Poor sound on TV Wonder pro

[Gerald Todd]

I recently upgraded to a TV Wonder from a TV wonder VE and am really pleased
with the picture quality. I was getting very good sound with the VE but the
sound now is muddy. I've tried various volume settings for the line-in,
tuner and overall volume control to some improvement but it is still muddy.
Any ideas?
Gerald
Todd

 

[Paul Murphy]

I recently upgraded to a TV Wonder from a TV wonder VE and am really
pleased with the picture quality. I was getting very good sound with the
VE but the sound now is muddy. I've tried various volume settings for the
line-in, tuner and overall volume control to some improvement but it is
still muddy. Any ideas?
Gerald
Todd

What sort of soundcard are you using and how did you connect the TV Wonder
Pro to it (using what sort of cable)? The TV Wonder VE is mono whereas the
Pro offers stereo so the sound (as well as picture) should be better.

 

[Gerald Todd]

What sort of soundcard are you using and how did you connect the TV Wonder
Pro to it (using what sort of cable)? The TV Wonder VE is mono whereas the
Pro offers stereo so the sound (as well as picture) should be better.

Thanks for your response. The hookup is the same (line-in) as on the VE.
The soundcard is the Realtek onboard my Gigabyte GA-7VT600-L which has
otherwise excellent sound.
Gerald
Todd

 

[Paul Murphy]

Thanks for your response. The hookup is the same (line-in) as on the VE.
The soundcard is the Realtek onboard my Gigabyte GA-7VT600-L which has
otherwise excellent sound.

Gerald Todd

You may need to use a different cable or rewire it to suit the stereo feed
if you were just using a mono cable (although I've never seen a mono
internal CD Audio style cable). If the original cable was incorrectly wired
a fault may not have shown up due to the mono sound - whereas now it will.
It would be worth seeing if there's anything in the TV Wonder Pro's manual
or ATI website (and the motherboards manual) which explains each pins
function for the sockets and check that is correct. I remeber ther is
something on their website with regards to AIW Radeon sound header pins so
maybe the TV Wonbder Pro is covered too.

Additionally, if you haven't already done so, you should completely
uninstall the old MMC software and TV Wonder VE drivers then reboot and
install the correct software for your new card. Although the MMC will still
be the same, the installation process will pick up the different features (a
bit like if you change Radeon graphics cards - even though they all use
Catalyst drivers you should uninstall/reinstall).

Let us know how you get on.

Paul

 

[Gerald Todd]

You may need to use a different cable or rewire it to suit the stereo feed
if you were just using a mono cable (although I've never seen a mono
internal CD Audio style cable). If the original cable was incorrectly
wired a fault may not have shown up due to the mono sound - whereas now it
will. It would be worth seeing if there's anything in the TV Wonder Pro's
manual or ATI website (and the motherboards manual) which explains each
pins function for the sockets and check that is correct. I remeber ther is
something on their website with regards to AIW Radeon sound header pins so
maybe the TV Wonbder Pro is covered too.

Additionally, if you haven't already done so, you should completely
uninstall the old MMC software and TV Wonder VE drivers then reboot and
install the correct software for your new card. Although the MMC will
still be the same, the installation process will pick up the different
features (a bit like if you change Radeon graphics cards - even though
they all use Catalyst drivers you should uninstall/reinstall).

Let us know how you get on.

Paul

Well, I feel pretty stupid. The question I meant to ask was the quality of
sound on recorded shows, not the sound when the tv is playing. The sound
when the tv is playing is excellent. Thanks again for your response and for
any more ideas now that I've asked the proper question. When I record I use
the "DVD" quality setting and I've got MMC 9.03 installed.
Gerald Todd

 

[dan]

I had a similar problem with cheap motherboard sound.

I fixed it by disabling the on-board sound chip and installing a pci
sound card.

I'm using a generic yamaha 724 sound card (a few years old) and couldn't
be happier with it.

Newegg.com has several pci sound cards for between $10 and $30 (shipped)
right now.

dan

 

[Paul Murphy]

Well, I feel pretty stupid. The question I meant to ask was the quality
of sound on recorded shows, not the sound when the tv is playing. The
sound when the tv is playing is excellent. Thanks again for your response
and for any more ideas now that I've asked the proper question. When I
record I use the "DVD" quality setting and I've got MMC 9.03 installed.
Gerald Todd

OK that clears things up a bit. Did you uninstall and reinstall drivers and
MMC at the time of changing cards? If not this definitely needs to be done
(even though live sound is OK). The TV Wonder Pro uses a different chipset
to the TV Wonder VE and so the drivers used are different. If you've done
that and recorded audio is still a problem then it may be worth trying a
fresh install and failing that changing to a PCI soundcard - just NOT one
using a CMedia chipset. There are known issues with some CMedia equipped
motherboards and hiss during record under MMC (although as is the case for
your machine currently, live audio on those machines is still OK).

Paul