Probably here

https://www.amd.com/en/support/graphics/tv-tu … r-radeon-8500dv

though if not I recently got one (with original CDs) in a lot of cards - there's a drivers/software disc and a copy of Ulead VideoStudio v5 - let me know what's missing and I'll check.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

Probably here

https://www.amd.com/en/support/graphics/tv-tu … r-radeon-8500dv

though if not I recently got one (with original CDs) in a lot of cards - there's a drivers/software disc and a copy of Ulead VideoStudio v5 - let me know what's missing and I'll check.

Thanks, I tried the first link but it's just the 7500 drivers that happen to work on the 8500 but with none of the features of the 8500. No truform in particular

The 8500 DV appears to have many auxilliary chip features because I have about half a dozen "unknown device" that popped up after installing the graphics drivers. The card works and everything but is missing pretty much everything except the core drivers. I think I would probably need the CD. Also I read that the 8500dv is unsupported on 98. Dunno if true but looking to find a solution.

You'll need an earlier catalyst driver for TruForm - looks like no later than v5.8 (try somewhere like Guru3D). AFAIK it does support 98, although this may be with ME drivers.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

You'll need an earlier catalyst driver for TruForm - looks like no later than v5.8 (try somewhere like Guru3D). AFAIK it does support 98, although this may be with ME drivers.

Same as what I heard. Is that what's on your cd? (ME drivers)

I haven't seen any vogons downloads or elsewhere that also has all the tv tuner stuff either.

I'm running 4.2 now but even it doesn't expose any control panel or anything and still thinks it's a 7500.

Gahhhrrrlic wrote:

Same as what I heard. Is that what's on your cd? (ME drivers) […]
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PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

You'll need an earlier catalyst driver for TruForm - looks like no later than v5.8 (try somewhere like Guru3D). AFAIK it does support 98, although this may be with ME drivers.

Same as what I heard. Is that what's on your cd? (ME drivers)

I haven't seen any vogons downloads or elsewhere that also has all the tv tuner stuff either.

I'm running 4.2 now but even it doesn't expose any control panel or anything and still thinks it's a 7500.

No, the CD I got with the card (a Hercules 3D Prophet AIW 8500DV) is much older (Nov 2001) whereas Cat 5.8 is from around Aug 2005. The TV Tuner is part of the Multimedia Center app (MMC v7.5 on my CD) but it doesn't support any Windows earlier than ME, although there is driver support (at least for a while) for 95 OSR2.1, 98 & ME. I think later drivers were only XP and beyond. I've attached a few readme files off the CD for info. If you give me an idea of your target platform and OS I can probably throw a similar test system together as a check!

Are you sure your card is an 8500DV and not one of the other close AIW variants (8500 64/128, VE or an actual 7500) - any pics of your card? Here's a review of mine for comparison

http://www.activewin.com/reviews/hardware/gra … 0dv/index.shtml

My card is this one (has this PCB layout):

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/fWMAAOSw7wxaq97i/s-l300.jpg

Sorry, maybe it's just me but I can't see any pic on that link - can you recheck the url or upload it to vogons

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

Sorry, maybe it's just me but I can't see any pic on that link - can you recheck the url or upload it to vogons

Oh that's strange, sorry try this attachment.

Think we may have an answer to your problems - that's not an AIW 8500DV; at least not like one I've ever seen - pretty sure the card in your picture is a AIW 7500 and as you can see from the attached chart, unlike the 8500DV it doesn't support TruForm. The 8500DV also has a much smaller chip-based digital TV tuner, onboard Firewire, an additional power connector and a completely different back port layout.

WTF?! I got ripped off on ebay then.

This thing still is an AIW though. Has the coax and all that. Can I at least get some value out of it?

P.S. I have a 9500 in a different machine and while truform was not supposed to have been a feature of that card, I believe it's more of a software feature and the latest drivers for the 9500 seem to support it so I can still have truform on that card I guess.

If the seller said it was an 8500DV then yes - ask for a partial refund if you're keeping the card.

If you can get the drivers working for your chosen OS then the AIW 7500 is a decent card from its era. Unless you live in a region which still broadcasts analogue terrestrial TV signals or have an alternate coax input source then even with working drivers the TV tuners on all these AIW cards are obsolete as they don't support any DTV broadcast standard.

What made the 8500 series different was native hardware support for TruForm, rather than the later software emulation.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

If the seller said it was an 8500DV then yes - ask for a partial refund if you're keeping the card.

If you can get the drivers working for your chosen OS then the AIW 7500 is a decent card from its era. Unless you live in a region which still broadcasts analogue terrestrial TV signals or have an alternate coax input source then even with working drivers the TV tuners on all these AIW cards are obsolete as they don't support any DTV broadcast standard.

What made the 8500 series different was native hardware support for TruForm, rather than the later software emulation.

and hardware T&L if I'm not mistaken, right? That and truform is what appealed to me the most over the 7k series. Also, despite all TV signals being digital now, I like to screw around with other stuff like plugging my VCR or video games into the computer. I guess the card does not have video out via coax?

One way to verify a card's identity is to find the PCI Vendor and Device ID values. On most systems they'll show up in a chart when the BIOS is displaying the POST screen. You can freeze it with a well timed push of the Pause key. Then you can search those values on a PCI Database.
https://pcilookup.com/
is one such site but doesn't look old-browser friendly.
https://pci-ids.ucw.cz/
might work better on old PCs if you're using it to browse

Under Windows you can go into the control panel, device manager, go into the properties for the card and find the PCI Ven and Dev values in there somewhere (I'm not in front of a Windows machine at the moment).

But if the driver recognizes 8500 cards and picks yours up as a 7500 then that's almost surely what it is (barring an unlikely driver bug). The driver looks at those same PCI Device ID values when it's doing the install.

I once had detection issues with a card on a motherboard with a weak power supply, where the PCI ID values weren't coming up correctly. But you're not just getting inconsistent or "bad" ID values, you're apparently getting the values for a 7500 so that doesn't sound like a glitch.

Also, despite all TV signals being digital now, I like to screw around with other stuff like plugging my VCR or video games into the computer.

I have limited experience here, but with an early 2000s model ATI TV Wonder Pro card, I didn't have a satisfactory signal with a Nintendo 8-bit (composite RCA plug) and couldn't pick up a usable signal at all from an Atari 7800 (I think that was s-video modded though, so not a standard situation).
My problem on the NES was that the pixels kept jittering back and forth. I think they call it "dot crawl".
The jittery NES signal was fixed by feeding it through an SVHS player that had a "time base correction" feature, but it wasn't a practical solution for me.
Not sure what to expect with other consoles, but in general older consoles tend to have a dodgy signal with respect to standards. They're compliant enough to work fine on a CRT TV of their era but these tuner cards sometimes don't like them.