Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

nash · 07-28-2003, 07:53 AM

I have an old ATI TV Wonder VE PCI card. It has connections for both Coaxial and RCA video. There's also a line out jack that you connect to either your line-in or mic jack on your sound card. That's only applicable if you're using the coaxial cable since the RCA video doesn't carry sound signals.

You'll have to find a female RCA to male stereo adapter and plug that into your line-in jack if you want to watch/capture video from a machine that doens't have a coaxial out. That's if you want to hear sound from your computer speakers. If you just want to hook the video to the computer and the sound to a stereo system, that's fine.

The software (you can download it free from the ATI website) works excellently Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 Server. Those are the only systems I've tested so far, but 98 and above should work fine. The software can be a little buggy sometimes though. For non-Microsoft systems... no experience at all. Good luck if that's what you're trying for.

Quality is merely OK, it's nowhere as good as watching it on a regular television set, but it's a lot more convenient. You can resize the TV window and have it on while you work. You can minimize the TV window and you can choose to let it replace your desktop wallpaper (the icons will still be on top of the video) but you can't change channels/volume in that mode. You can capture video, set timers to capture video (easier than setting up a VCR), have closed captioning, name your channels, switch from coax to RCA with one button, mute, autodetect channels, full screen it, and more that I can't think of.

I like this card a lot, but ATI All-in-Wonder video cards are newer and work even better. Not to mention there are external connectors (A little connection dongle with a thick wire from the back of your computer to wherever the wire can reach.) so you don't have to climb behind your PC everytime you want to change the connections. I think there are both in and outputs on the dongle and you can plug in RCA sound on it as well. Svideo on that too (I think). I don't have an All-in-Wonder card but I have a friend who has one and it has all the features of mine and more.

You can probably find an old ATI AIW card on ebay if you don't need the latest and greatest. Same with the ATI TV Wonder VE. You can probably find it on ebay or an online store. Don't know about retail stores. Good luck with it, and let me know if you have questions!

07-28-2003, 07:53 AM	#2 (permalink)
nash Psycho	I have an old ATI TV Wonder VE PCI card. It has connections for both Coaxial and RCA video. There's also a line out jack that you connect to either your line-in or mic jack on your sound card. That's only applicable if you're using the coaxial cable since the RCA video doesn't carry sound signals. You'll have to find a female RCA to male stereo adapter and plug that into your line-in jack if you want to watch/capture video from a machine that doens't have a coaxial out. That's if you want to hear sound from your computer speakers. If you just want to hook the video to the computer and the sound to a stereo system, that's fine. The software (you can download it free from the ATI website) works excellently Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 Server. Those are the only systems I've tested so far, but 98 and above should work fine. The software can be a little buggy sometimes though. For non-Microsoft systems... no experience at all. Good luck if that's what you're trying for. Quality is merely OK, it's nowhere as good as watching it on a regular television set, but it's a lot more convenient. You can resize the TV window and have it on while you work. You can minimize the TV window and you can choose to let it replace your desktop wallpaper (the icons will still be on top of the video) but you can't change channels/volume in that mode. You can capture video, set timers to capture video (easier than setting up a VCR), have closed captioning, name your channels, switch from coax to RCA with one button, mute, autodetect channels, full screen it, and more that I can't think of. I like this card a lot, but ATI All-in-Wonder video cards are newer and work even better. Not to mention there are external connectors (A little connection dongle with a thick wire from the back of your computer to wherever the wire can reach.) so you don't have to climb behind your PC everytime you want to change the connections. I think there are both in and outputs on the dongle and you can plug in RCA sound on it as well. Svideo on that too (I think). I don't have an All-in-Wonder card but I have a friend who has one and it has all the features of mine and more. You can probably find an old ATI AIW card on ebay if you don't need the latest and greatest. Same with the ATI TV Wonder VE. You can probably find it on ebay or an online store. Don't know about retail stores. Good luck with it, and let me know if you have questions!