What affects the rendering time of exported video in Premiere 6.0? I don't think it's Ram or Processor speed as my old computer had 450MHz and 128MB Ram(later 256MB). My new comp has 1GHz and 256MB DDR-Ram and doesn't seem to be any faster although the new computer can still be used for other things while rendering.

Also, when trying to create VCDs from movies I have purchased for archive purposes (some rented) using my Raedon64mb ViVo, after about a minute, the captured video seems to freeze on one frame while the audio continues. The preview window shows no problems except maybe a flicker from bright to dark and back. What is wrong? Is the ATI Raedon somehow rigged to protect copyrighted videos?

-- emceeONE (emceeONE@hotmail.com), July 09, 2001

Answers

No problem with the ATI card. You're recording VHS tapes right? What you describe is exactly what happens when you try to record a tape encoded with Macrovision. Macrovision was designed to do exactly what it is doing - prevent you from copying the tape. I have read that you can find hardware devices for sale on the Internet that can defeat Macrovision, but I think they cost upwards of $150 US. There is no way to "hack" the ATI card to defeat Macrovision. By the way, you will be glad you got a faster CPU if you ever want to get into making your own SVCDs.

-- Jason (Jason.Shumate@equant.com), July 11, 2001.

Thanks, but I don't think that's it. My brother copied from the vhs that were giving me problems using his Voodoo3 3500. The problem with that is the limited resolution. That's why I got the ATI Raedon 64.

-- emceeONE (emceeONE@hotmail.com), July 12, 2001.

Hi,

You have also a patch you can find on the net (Google search)to bypass the ATI Video in drivers Macrovision detection. It works fine, no more freezes, but you'll still have luminance problems ( image sometimes normal, sometimes brighter and flashing ) due to Macrovision itself. Brand new VHS casettes won't work because because the Macrovision coding goes into the syncronisation signal.

( I got a PIII 800 / 386 mo Ram / SCSII drives / ATI rage128 pro Vi/Vo )

-- igor brover (igbro@yahoo.com), November 14, 2001.

Sorry to bust the bubble but it is the Macrovision detection system causing it. I've been running headlong into this problem for about 9 months now. I didn't do enough research before purchasing ATI and you wouldn't believe the painful experience I've accumulated since buying. I use my AIW 128 Pro PCI to archive project documentation videos for several clients and needless to say, while they are very good at what they do, they truly suck eggs when it comes to recording video. I had the same problem with their tapes. No copy protection at all! I tested on an associates Radion with the same results. On ATI's advice, I've gone through several diferent sets of drivers with no luck. My experience has been that the ATI Macrovision detection hardware is so sensitive that a poorly lighted subject or slightly unfocused frame/scene transition can trigger it. ATI contends that my clients videos are the problem, not their copy protection detection. As to a solution, if you have the right hardware revision, chipset bios, and driver installation, you may get one of the "patches" available on the web to solve it for you. Some people install them and never have another problem. I'd say about one out of every twenty who try get that lucky. For the most part, if you own an ATI product, you'll get nothing but stress trying to archive copy protected video for personal use or even attempting to transfer less than perfect unprotected video. I've found one solution that does work about ninety percent of the time. Go to your local pawn shop and buy a low end ($30 to $50) mid eighties up to about 1996 model RCA 4 head vhs front loader. My latest was a model VR 507. For some reason, this series of vhs recorder ignores the Macrovision signal on the line inputs and even seems to attenuate it a slight amount if you pass the signal straight through to the line out. Rerecord to VHS on the RCA, and then use the copied tape to feed the ATI line in. I've even used this model to couple DVD line outs to older TV's without seperate AV inputs. I fact, my last two units would even tape directly from a DVD line with no stabilizer or scrubber required. I hear there are a few other manufacturers whose VHS products do the same thing but the RCA is the only one I know for a fact works. If that won't work for you and the patches fail, the best advice I can give is to get rid of the ATI and look at a less tyranical manufacturer. BTW, Matrox cards have the same problems, built in Macrovison detection with no easy way to circumvent it in the face of a legitimate problem. Regards

-- R. Heard (rheard@pcs-consult.com), December 02, 2001.

i had the same problem with ati and before when i owned an older vcr the macro never occured

-- simaziz (simaziz@hotmail.com), March 30, 2002.

Hi guys, I have the "freezing frame" problem too with my Ati All-In-Wonder 128 pro. I asked ATI for help, but they just sent me a driver CD with the previous version of the software. Now, I'm going to write them again and again until either they kill themselves or solve this damn problem. The thing is that I have the problem even when I capture from my OWN VHS-C tapes!! Bah!

-- mrk (bunkertor666@yahoo.it), June 03, 2002.

I ran into that problem also. I dug an old video stabilizer that I bought form Radio Shack several years ago. It corrected the proplem. It recorded a protected video wit no problem. As We have many old vhs tapes that I wanted to convert to digital format.

I sugest that you might run a search for "viddeo stabilizer" on Google or some other serch program.

Hope this help.

Brad Weeks

-- Brad Weeks (bweeks04@earthlink.net), July 28, 2002.

I too have had this problem with my All-In-Wonder Radeon. It is nice that it records straight to Mpeg1 or Mpeg2, but it is very sensitive, and hopeless with commercial tapes that I want on VCD (because they are not yet available to buy on DVD). My advice is to get hold of a Pinnacle PCTV, approx £50 in UK. It records fine to Mpeg1 95% of the time (occasional problems with lip synch). Quality is easily better than the Ati. Nice video card the Ati, but definately the last Ati card I will ever buy.

-- Keith Hague (keithhague@yahoo.co.uk), September 19, 2002.

Maybe ?

http://www.123dv.com/catalog/sima_scc_color_corrector_1246406.htm

Even Better...

http://www.vcdhelp.com/capturecards.php?CaptureCardRead=Canopus% 20ADVC-100&Search=Search

.. Something for your hungry appetite..

-- Hughes (shughes244@hotmail.com), October 31, 2002.

Hello,

This is what I found, a program that disable the Macrovision detection from the driver for all ATI AIW Cards. I, myself, have a Radeon 8500DV AIW, and this little progy works for me, well it removes the FREEZE part, the lite an dark ramains (a little). The C- Source is included,(perhaps someone can rebuild it) if you want to have it, (It's a RAR from 7 KB) send me a mail and I send it to you.

Frans Nobel

P.S.

This is the document included.

Disabling ATI Macrovision detection "Macrovision" is a simple (but nevertheless patented) copy-prevention technique which is used on many commercial videotapes and pay-per- view TV channels. It works by manipulating the signal in a way which confuses most (though not all) VCRs, while displaying without problems on most (though not all) TVs. A typical symptom of trying to record a Macrovisioned signal on a consumer VCR is that the recording will get alternately brighter and darker, making it difficult to watch. You will also be bitten by Macrovision if you try to feed a video signal through a VCR on its way somewhere else (for example, if you want to connect your DVD player to your TV via your VCR). Macrovision doesn't work at all on digital-video hardware like the ATI All-In-Wonder series. You'd think ATI would see this as a competitive advantage, but for some reason they wrote a Windows driver which specifically looks for the Macrovision signal and cripples video capture if it detects it. A typical symptom of trying to capture a Macrovisioned signal on an All-In-Wonder card is that the capture file will look fine for a while, and then suddenly the video will seem to "stick," with the last few frames repeating over and over.

The offending driver is called "atinmdxx.sys" on my machine. Properties|Version identifies it as "ATI Specialized MVD VBI Codec." VBI stands for Vertical Blanking Interval, where the primary Macrovision signal is found, and I suppose MVD stands for MacroVision Detection. Video capture won't work at all without this driver present, so you can't just delete it. But, as usual, it can be rendered harmless by changing a single conditional jump instruction to an unconditional jump. That's what the DisableATIMacrovisionDetection program does.

This program has many perfectly legal uses. Copyright law grants you broad freedom to make copies for personal use of a video that you have lawfully purchased. What is illegal under copyright law is distributing copies, not making copies. The corporations which use copy-prevention technologies don't care about your rights, and that's fine: they're not supposed to. Unfortunately, the democratic governments of the world, which are supposed to look out for your rights, have been negligent here: they haven't outlawed Macrovision or DVD encryption. Until that happens, you will have to make do with tools like this.

Usage To use the patcher just run it. It will locate the appropriate driver automatically. If that doesn't work you can try to locate the driver yourself. It should be called either "atinmdxx.sys" or "ativmdxx.sys". Once you've found it, drag it on top of the patching program's icon and it'll start up and patch it. (Be sure you're enabled "show hidden files" in Explorer, or you won't be able to see the driver file.)

You will probably have to reboot to activate the patched driver.

Caution Unfortunately, the Macrovision detection driver loads at startup (at least in Windows 2000). If something goes awry, your system might no longer boot after running this program. In case you have problems, the patching program saves the original driver in a file with the ".ori" extension, in the same directory as the patched driver. You should be able to boot up in safe mode and replace the broken driver with the original one. Compatibility I have only tested this program with Windows 2000 and the All-In- Wonder 128 16MB. This program definitely will not work under Windows 95, because the driver that I patch is not supported by Windows 95. I don't know if there's some other Macrovision detector on those platforms, but I used to capture with VirtualDub and the old VfW capture driver and I never had any problem with Macrovisioned tapes.

This program ought to work under Windows 98, ME, and Whistler, but I haven't tested it.

TV-Out Along with checking its video input for Macrovision, the All-In- Wonder cards also apply Macrovision to the TV output (if it's enabled) when you play DVDs. This patch does not disable TV-Out Macrovision. Legal This program (source, executable and documentation) is in the public domain and comes with NO WARRANTY. Run it with the expectation that it'll crash your system; then you'll be pleasantly surprised when it doesn't.

-- Frans Nobel (nobel@subdimension.com), December 02, 2002.

Try to do your capture using a SCART-converter, at one side a SCART- connection which you attach to the vcr, at the other side a connection for the 2-audio lines (left/right) and a composite video connection. You should be able to do the capture normally. In this case the video is analogue and its upto your capture card to 'digitalize' that. For that a fast system is advised, while this dac conversion must be done at real time. A P-II at 800Mhz shouldn't have any problem with that. When capturing analogue, you actually 'fool' MacroVision (while that's send to you in digital form).

-- Laurens K (laurens.koehoorn@planetinternet.be), February 07, 2003.

Hello all! I have an ATI A-I-W-Radeon 32mband am having problems with resolution. I use an old VCR (no Macrovision) and have upgraded my Divx and Ati drivers. Yet, I still can't capture at more than 320x240 without losing frames and getting a choppy picture. Gateway says it should'nt be my processor (700mhz) but who knows. There must be a way to increase resolution without screwing everything else up. By the way, all I'm doing is taking home movies (vhs-c) and trying to burn them onto dvd's. Isn't that what they promise we can do? Any ideas?

-- Indy Jones (indy jones_53095@yahoo.com), April 04, 2003.

This is going to sound odd but I have found one way around the ATI copyright problem when trying to backup/capture from VCR. Unfortunately it can be tricky sometimes if you have multiple operating systems and partitions at least in my experience. This will only work in Windows XP Home edition, possibly Pro but I haven’t tried it. If you uninstall the ATI display driver from the Add/Remove location and reboot, you can capture from VCR without the copyright problem BUT, on a few occasions I had to go into the registry (Safe Mode) and delete remaining ATI files in order to get it to work. The best way is after a fresh installation of XP, do NOT install the ATI display driver, let the Win XP driver run and then install MMC as you usually would and it should work. Only problem is eventually you will more than likely want to install the ATI Display driver for full performance. I have the Radeon 7000 AIW and have done this MANY times but like I mentioned, if this is done after already having the ATI display driver installed, you may have to dig around for other remaining ATI files and get rid of them before it will work.

Hope this helps someone out there

-- Anthony Inosencio (acio20@yahoo.com), May 15, 2003.

I too am trying to locate the patch program for the "atinmdxx.sys" driver file. If someone could give a valid email address or email me the Patch I would be MOST gratefull. TIA, Jeff.

-- Jeff Bradley (jeffn506@hotmail.com), May 21, 2003.

http://www.goldenpi.no-ip.org/drm/toolkit.shtml

-- jack (jack#@my.com), May 24, 2003.

Its a damn shame that so many people, including my self are having such a problem with the AIW cards. I recently bought the AIW 8500DV as it boasts great video capture ability. I have digitized (to CD), many of my audio tapes and wants to likewise digitize my VHS tapes. After spending so much money for the card, I am back at square-one. I am about to sell this card (or throw it away) and seek an alternative capture card. Shame ATI...

-- Glenroy Levy (glenroylevy@yahoo.com), May 26, 2003.

I would VERY appreciate if someone can send me the patch program for the "atinmdxx.sys" driver file. If someone could give a valid email address or email me the Patch I would be MOST gratefull. TIA

-- Dominic L. (dom_leko@hotmail.com), June 10, 2003.

If you are having problems recording with ATI cards then it is not a problem. ATI have put Mavrovision detection on there cards so to stop you copying DvD's and VHS. However for those of you who used home video tapes with no protection. the reason why ATI does not record is that some video's produce the macrovision signal at the output. The Only solution to capture DVD quality video is to buy the Provision decoder it's only £38. go the link>> http://www.gamesoft.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/952. Or do a search on "ProVision+ DVD Video Decoder V2 (MacroVision remover)"

-- cyber (cyberworld@i12.com), June 21, 2003.

Here is the link for the ATI card drivers to disable macrovision detection: http://www.goldenpi.no- ip.org/drm/dl/DisableATIMacrovisionDetection.zip

-- mauricio (mauri_gato@hotmail.com), August 03, 2003.

The ATI Macrovision hack doesn't work on the 9800 series. I'm also told it doesn't work on anything with version 8.1 or better of the MMC. The MMC version I have not personally verified.

-- John Mongomery (Bubba@render.com), December 04, 2003.

Hellos...

I've got these same problems with ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon. I use VirtualDub with PICvideo MJPEG-codec to store the AVI masters for editing.

The problem occurs when I try to capture my own home videos from S- VHS tapes using S-VIDEO input. If there's very high contrast scenes (like S-VHS tapes always has), the ATI thinks it's protected and it will do really awful contrast fluctuations so the whole capture is spoilt.

So, THERE'S NO MACROVISION on my home video tapes at all, I'm 150% sure of that!! However my ATI fails to detect even that - it thinks that there is...

My suggestion is that next time I have to chop some firewood I will take care of that piece of shit with axe... And I will NEVER BUY ANY ATI product at all. And I recommend to anyone who likes to do home video editing to NEVER even consider to buy anything carrying the label ATI!

I'm really DISAPPOINTED of that product. It cost about 1500 FIM for a couple of years ago when I bought it! It's lots of money for a crap which you can't do anything related with video editing. I had also Pinnacle DC10+ which was wery good capture card, but there's no WDM drivers for Win2000 so I could use it with VirtualDub to capture bigger files than 2GB with MJPEG format.

Can anyone recommend what video card should I buy when I have chopped that ATI with axe? My requirements are S-VIDEO input, full resolution (720x576@25fps) capture possibility from PAL source and with NO this kind of stupid Macrovision detections which don't even work with home videos?

If anyone can suggest some card fulwilling those requirements I would be wery happy for any help! Theres about 20 S-VHS-C tapes waiting for edit!

Best regards Esa

-- Esa Heikkinen (A3DCB3CF6@netti.fi), December 07, 2003.

I have the AIW Spphire Radeon 9000, and man I wish I could just hang the card in a public place with a poster saying - don't buy ATI shit with macrovision crap. - but I paid good money for it, if only i knew of this problem.

I cant even just watch films by attaching VCR to my PC let alone capture anything. Soem of my home vidoes, the whole reason I bought the card, flicker and do the same MV crap.

This is bull-shit, and I am getting in contact with Sapphire/ATI, to give them an earful.

I had a Voodoo 3500 TV before and it never gave me any of this, excetp I could not capture at good resolutions. I had good hopes for ATI, if only this MV shit did not get involved.

-- nosneb (nosneb101@yahoo.co.uk), December 22, 2003.

Hi,

I have a Sapphire Radeon 9800pro and I have no problems capturing from vhs (I use a Pinnacle DC10+ for that) but I have a problem watching a movie (dvd, divx) on my tv using the tv-out function.

As soon as there is macrovision crap in the movie, I get my desktop on tv but the movie stays black. I read an article about renaming the file atitvo32.dll and that worked 1 time for me but I stayed with that 1 time. My tv-out and audio are connected to a switchable (in/out) scart connector in my vcr. Connecting directly to my tv doesn't work.

I tried programs like remote selector and dvdidle but without any luck. Unfortunately the tv-tool software only works with nvidia cards. Playback is tried with powerdvd, windvd, windows media player and the divx player.

Anyone knows a trick to disable or bypass macrovision using the tv- out function on an Ati based card ?

-- Richard (riwa@wanadoo.nl), January 04, 2004.

- ATI doesn't function with a small processor < 800 Mhz - FOR a VHS , i think that DC10+ is a best solution ! (no macrovision, no mosaic, Section TV etc) - With DC10+ (TV-OUT), capture your film to AVI, then create FILM (with STUDIO 8.0)

...NEXT TIME !

-- Eric R - (Malagasy) (erc@dts.mg), January 13, 2004.

I was able to borrow a friend's Canopus ADVC-100 today to compare its ability to detect and ignore macrovision on the same machine as my AIW card..

I tried to capture a home video of my family at Disneyland. On the AIW9700 Pro, the composite input feed looks terrible with jitters and flashes. If I route my video through the Canopus ADVC-100 then capture video using the DV camcorder feed, the input is crystal clear with no flashes -- as is the capture that was created. Then , to make sure the Canopus detects Macrovision, I tried to capture Blazing Saddles. As expected, the video would not capture because Canopus knew it was copy protected.

So Canopus can easily do what AIW can not. I am thoroughly convinced that the AIW9700 Pro Macrovision is being inadvertently triggered on my VHS home videos. This is not acceptable especially now that I have proven that another capture device does not experience the problem. Now I have sunk $399 (at the time of purchase) into a useless AIW card. I bought this card to set up a vidcap machine specifically for all my home videos. Now - 9 months later after having the time to get started on the videos, the hardware is crap.

I have emails going to ATI tech support which I am sure will yield results similar to those above -- "Driver issue, VHS tape issue. Not our problem.." You know damn well the developers at ATI can turn this Macrovision detection on and off at will.

-- Buck Phlegm (sbclient@tekelec.com), January 13, 2004.

I HAVE ATI AIW 9700 AND ARE HAVING PROBLEMS WITH THE MACROVISION LIKE THE REST OF YOUZ. I HAVE JUST FOUND OUT THAT IF YOU CONNECT A RF MODULATOR TO VCR, THIS SOLVES THE PROBLEM??? I WENT TO RADIO SHACK TODAY THEY START AT $50 CAN SOMEBODY CONFIRM THIS

-- ian purbrick (I.PURBRICK@ROGERS.COM), January 22, 2004.

I found a site discussing macrovision removal. There are several solutions listed, but the simplest actually searches the atinmdxx.sys file for the "if statement" that checks for macrovision. It replaces 3 bytes in the file which cause it bypass the check.

I'm just getting started in this for copying home video so I don't have any macrovision stuff to test with. Can anyone verify this patch? I want to make sure I'm not getting garbage in my recordings.

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

Patch Link w/ source code: http://www.digital- digest.net/downloads/files/DisableATIMacrovisionDetection.zip

-- Bill (powercst@yahoo.com), January 26, 2004.

Thank you bill. Just to let you know "it did not work". It's been a month now since i put up my question. I've searched the web high and low. The only conclusion is to add another capture device. Capture cards start at $69 caniadian. Plus i'll be able to have picture in picture with my ATI 9700 All in wonder. I don't want to buy an old vcr that could break down, anyway the tapes i want to transfer are PAL not NTSC. Cheers all......ian (Taffy from Wales)

-- ian purbrick (i.purbrick@rogers.com), February 25, 2004.

I found that if I just don't press OK when the "protected" message pops up while recording, it keeps recording. I just leave the box there until its done.

-- Me (spamjunk@stny.rr.com), March 05, 2004.

I have an ATI AIW VE card, and for the most part, it works great, except for copying VHS tapes. I found that the original driver supplied with my card does not stop me from copying videos with macrovision, however the videos look like crap. Of the videos I have attempted to record, I have 3 that actualy look ok. I am thinking about trying one of those stabalizing devices but if anyone else has some software/driver solutions let me know.

The reason ATI has this built in is becaus they dont want the DMCA to come down on them. The big time pirates that are distributing and making money from pirated movies have industrial grade equipment. Nobody with a PC and a burner is going to be able to make enough to threten the movie industry. The truth of the matter is the DMCA wants us to go out and spend $$$ to replace our VHS collections with DVD's which on some movies I am willing to do, but for the majority of what I have I am happy just saving it to divx.

-- Matthew Baird (matthew_baird@yahoo.com), March 16, 2004.

Ah...another discussion board about the AIW. I think the wonder is why I bought it. Could have purchased a much better pure graphics card for the same price or purchased a comparable graphics card and a capture card for the same price. I can't capture home movies or any movies for that matter. All have a white line across the top %10 percent of the picture. It's there it's not there the picture flashes so on and so forth. I've tried multiple vcr's, tapes, types of connections. I hear that if you get a tbc it will correct the problem but why should I have to pay for something to correct a defective product. I give up....I think I'll use axe technique to fix it.

-- Richard (thecoalman@coaldelivery.com), March 29, 2004.

I like your axe approach coalman ! This is my 3rd AND FINAL attempt at getting this damn ATI ALL IN WONDER 9000 PRO to work for me. The store i bought the first two cards at told me that they were defective. LOL Anyways, a simple pain in the you know what is what this card is. Nothing but headaches! I will never buy another ATI product AGAIN !

-- XBucklawX (r00m217@hotmail.com), March 31, 2004.

Amen to the above comments. I started quite a hailstorm on dvdrhelp.com about my problems with my ATI AIW 9000 Pro. There's a character that calls himself 'Lordsmurf' that thinks these cards are the greatest invention since the wheel. I think he must be getting paid by ATI. He's steering a lot of unsuspecting newbies in a very bad direction. If ANYBODY finds a more recent 'patch' for this stupid Macrovision that will work on the AIW 9000 PLEASE let me know. I paid good money for an Athlon XP 2800+, 160 Gb hard drive, 1 Gb memory, NEC DVD+/-RW burner, and a ATI All-In-Wonder 9000 Pro video card so that I could transfer my home videos to DVD. So far I haven't transfered one. Keep me posted guys. I appreciate the help. Neal Sanders nealsanders@aol.com

-- Neal Sanders (nealsanders@aol.com), April 09, 2004.

I just ran the DisableATIMacrovisionDetection.zip patch today and it worked fine. I'm using an older ATI AIW. I'll think twice about upgrading to a newer ATI card if the patch won't work on them. I downloaded it from: http://www.pinky.cz/ati/download.php Good luck.

-- Bruce Cuthbert (brucec@telus.net), April 23, 2004.

Just purchased a 9600XT AIW about two weeks ago. Had some old VCR tapes (commerical) that I wanted to archive on DVD. If I had know that the MacroVision garbage was embedded and also contained in the driver, it'd have looked elsewhere. ATI is really riding the razor's edge on advertising this as a capture card. I can capture from the TV card without problem. At this point it only seems the problem is with VHS. This is a new VCR and whether the tapes are copy protected or not the card appears to think they are and really does some interesting things to the captured video. I'm going to try some of the Sima products before I give up on it. Many people are reporting success with these products. I just hate to spend $50 - $150 more to mke the $300 card work like it should.

-- Ron Curtis (roncurtis@charter.net), May 03, 2004.

Dont waste your $$$ on the Sima Video CopyMaster. It doesn't work for the ATI 9600 AIW Pro. It still will not let me record some of my personal VHS tapes. Now im pissed

-- One Pissed ATI 9600 AIW Pro Owner (whizkid355@hotmail.com), May 03, 2004.

Purchased the Sima CT-2 for DVD's, thought I would kill two birds with one stone. It works like a charm for me. I found it at Best Buy for a little over $100.00. I know... I paid too much and could have found it onlune cheaper, but am far too much the impulsive/compulsive shopper when I've got a problem to solve.

It did the trick for me.

-- Ron Curtis (roncurtis@charter.net), May 05, 2004.

Hey mauri_gato@hotmail.com,

Your link does not work, could you sent me the file that you were talking about and If anyone else has any NON-Macrovision software could you send that to me too, as I have been studying this stupid "Movie Mogul Greed" shit for over a period of 3 years now and I think I have found out WHY!!!!!!!!!!

But I need a little more time and all the patches and cracks I can get my hands on....

So If your willing email me ALL your supposed cracks that you can find for me and .... you can bet you ass I'll crack this SHIT PERMANENTLY 4 you:)

BUT HERE IS A HINT: (That you can try in the meantime......with your ATI card, 1) Findout the oldest driver you can find for the card (dosent matter what ATI card it is), and use that driver to load into your PC >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> NOW HERE IS THE KICKER <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< CHECK THE DATE OF THE OLDEST FILE ON THE DRIVER, AND CHANGE YOUR PC TO THAT DATE + REBOOT ....... BEFORE INSTALLING THAT DRIVER!!!

It should be present that on 50% on ATI video cards that it is a date stamp that activates the MACROVISION, but If you installed before that date you'll never see any hang ups with MACROVISION, as the copyrighted software will not load, (something due to a legal issue, that you loaded the software BEFORE the act became LAW) :):):):) So try that guys, SORRY for some of you that ti dosent work, but dont worry we'll beat this yet.........................NP

-- Paul Hurtz (homejav@hotmail.com), June 19, 2004.

Hello all,

I, too, have an ATI 8500DV and cannot backup my 200+ VHS collection to DVD. Many of these tapes are collectors editions and cannot be found on DVD at any price. Some are getting very old. Time and deterioration will soon claim them all. I've tried every patch I can find to disable Macrovision but NONE of them worked (for me). Frankly, I don't think I'd ever buy another ATI product.

So, I've been searching the web for months, trying to find the solution. At present, I know of only one company that produces a video capture card, that is Hauppauge.com. I've written to Hauppauge's technical support team to inquire if their video cards support Macrovision protection. They said that two of their recent video cards DO NOT support Macrovision protection systems.

1. Hauppage PVR-250 2. Hauppage PVR-350

Since neither card recognizes Macrovision, you should be able to get a clean recording from VHS or DVD movies. The difference between the two cards is slight. The PVR-350 has both a hardware decoder and a hardware encoder while the PVR-250 only has a hardware decoder and a software encoder. What this means is that the PVR-250 is forced to use your CPU during encoding while the PVR-350 won't put ANY drag on your system resources.

Well, I haven't purchased either card yet. I'm watching eBay and Newegg for a good price. The PVR-250 runs around $100 and the PVR-350 sells for about $180. But if you consider that you'll save a ton of money on new DVD movies, then either is cheap at twice the price. I tend to buy things on impulse, so don't be surprized if I tell you I've got one next week (just need to get my cash together).

Best regards to all, Steve

-- Stevizard (stevizard@indy.rr.com), September 10, 2004.

FACT! ATI Macrovision protection is only driver based! Anyone with a somewhat current ATI product that wants to copy Macrovision stuff, AND is running Windows XP..... You NEED to download this driver: http://www.driverheaven.net/drivers/downloads.php?ver=XP81 You can also find it by searching for "Plutonium XP 8.1 driver". I would suggest backing up your system first as it is not perfect for all systems, but for most it captures great! It is not the best for gaming or anything, but it is perfect for recording. You will need to use your color corrections to make the color better but the results are DVD quality from VHS. No BS guys, I fought with this for a month and was so freakin angry that I could not do what I want with my own property cause some lawyers and hackers have screwed it up for everyone. Now I can backup all of my old failing VHS without spending a fortune. Yea I know movie companies need thier money to produce stuff,but this stuff is either going in the trash or getting backed up to DVD, so their not making anything either way. I paid for all of these and I am burning the original tapes when I am done. So I am not making anything either. I strongly suggest this for anyone that is doing the same. Stop listening to those guys out there telling you that you cant do it without some $300.00 hardware fix or a different card. I did it, I got perfect results. Here is my hardware list if it helps: Pentium4 3.06Ghz Northwood 1Gb Ram 2 120Gb EIDE ATA/133 7200 Drives by Western Digital SB Audigy sound ( I use this for sound cap, not the ATI theater) ATI All in wonder 9700 (my vid cap @ 720*480 with color correction) Asus P4T533-C Mainboard Nerovision express DVD-VR direct Capture (also paid for!) Sony DRU-510 DVD recorder Windows XP SP1 Any VHS player I hav e found work with it! Sorry guys, I don't want anyone flaming me for this or trying to screw me over for copyright, so no reply address. I Buy all my videos, I pay for them and own them. I have the right to do what I want with them as long as I don't give them away or sell them, or provide veiwing to anyone else. Last I checked this was America and we are supposed to have rights and freedom, so to anyone who thinks sharing this info is wrong, you can go do all sorts of nasty things to yourself. (yea, i wanted to say it, but to keep the forum usefull and clean ya gotta be nice!) ;)

Good Luck all! Enjoy your ATI capturing! Anonie Mouse

-- Anonie Mouse (Dontreply@aol.com), January 02, 2005.