that we have to use an older driver set. Neither approach works. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear that ATI has simply abandoned VHS tape playback/capture which is unfortunate for folks like myself who need to digitize their VHS tape library. At this point in time, the only solution I can see is to get a Hauppage or other brand PVR card because the ATI simply doesn't work.

[Rainey]

I also have this very same problem. I though i would backup all my VHS tapes from years ago that were all recorded by me on my VCR, so i know they are not copy protected.

Anyways, it seems that i can send the VCR output to a TV and it is normal ( i can see the picture fine ) BUT if i send it to the AIW it dose not look normal. It has a lot of streaky lines running across the screen they are bright white flickering line that affect the sync of the picture.

I seem to remember that a year ago i played some of the same tapes without problems on this same PC. The only thing i have done is update to a newer CAT and MMC version and now it don't work.

Yes there is some problem here, it is in the newer software.

[Gemini78]

http://www.ati.com/products/radeon96...600/index.html
I've got an AIW 9600 (Theater 200) and I can't capture anything from VCR with any WDM driver newer than 4.07 6246.

[HillBoy]

Here is the original message I sent into ATI Support back in March about this issue. At that time 2 months had passed when I originally sent in a problem report on this issue:

Well over a MONTH ago, I contacted ATI about problems I was having with my AIW 9600XT playing back VHS tapes that I was converting to DVD. These tapes were produced with a regular VHS/VHSC camera and are not (repeat NOT encoded with Macrovision). Nor is this a problem that can be explained by your Video Capture section on the ATI website (please DON'T send me yet another link to that page). Simply put, VHS tapes do not playback properly with the AIW 9600XT.

To illustrate, I'm attaching some images captured from TV & VCR tape playback with the AIW 9600XT running the Catalyst 5.2 driver set. As you will see from the attached images, normal VCR playback is scrambled and jerky. As a check, I have played these same tapes on several other VCRs attached to TV sets with no problems so this is not a question of bad VHS tapes. I have also switched out the VCR unit attached to my PC as well as cleaned the VCR's heads but the problem remains. These tapes are not commercially produced nor do they use Macrovision encoding yet as you can see from the attached images, the AIW 9600XT appears to think that they are.

Please note that the VCR playback on my older AIW 7500 was flawless and that this problem first surfaced when I upgraded to the AIW 9600XT. Also note that I have upgraded my Catalyst Drivers to 5.3 and the problem still exists. I am not using the CCC but I am using MMC 9.03. I am also not using any 3rd party tweakers or accelerators/overclockers. The problem appears to lie with how the AIW 9600XT is handling analog signals (it detects Macrovision when it's not really there). This problem appears to be driver related as commpercially produced VHS tapes that ARE Macrovision encoded no longer play at all under the Catalyst 5.3 drivers. Please advise a course of action for me to follow.
After a month passed ATI responded with the following reply as they marked my issue resolved:

This is an automated message intended to notify you about a recent driver and software release.

ATI released CATALYST 5.4 including new display drivers and Multimedia Center 9.06.1 on April 7, 2005. This release applies to all RADEON and ALL-IN-WONDER (7000 and greater) series products running in Windows XP and Windows 2000.

We ask that you try this new release in the hope that it will correct the issue that you are currently experiencing. To obtain this update please visit http://support.ati.com and choose Drivers and Software. Please ensure that you read the release notes for installation instructions.

Should your issue persist with the latest CATALYST 5.4 package installed or if this update is not applicable to your question, please respond to this ticket and attach an ATI Problem Report. Steps for doing this appear below.

How to create a problem report in Windows

Looking at the ATI canned response, you can understand why I was miffed at Grog's suggestion that you roll back to an earlier driver set (which, by the way, is now impossible to do with the new ATI website design). Suffice to say, we are now on the Catalyst 5.9 release and this issue has not been resolved. I have given up on ATI ever getting this fixed and will migrate to a Hauppage PVR card when I build my Athlon 64 box as I still have nearly 200 VHS tapes to convert to DVD. I honestly believe that ATI has no interest in fixing this because this relates to older analog technology and their focus is now on digital HDTV products. What I'd like for them to do is to be honest and stop advertising their TV products as capable of performng video capture from VHS sources because that is simply no longer true and hasn't been true for well over a year now.