Fed up with MMC

[Ciao Bella]

What's the best alternate for ATI's MMC? I basically just want the TV
option. Free software, if possible. If not, as long as it's better
than the ATI crap I have to deal with. The MMC will either not start
the TV, not shut it down, not shut the tv sound down, etc... I
couldn't even shut it off completely with the Windows Task Manager
(Control Alt Delete). I have to push the reset button in order to get
it to stop running. Just fed up with it. Help anyone? TIA

 

[Ciao Bella]

Btw, I have an ATI AIW 9700 Pro, Asus P4P800S, 1Gig mem, etc.... Have
tried the latest and greatest software ATI has to offer for my
vidcard.

 

[Paul Murphy]

What's the best alternate for ATI's MMC? I basically just want the TV
option. Free software, if possible. If not, as long as it's better
than the ATI crap I have to deal with. The MMC will either not start
the TV, not shut it down, not shut the tv sound down, etc... I
couldn't even shut it off completely with the Windows Task Manager
(Control Alt Delete). I have to push the reset button in order to get
it to stop running. Just fed up with it. Help anyone? TIA

There are some products out there that work with AIW Radeons and above but
I've got to tell you that I've found the very latest version designed for my
cards (MMC 9.02 and Catalyst 4.10 for my Radeon 8500DV and 2 x Radeon AIW 32
MBs) to be perfectly stable with NONE of the problems (under Win XP/2000 and
98SE) that you report. I suggest that the instability you're experiencing is
due to "installation issues". Should you be really keen to spend money on a
product Cyberlinks PowerVCR II 3.0 should work - there may even be a newer
version now. If you want to attempt to fix the installation issue, the
safest bet would be to uninstall ALL ATI software using add/remove programs
before installing the latest & greatest in the correct order (as per the
comprehensive instructions on ATIs website).

Paul

 

[R. J. Salvi]

Did you:

A.) completely uninstall all remnants of previous ATI software versions
B.) install the newer version software in the following order:

1. WDM capture drivers
2. Video driver
(reboot)
3. Control Panel
(reboot)
4. DAO software
5. MMC software
6. GuidePlus softwate
7. Remote Wonder software
(reboot)

What OS? Was it a clean install? I have an XP Pro SP2 box with the AIW 9700
Pro, the latest ATI software and for the most part, it works fine. I get the
occasional "TV cannot initialize" error message, but a reboot fixes it.

 

[T Shadow]

Btw, I have an ATI AIW 9700 Pro, Asus P4P800S, 1Gig mem, etc.... Have
tried the latest and greatest software ATI has to offer for my
vidcard.

ATIs software is far from perfect but the problems you have are caused by a
bad installation. Their installation programs are the worst thing they make
other than the brain dead config app. Even so a lot of people are
successfully using this software.

Try doing an install this way. I'm assuming WinXP.

Make sure you have the latest M/B chipset drivers and DMA turned on.
Windows Media Encoder 9 & DirectX 9c

Use the Cat uninstaller. Then install the individual drivers, from the
website, (in low speed d/l section) starting with the WDM capture
drivers(per release notes), display drivers and control panel. Don't install
CCC. Then dao-mdac, decoder and MMC. Order of installation is important.
HTH

 

[Homer]

Here is one that I used before MMC and it is totaly free.

http://mikecrash.wz.cz/atv2000/atv2000.htm

Homer

 

[Ciao Bella]

Thanks for the replies from Paul Murphy, R. J. Salvi, & T Shadow, fyi
I have WinXp Pro installed and have been tinkering with computers
since about 1991. Yes, I have followed ATI's instructions to the T.
My first system was an AST store bought brand name. But since then
I've built my own. Many time over. Except for my notebooks,
ofcourse. Wish I could build those myself too. LOL

Anyway, I apologize if I've offended any ATI defenders here, but after
installing the trial version of Snapstream's Beyond TV, I now know
it's not all the ATI software's fault. The problems are re-occuring
with the Snapstream software too. Almost exactly the same.

I have to do more troubleshooting with this system as this is a fairly
new one. I just upgraded last month. I had the AIW 9700 in my older
system and never had this much trouble with it. The normal hiccup
every now and then but not like this. I almost don't want to watch tv
with it because I know I'm going to end up doing a hard reboot.

I really wanted to find out about other software I could use with the
card for troubleshooting purposes and if all fails with the ATI
software, a good alternative for it. If I can get the MMC to work
again, why pay for other software, right? Thanks again.

 

[Paul Murphy]

I agree with your statement "If I can get the MMC to work again, why pay for
other software, right?" You mentioned it's a relatively new system and you
upgraded last month swapping your AIW 9700 over from your older system. If
you had another (different) VGA card in the current system prior to the AIW
9700 and swapping cards was part of the upgrade then it would be worth
ensuring all traces of the old cards drivers/software are completely
removed. Also it would be worth checking the new systems PSU is powerful
enough for all your hardware. The AIW 9700 is quite power hungry itself and
if it doesn't have enough grunt to power it all you'll get system
instability - particularly when starting the TV Player or burning CDs.

If it was my machine I'd back up all my data and the latest ATI
software/drivers and the latest drivers for all the other hardware on the
machine (including motherboard chipset), then I'd write all zeros to the
machines hard drive (using whatever appropriate utility the drive maker
provides on their website - usually run from a boot floppy disk - some
people call this a low level format, its not but it will ensure there's no
corruption on your HDD). Then I'd start again from scratch doing a fresh
install and ensuring that things are done in the correct order (as per HTH's
post below) and with the all important required reboots at various stages
along the way. If your Windows XP CDROM is an upgrade one (ie it checks for
a previous version before it will install, then you only need to provide the
previous OSs media - you don't have to have it installed first and its best
not to). I've found that when ATI software asks for a reboot and pops up a
box with a choice of yes or no (clicking yes will eventually restart the
machine), its best to choose no, wait a few seconds for HDD activity to
cease and then manually restart the machine using the windows start/turn off
computer menu. I do it this way because I've found clicking the the yes
button can sometimes pop up an error message box titled "should not see
this" - doing it my way you never get this.

ATIs installation CDROMs actually work very well in my experience, its a
pity that their website doesn't just provide ISOs for the latest setup
CDROMs. Then people could have a much simpler time setting up their ATI
hardware instead of the fairly complicated modular installation regime which
currently exists in order to get it right.

Paul

 

[/mel/]

Anyway, I apologize if I've offended any ATI defenders here, but after
installing the trial version of Snapstream's Beyond TV, I now know
it's not all the ATI software's fault. The problems are re-occuring
with the Snapstream software too. Almost exactly the same.

I suspect that some of the issues are down to DirectX, and ... I can't
recall the filename kstune.ax I think. I currently have just one outstanding
issue - audio distortion during channel changing, and I'm in the process of
tinkering with different WDM drivers and DirectX variants.

I noticed that a lot of folks mentioned that installation issues would be to
blame, and though it's fair to say that this is often the case it most
certainly is not always the case.

I have to do more troubleshooting with this system as this is a fairly
new one. I just upgraded last month. I had the AIW 9700 in my older
system and never had this much trouble with it. The normal hiccup
every now and then but not like this. I almost don't want to watch tv
with it because I know I'm going to end up doing a hard reboot.

I had lots of issues with my AIW8500DV, and by the time I got it working and
stable it was obsolete. I've had lots of issues with my AIW9800Pro, though
to be fair most are now resolved. Still, the remaining issue does mean that
I too don't want to watch TV. I've learned my lesson, and the next time that
I have to upgrade my card for 3D I will separate out the TV from the
graphics, and I won't be buying an ATI TV card.

I really wanted to find out about other software I could use with the
card for troubleshooting purposes and if all fails with the ATI
software, a good alternative for it. If I can get the MMC to work
again, why pay for other software, right? Thanks again.

I'm looking at Dscaler, but it's not promising so far. I too am open to
suggestions.

_______________________

/mel/

 

[Ciao Bella]

Thanks Paul Murphy and /mel/. I don't know how to reply to two posts
other than by replying separately to each, but that would be too much
typing and also a separate thread for everyone to read. So here's one
for both.

As I said this is a fairly new system with the AIW and other parts
taken from the old system and put into the new one. The drives were
all reformatted and XP installed from scratch (non-upgrade). Parts
were installed one at a time (meticulously), all of which were under
my control that is. Others were just there and installed by XP
automatically. As far as the ATI stuff, I installed those in their
proper order as per web site and experience. The new parts for the
system are the ASUS P4P800S mobo, P4 3.2 GHz, 1Gb of DDR400 memory
(brand?), Raidmax Scorpio case with 420w PSU. All ordered via Ebay.

I have to take the time to troubleshoot this problem some more. I'm
starting to wonder if I'm overtasking something in the system. Maybe
the AIW? I have everything maxed out for graphics. I've noticed that
when I have multiple things running there is a bigger likelyhood that
I will have problems with the tv software. Any tv software. I
haven't really tried it without running other things at the same time.
It would be intermittently working okay with other things running. So
I didn't think it could be anything else other that ATI software.

Well I'll let you guys know if I come up with anything or not. I
gotta' do some studying for now. If you guys think of something or if
anyone runs into the same problems and finds a fix, let me know. I'm
always checking this group. Thanks much!!

 

[P. Jayant]

I have been a user of MMC for a long time and have updated whenever there
was a stable version for my AIW Radeon 8500DV Card now under XP. I would
like to try out the ATV 2000.
But I would like to know even before considering downloading it, if it
conflicts with a working MMC. Some applications like burning a DVD, do not
tolerate the existence of two applications for the same function. If that
applies to TV Capture applications, it would mess up my working MMC.
Secondly, does it work with the WDM drivers installed and for MMC? Or is ATV
likely to require another set of drivers?

P. Jayant

 

[Homer]

No it does not conflict with MMC because it uses the WDM of the video card
and tuner that ATI supplies. I had both loaded and I would use both. You
just can't run them at the same time. When you install it you pick the tuner
WDM and start the program. I used it with a old zoltrix tuner card because
they did not produce any new software for XP with the old tuner card. It was
a great free tuner program for the price.

Homer

 

[Mike Hunt]

What's the best alternate for ATI's MMC? I basically just want the TV
http://virtualvcr.sourceforge.net/

 

[P. Jayant]

Has any correspondent of this Newsgroup experience or comments on the
usability
of ATV 2000 for video capture from an analogue camera or VCR tapes or for
direct capture on a DVD+R or DVD RW? Currently I am using Sonic's MyDVD
but would like to try ATV 2000 if it is feasible.

P. Jayant