Ati TV-Wonder VE quality issue

[atiguy]

I just purchased an ATI TV-Wonder VE for an old PC: PIII 1Ghz, Nvidia GForce 2 GTS, 384 RAM, win 98/se. I installed it, and it seems to be working, although the quality of the tv signal is lower than what I would get on a normal TV. If i watch in a small window it looks okay, but in full screen it looks as if the image has been stretched to fill the screen (loss of reolution...more "blocky"). Im primarily using the card to capture tv shows, and the low quality is kinda dissapointing. Im using the drivers and software that came with the card: MMC 7.1 and whatever version of the drivers that correspond to that version of MMC. I read that the newer MMC (8.8 or 8.9) and the new drivers will only cause me problems if i install them, so Ive been afraid to change anything since the card does technically "work".

Will upgrading the drivers and/or MMC improve the quality of the tv signal (when im just watching it....not recording) or is this low quality just the result of the fact that the card was cheap? Ive read other posts from people who claim that using the VE card that they can capture perfect TV quality...are they just making stuff up?

Thanks a ton for your help!

[JohnE.]

I've got an ATI TV-Wonder VE and the newer drivers... if I select Cable as the input all I get is snow. I have to select Composite to get the picture from my VCR's outputs. I think Cable would give me a better picture than Composite but I can't use it. I haven't tried the older driver versions.

I'm not very impressed with this card and apparently the only difference between the VE and the Pro is mono vs. stereo audio.

Welcome to TechIMO!

[Jeordiewhite]

I have a friend who can capture through composite and he get's a low quality image from what i've noticed. It doesn't come up with a pretty bad image quality, but it still sucks tho.

[MDS]

I have the same card with win2kpro and the software was not worth installing to me. I used the mmc 9.0 and dscaler for my software and works better but not as clear of a picture as my last card a Hauppauge. I think there is a very low quallity with this card.

http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/downloads.htm

[RobRich]

The image quality problem is due to no post filtering with the factory ATI drivers. Definitely follow MDS' advice and grab a copy of Descaler. Only with post filtering will you be able to attain a full-screen quality level similar to television.

[JohnE.]

Thanks Jeordiewhite... I already tried removing all splitters and going direct to the Cable out, etc... nothing worked. I'm pretty sure it's a driver issue as the friend who gave it to me had it working with the Cable input once with older drivers. He can't remember which driver version it was either though, lol. I'll give Descaler a try and see what happens.