1, 2 there's problems for you
3, 4 it's called murphy's law
5, 6 there's no quick fix
7, 8 it's bill gates you should hate
9, 10 so you're stuck then!
Thats how it's been for the last 48 hours
I got a tv capture card for my birthday, only to find the usb device runs under xp.
adding to the difficulty's, the manuals are written in poor english, and the readme file in the root folder on the cd mentions windows 98x drivers but if you read further, you can see that it only relates to the nvidia drivers! aaaarrrrrg!!
I am totally blind and use some special adaptive software to hear what is on the screen, and I keep hearing bad things about xp, so I am scared to upgrade to it just now, so an internal tv capture card is well and truely out of the question.
oh yes, I suppose you're wondering what the hell a blind guy would want with a tv capture card?
Well, think about it. we dont have silent films or silent news reports, do we?
and if I record something I have many sighted net friends who I can upload the clip to who can tell me what is happening, IE with documentaries and such. Soooooo. Does anyone know of an external usb or firewire card that will run under 98se or am I really that much out of luck? surely there's gotta be something available for it. They just can't leave us in the lurch like this.

i was forced to post because i'm a great fan of elm street's movies

from my personal experience, pinnacle (http://www.pinnaclesys.com/) is a good brand to start.
my tv capture card is a PCTV (non-pro) and works flawlessly under win9x. mine is internal but i'm sure there's a USB version.

about XP vs. 98 and such, well, at the moment there's no problem on upgrading. you'll only need to find updated versions of your drivers and mostly ALL the brands will have on their websites

Ditto, a Farscape fan, here.

Welcome to MSFN forums, whocrazy

I'm using a Hauppauge WinTV PVR 350 PCI internal TV and radio FM tuner and video capture card:
http://www.hauppauge.com/html/wintvpvr350_datasheet.htm
Works great with Win98 SE, ME and XP.
Comes bundled with tuner and capture software and codecs for most of my needs.
Includes even a basic split/join/editor video/MPEG tool [nanoeditor].
Encodes video only in MPEG format, but there are tools [some are freeware] which can convert from MPEG format into AVI or WMV [both are Microsoft proprietary formats used by Windows Media Player (WMP)]:
AVI = Audio Video Interleave format.
WMV = Windows Media Video format.

The Hauppauge web site has plenty of driver/codec/software updates and patches for most Windows editions including 98 SE:
http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/support/sup...pvr250-350.html
I have purchased this card almost a year ago from Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...ronics&n=507846
and I am satisfied with their product.
Hauppauge makes similar external USB TV tuner and video capture cards:
http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/prods.html
The catch is that their newer products support only Windows XP and XP Media Center.
The one I own is the only Hauppauge card I'm familiar with.

My 2 cents:
if you have a friend or family member whom you can trust to upgrade your computer by opening the case and installing such an internal PCI card [which is a snap for somebody who did it at least a couple of times before], you're probably better off, because Hauppauge internal PCI cards support Windows 98 SE and ME, and bundle a pretty decent selection of software.
If you decide to go with an internal PCI card, make sure you have somebody read carefully IRQ internal interrupts distribution for each PCI slot from your computer motherboard/BIOS manual/documentation/online documents, because different PCI slots can only use certain internal interrupts, and even by using IRQ Steering [sharing] in your Windows 98 SE Control Panel:
System icon -> Device Manager tab -> System devices foler -> PCI bus dialog box -> IRQ Steering tab -> make sure "Use IRQ Steering" box is checked -> if not check it and reboot,
you may still experience hardware conflicts or sudden lockups if the PCI slot you selected for your TV card shares the same internal interrupt or IRQ with more than one other.
More info:
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/buses/typ..._Interrupts.htm

Good luck with your project.

server timeout?
double post

I wish I could help you on this but I can not. I love your little tune tho!

1, 2 there's problems for you
3, 4 it's called murphy's law
5, 6 there's no quick fix
7, 8 it's bill gates you should hate
9, 10 so you're stuck then!

It is great!

I have a excel tv usb 2.0 usb device. Where can I find the drivers? I've tried on google but I dont seem to be getting anywhere

I have a excel tv usb 2.0 usb device. Where can I find the drivers? I've tried on google but I dont seem to be getting anywhere

Closest I can tell, your card is made by ECS Elitegroup:
http://www.ecs.com.tw/
and if that's true, your card name must be EZ-TV Tuner Card TVP3XP , because that's the only one they make.

I don't believe they make nor sell this product anymore, the only place I could find it is at the Driver page [which according to them supports all Windows releases]:
http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWeb/Downloads/Pro...uID=102&LanID=0
Direct link to driver [5 MB, USA server]:
http://64.124.27.138/ecs/driver/peripheral/EZ-TV.zip

Hope this helps.

No. thats no help either,
I rang up protac australia who distributes the hardware here and I found out my device was an excel tv model 401u which is totally different to what you just describe, the guy said he'd try and get me the drivers, and asked me to google them, I told him I tried and didn't find anything, so he went to their website excel.com.tw then he went to the downloads section and he got a message that the downloads were under construction or something.
and then he went to protac's website and couldn't find any drivers at all for anything. He said he'd get someone to email him from sydney about the drivers and then forward the email on to me, but that was early this afternoon and I've heard nothing since!! typical!!
How did you get in to the downloads section?

Call me an evil bastard but I have no pity for people who run Win98 and buy new devices, especially USB based ones.

Afraid to upgrade to XP, how [edit] paranoid are you? You'd think after 2 service packs, one of them being the biggest, most tested SP Microsoft has ever deployed, would fix whatever paranoid delusions escuses you have for not running XP.

Even if I had an old 300mhz 128meg machine, I'd still prefer to run XP with the UI disabled than a 98 box.

Update: please note the [edit] was a HUGE mistake on my part and I honestly attest I didn't know the original author was blind as I read his post quickly and looked over this fact. I would never attack anybody in such a tasteless manner.

@Rhelic, maybe becuase he's not using common software? maybe b/c he doesn't know about soft that supports xp?

Thanks for sticking up for me. I came here because there is an update for windows 98se, so rhelics snobbish remarks are less than helpful
also, on the cd that came with my hardware, if the drivers say they work with 98, then they should work with 98, no if buts or maybes. somehow I dont feel so welcome in this forum any more.

i totaly agree with Rhelic,just goto xp,it will run on low end stuff or use the 98 se 2.0,maybe that will work.theres notta thing wrong with xp,you can make it look like 98 se.

One person cannot speak for all of us here, but I can speak for the rest of us, you ARE welcome here.

You asked me how I got to that driver download page?
Probably same as you did, searching at Google.
And same as you, I've clicked on the manufacturer link found at an Australian site that was selling the Excel TV card.
But never mind that, it didn't help you anyway.

What may help:
if you wish to send me the driver [that doesn't work on 98SE] you have on that vendor provided CD [zipped through email], I can take look at the executable, and eventually extract the files, and if we're lucky, maybe make them work with 98SE, by modifying the INF file.
My email is found at this page:
http://www.mdgx.com/form.htm
Just click on the blue E-mail link, and then attach your ZIP file.
If you decide to do this, and if we are successful, then you will need to install:
1. Gape's Service Pack 2.0:
http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html
2. and then Maximus-Decim's Native USB Drivers:
http://www.msfn.org/board/?showtopic=43605
in this order.
These 2 updates will enable 98SE to [hopefully] accept your USB card driver.

Hope this helps.

Thank you thank you, thank you thank you.. I'll try following those instructions you gave me about installing those service packs and then if it still doesn't work, I'll drop you an email with the file attachment.

why are you here then ?

i wouldn't go into an American football forum and start going on about why when only one guy kicks the ball is it called football, but then i'm not an arsehole.

the forum title is -
MSFN Forums > Microsoft Operating Systems Discussion & Support > Windows 95/98/98SE/ME > Unofficial Win98 SE Service Pack
not
MSFN Forums > Microsoft Operating Systems Discussion & Support > Windows 95/98/98SE/ME > Please Tell Me To Buy XP

I just heard from someone that excel's external and internal hardware are not worth thinking about, even if my system did use xp and I met all the other system requirements, both hardware and software are substandard and unreliable, the pricetag was only 99$. I tried the suggestion of running the 98 service pack update and then installing the usb drivers, but no go. It was then that I was in a chat room and came across someone who have had experience working with excel products.....
Hopefully by next week I will have taken it back to the shop and got my refund.
Thanks just the same though, you've been a great help.

Hey again. I've heard about another usb card, this time it's a pinnacle usb2 pctv card. Does this work with windows 98se? do any of the pinnacle usb tv capture devices work with 98se? has anyone tried them? thanks

Jeez, isn't that kind've mean? I mean, that's cold man!

The guy isn't asking whether he should upgrade his operating system. He's just trying to get the stuff he has to work right.

And, he mentions his disability and then you diss him like that's why he won't upgrade?

This whole forum helps folks who actually prefer 9x to be able to use it with modern hardware.

And, guess what? With the patch's it's quite secure and runs quicker and less buggy than NT. And, there's nothing wrong with running legacy software on OS's they're designed for either. Most new stuff runs just fine too.

I've got XP. Guess what I'm using? Windows 98SE.

Regardless, the reference made to the fella's disability was sick and rude.

whocrazy:
Sorry, mate, I don't have any experience with Pinnacle hardware.
The only external USB devices I'm using are a "NIC on a stick" [Siemens SpeedStream ethernet 100/10] hooked up to my cable modem and a Logitech joystick [3D WingMan Extreme].
I'm afraid I can't help.

rhelic:
You need a serious attitude adjustment [and that's the nicest way to say this].

Oh dear. I got the pinnacle pctv usb2.0 card and guess what? no go!!
I wonder if there such a thing as a usb2 device that runs under 98se or ME?

I apologize to the original poster in boatloads, I honestly quick read his post and had no idea he was blind. When I used the term "blindly paranoid" it was merely a figure of speach. It was a total coincidence, I swear!

I would never attack somebody with such tastelessness.

People are entitled to their opinions. It would be a rather boring place if everyone had the same one. But I don't like XP. I really like 98SE. I've got XP on a laptop. It seems to run fairly smooth. I hated the fact of the whole verification back to MS thing. I loved it automatically detecting everything when I installed it on my desktop PC. It's not on there any longer tho' for obvious reasons(**** MS). I STILL like playing old games, and altho' I'm sure there are workarounds. It seems a hassle to try to get XP backwords compatible. For my 98SE I've dragged out the layout*.inf's into my install directory and redirected to a cab that has updated files, called sp2.cab. I've added my own .cab with files I like better. My system installs mostly updated. I also dragged out other .inf files and rewrote them a little, and added stuff to my add\remove (tweakui, spider, pinball to name a few). My system installs with the ME explorer.(I don't care to install IE so I just grabbed the files from the 867282 update) I know so far it seems off topic , but if I can increase USB capability to "UPDATE" my system.... cool. If there was some way to improve the autodetection more like XP even better(updated driver database or sumsuch thing\would be handy for network cards, & monitor). I've been told that although the memory requirements are higher for XP, it's memory management is much better. Although I have XP and 98SE, I've done no tests, comparisons, what have you. I'm still usually on my 98SE. If it seems I've been rambling I apologize. If this seems the wrong thread, I think I've just crossed over a few of them.

Thanks much, Jaymo

P.S. It's good that foot-in-mouth syndrome is a temporary thing. I can respect a person who can point out their hastiness, and give an apology where due. (Most of us have probably been there.)