Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (
More info?)
On Tue, 19 Jul 2005 13:39:50 GMT, "Sleepy"
<bpespleyremovetheobvious@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>"Marc Pencott" <marcpencott@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:2n2De.72851$G8.44711@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
>> Hi all
>>
>> I have recently purchased a Radeon 9800 AIW and would like to connect my
>> Telewest Cable TV to the card.
>>
>> Can anyone explain which cables I need and how to connect them, or point
>> to a newbie website.
>>
>> Also would it be possible to record one cable channel on the pc whilst
>> watching another on my main TV?
>>
>> Cheers
>> Marc
>>
>The cable that goes into the digital decoder box has a particular fitting
>but the output cable from that is a standard coax which just plugs into
>the TV or in your case your AIW card.
>The package we have with Telewest is one channel at a time and thats
>the standard deal.
>
In line with Sleepy says, it's quite likely your cable box will only
allow you to tune one channel at a time. Sometimes a cable box will
let you tune in the terrestrial channels separately, but you're very
unlikely to be able to tune in more than one cable channel at a time.
That's on the UHF lead, the 'standard coax' Sleepy mentions. You can
also connect your TV or your AIW to the box's composite video or
s-video output, most likely from a SCART socket on it. The advantage
of this should be better quality picture and sound (especially if you
want to capture); the drawback is that you'll _only_ be able to see
the channel the box is tuned to. AIWs often don't seem to have
particularly good tuners, and a video input helps get round this. If
your box only allows one channel at a time, composite or s- video is
definitely the way to go; if it allows tuning the terrestrial channels
simultaneously, it's your choice.
I presume this is an OEM card, as ATI themselves only make cards for
the North American market, where NTSC transmissions are the standard;
most of the rest of the world uses PAL or SECAM standards. On
Telewest, you will, of course, be in the UK using the PAL-i standard,
and ATI don't produce PAL UHF input cards any more. Therefore, I
can't be sure what connectors your card will have, but the UHF
connection will be via a co-axial socket, as Sleepy says - just
connect it exactly as you would a TV or VCR. The composite connector
will probably be one or two s-video-type sockets (if two, one's in,
one's out), although the wiring is not standard for s-video. If it's
one s-video socket only, that's for both video in and out.
You should get two adapters with a boxed card; one for video out (for
outputting to a TV, VCR etc) and one for video in - very often with
AIWs this is purple, and leads to a box that you plug
s-video/composite leads from your source into - an s-video socket on
this box should be standard s-video wiring. Whatever the decor style,
the moulded plugs on the adapters will likely have arrows marked on
them to indicate the direction they're meant for.
So, if your cable box has a SCART socket for video output, you'll will
probably need a SCART to one s-video or three phono plugs (two stereo
audio and one composite video) lead to connect the cable box to the
AIW box or lead connectors. Generally, you shouldn't input an s-video
lead straight into the card's s-video socket - it should go into the
socket on the adapter.
The other problem you may run up against is what software to use - the
ATI DVD decoder will often run on OEM cards if you have a CD to
validate it, but the TV app will often not install or run (if it does
install) on OEM cards - although if it does, you don't need the CD...
If you have a retail card, DVD and TV software should be included, but
I've found that most of the TV apps out there don't work particularly
well with PAL: I would suspect the manufacturers are catering mostly
for the North American market, and don't bother to optimise their
products for other standards. YMMV.
PowerVCR is one of the apps often included with OEM cards and IMHO,
while a good product in itself, it's not one of the ones that plays
well with PAL. The two I've found (apart from ATI's MMC, which
actually seems to be the best) that work well are Showshifter - which
produces an excellent picture, but to my mind has a horrible, clunky
interface - and Intervideo's WinDVR, which I would recommend if you
can't use the ATI app.
HTH Patrick
<patrickp@5acoustibop.co.uk> - take five to email me...
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