I have been looking to buy a ALL-IN-WONDER 128 PRO to do MPEG's for CD.

I have asked the supplier in South Africa if this card capture's in mpeg 1, cannot tell me .

I would like do mpeg1 for MM, but have the the convences of mepg2 capture. thanks

-- gavin (ghn@iafrica.com), May 30, 2001

Answers

All of the ATI capture cards can do MPEG-1 recording. Most can do MPEG-2 as well. You should have no problem with the AIW 128 Pro. The ATI web site at www.ati.com can confirm this. You could also send them e-mail and ask them to confirm it if you like.

-- Jason Shumate (Jason.Shumate@sita.int), May 30, 2001.

I have the "older" and less powerfull ATI AIW 128 (not the Pro model) You can see some samples of VCD and SVCD video captured at:

www.pcphotovideo.com

Also there you can read about various "issues" and how to make the raw ATI mpeg compliant for (S)VCD authoring. If you intend to just copy raw mpeg to a disc, then you'll have no problem. The 128 Pro model (make sure it's a 128) will do both Mpeg-1 and Mpeg-2. Be careful as there is a much older ATI AIW PRO .. (not the 128) that is still sold. This older card does not have the (Rage or Rage PRO) chipset and is much less powerful.

If you do get the card, the drivers and MMC (multimedia Center) may not be the latest. Go to the ATI site and download the latest drivers and MMC (which is now 7.1) That WILL give you the ability to capture fully compliant VCD Mpeg (for burning VCDs) However there is still no profile for SVCD so you'll have to "fix" it after capture (if you wish to author SVCD discs). All this information is available at the above web site.

-- Rich (rich@pcphotovideo.com), May 30, 2001.

For Gavin, with all the watch-out-fors, tweak-it-this-ways, incompatible-with-this-and-that-softwares, audio-sync-problem-tweaks, no-audio-capture-unless-you-do-this-blahblahs, MPEG1/2-but-software- only-codec-so-U-can't-use-your-P200MMXs, U-have-to-download-this- driver-(even-though-latest-ones-came-with-it)s, choose-NTSC-or-PAL-U- can't-have-boths, what seems to be indifferent technical support, plus a thousand other do-dahs all going for ATI why even bother to consider it? Others in this forum who bought it are left with little else but to work their way around it. You are still lucky you haven't bought it. It's true that, compared with other all-in-one setups, the one thing about ATI that beckons is price. But if you trawl through this forum you will get, at best, a so-so impression where ATI is talked about. In the end, when you have summed everything up, the blood, sweat, pulled hair, and tears you will have expended will be worth much more than what you paid for an ATI in the first place, probably enough to have just taken a Dazzle Fast, or a good 32MB AGP card and an ADS PyroPro FireWire card combo, or even a much more stable Matrox Marvel G450 (that also has s/w MPEG2, but much more importantly, has a native h/w MJPEG codec if it is an all-in-one you MUST have) or any of Pinnacle Systems capture devices. I once owned an AIWPro and know what you will be up against.

-- Mehmet Tekdemir (turk690@yahoo.com), June 03, 2001.

I have to agree with the previous reply. My ATI all in wonder 128 pro is great except! Raw Captures play back fine But! If I trim a capture I lose audio synch. The raw capture contains random invalid frames about every 3000 frames. Upon any trimming these frames are discarded. the resulting file has a shortened video stream but the same lenght audio stream. The beginning of a trim is in synch but progressively gets worse. So I can trim short (2min about) segments out of an hour capture for example. I got some help from ATI but in the end I see no solution. I am looking for another capture card. Good Luck. Please email me if a solution pops up.

Sincerely Stephen Franklin StephenQF@cs.com

-- Stephen Franklin (Stephen@cs.com), October 18, 2001.

Most of the people answering your question have no idea what they are talking about! The AIW128 Pro is not capable of capturing VCD format nor is any other ATI card capable except the older AIW128 (not AIW128 Pro). This is because the BT829 chip is the only way to do this and it is not present on cards before the AIW128 or after. Software utilites like Ulead can convert but it takes many hours. I know where to get the old AIW128 but they are costly.

-- rich smith (rjs49@netzero.net), December 28, 2002.