I've had this card in one of my bins for a few years now, not really knowing what it was. Googling CT7240 revealed precious little mention beyond others trying to figure out what it was or where they could get drivers for it.
Looking at the card, it's got some memory, a big creative chip (CT7235-VBQ), a small creative chip, and an Analog Devices ADV7175AKS. If you were to start searching these up, you would likely find little information and still not be able to ascertain what the card is for.
On the slot cover, the card gets really confusing. It has Line Out, SPDIF Out, TV Out, VGA Out, and VGA In. The VGA in is the strangest, as it's not a "VGA" port, it looks akin to an S-Video port but with more and scrambled pins. At this point you might think it's a video accelerator of some kind, like the early Voodoos with a passthrough? You'd be partially correct.
After much searching, I have uncovered the mystery that is this card. It turns out that it is a DVD/MPEG2 Decoder. Like the HD decoder cards today used in netbooks and laptops to allow weaker machines to play HD content, this was used to let older machines play DVDs and MPEG2 video without relying on the host system as heavily as normal. This means that instead of requiring a 600Mhz or so P3 to play DVDs comfortably, you could play them on a 133Mhz Pentium (minimum) or 400Mhz P2 (recommended).
(See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004Z8X5/103-7494153-2009459?v=glance for product info on one of the versions of the card)
In addition to this, the card has an unintended feature. Since it's designed to do VGA input, passed to output, of which it has more than one.. it can convert VGA->S-Video/Composite. This is the feature which I intend to use mine for, as boxes to perform this (without being crap) cost somewhere in the order of $200+.
Apparently a notable purpose for this card was for playing Wing Commander IV.
The card has drivers for Win9x->WinXP (Beta driver, never finished) but you won't find them by coing to Creative, they don't acknowledge the card's existence. You also won't find them by searching for CT7240.
It turns out that this card is a rebadged device by "Sigma Designs" (who also pretends it doesn't exist now) called the "Hollywood Plus". Several other companies rebadged it as well, meaning that drivers of various versions are available for the card under different names. There are also at least two Creative models, CT7230 and CT7240, I believe a bit different, but they serve similar purpose.
Anyway, the most common name for this device is "DXR3", which is what the Linux driver project for this card refers to it as. If searching for Linux drivers, use that term, and if Windows, call it a "Hollywood Plus".
Linux Driver: http://dxr3.sourceforge.net/
2K/XP Beta Driver (2.2): http://fileforum.betanews.com/detai...e-Dxr3-Drivers-for-Windows-2000XP/960746139/1
9x/NT Drivers: http://www.boot-loader.ru/file.php?id=653
(I have copies of both of the Windows drivers, so let me know if the links die and I'll upload them somewhere for you.)
(Future searchers try me at t6600c <at> gmail if I'm not active here at the time.)
Unfortunately there's no 64-bit driver for the device, otherwise it's compatible from Win95->Win7-32 just fine, so whether you want to take a load off of a weaker machine's CPU when playing DVDs or you want to convert VGA->TV, this could work for you.
There's one caveat, though, and that's that the VGA input has that odd pinout DIN connector.
I found a page (http://www.resellerratings.com/foru...70-looking-dxr3-cable-vga-loopback-cable.html) that has the pinout, which it turns out is available in some versions of the drivers' readme file. I translated it away from the ASCII art that hasn't kept well over time:
I was tempted to put this under the "Reviews" section, but since I wasn't evaluating the performance of the card (I don't have the loopback cable yet) I put it here.
Looking at the card, it's got some memory, a big creative chip (CT7235-VBQ), a small creative chip, and an Analog Devices ADV7175AKS. If you were to start searching these up, you would likely find little information and still not be able to ascertain what the card is for.
On the slot cover, the card gets really confusing. It has Line Out, SPDIF Out, TV Out, VGA Out, and VGA In. The VGA in is the strangest, as it's not a "VGA" port, it looks akin to an S-Video port but with more and scrambled pins. At this point you might think it's a video accelerator of some kind, like the early Voodoos with a passthrough? You'd be partially correct.
After much searching, I have uncovered the mystery that is this card. It turns out that it is a DVD/MPEG2 Decoder. Like the HD decoder cards today used in netbooks and laptops to allow weaker machines to play HD content, this was used to let older machines play DVDs and MPEG2 video without relying on the host system as heavily as normal. This means that instead of requiring a 600Mhz or so P3 to play DVDs comfortably, you could play them on a 133Mhz Pentium (minimum) or 400Mhz P2 (recommended).
(See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004Z8X5/103-7494153-2009459?v=glance for product info on one of the versions of the card)
In addition to this, the card has an unintended feature. Since it's designed to do VGA input, passed to output, of which it has more than one.. it can convert VGA->S-Video/Composite. This is the feature which I intend to use mine for, as boxes to perform this (without being crap) cost somewhere in the order of $200+.
Apparently a notable purpose for this card was for playing Wing Commander IV.
The card has drivers for Win9x->WinXP (Beta driver, never finished) but you won't find them by coing to Creative, they don't acknowledge the card's existence. You also won't find them by searching for CT7240.
It turns out that this card is a rebadged device by "Sigma Designs" (who also pretends it doesn't exist now) called the "Hollywood Plus". Several other companies rebadged it as well, meaning that drivers of various versions are available for the card under different names. There are also at least two Creative models, CT7230 and CT7240, I believe a bit different, but they serve similar purpose.
Anyway, the most common name for this device is "DXR3", which is what the Linux driver project for this card refers to it as. If searching for Linux drivers, use that term, and if Windows, call it a "Hollywood Plus".
Linux Driver: http://dxr3.sourceforge.net/
2K/XP Beta Driver (2.2): http://fileforum.betanews.com/detai...e-Dxr3-Drivers-for-Windows-2000XP/960746139/1
9x/NT Drivers: http://www.boot-loader.ru/file.php?id=653
(I have copies of both of the Windows drivers, so let me know if the links die and I'll upload them somewhere for you.)
(Future searchers try me at t6600c <at> gmail if I'm not active here at the time.)
Unfortunately there's no 64-bit driver for the device, otherwise it's compatible from Win95->Win7-32 just fine, so whether you want to take a load off of a weaker machine's CPU when playing DVDs or you want to convert VGA->TV, this could work for you.
There's one caveat, though, and that's that the VGA input has that odd pinout DIN connector.
I found a page (http://www.resellerratings.com/foru...70-looking-dxr3-cable-vga-loopback-cable.html) that has the pinout, which it turns out is available in some versions of the drivers' readme file. I translated it away from the ASCII art that hasn't kept well over time:
Code:
Creative CT7240 (PC-DVD Encore DXR3) VGA Input Pinout
9 8 7
6 5 4 3
2 1
1:Blue IN
2:GND
3:Green IN
4:GND
5:Vsync IN
6:Hsync IN
7:Red IN
8:SDA (from pin12 of DB15) - for PnP monitors
9:SCL (from pin15 of DB15) - for PnP monitorsI was tempted to put this under the "Reviews" section, but since I wasn't evaluating the performance of the card (I don't have the loopback cable yet) I put it here.
