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**This_Idiot** · 13 November 1999, 08:35

Hi Biker,

The Ulead MPEG software is ugly ! Try to get hold of a copy of the freeware AVI2MPEG1 utility. http://www.mnsi.net/~jschlic1/

This is a DOS application, but somewhere floating around the net is a windows front-end for it called A2MGUI.

**Biker** · 13 November 1999, 12:38

Hello Mr Idiot

Thanks, guess what - I had a copy of that, the windows version as well!

Now then -guess the name of a tiny little video utility program that went missing during my new hard drive install?

Was it any good, I never got to try it out?

I am sorta facing a dilema at the moment, I personally do not feel the G200 is anywhere near as good as linear editing as regards quality.

At home I had/have 2 SVHS decks, and even though they went through a single field Panasonic AVE5 vision mixer for nice wipes, freeze frame WATCHABLE slo mo. etc.

The third generation copies to VHS tape was/is far superior to what I am getting doing S-VHS -> G200 -> S-VHS, and thats using 704 x 576 25fps max quality, least compression. I really find it hard to believe the people who state here that there is imperseptable difference/quality loss!

Maybe it depends on the subject matter to a large extent, in fact I am sure it does. In my case wet muddy stones and grass comes out absolutely lousy? (I film Off road Dirt biking in case you are all wondering!)

So I thought cut my losses, I cant make videos good enough to sell with this kit, so I will try CD's using Mpeg's!!! Ah ha, say no more - the quality of that comes out like 'Sh**' as well.

Ever feel like you just ain't gona win?

Am I winging - NO, just trying to stir things up a little. I absolutely love (and I mean it) the high level conversations here regarding pixel count, resolution etc. But when you can see its an absolutely appaling picture, I do not think we need to go into it that far?

But I do understand, I used to DESIGN and build 'REAL' Hi-Fi, linear Audio pre-amps, and noise reduction units, was I ever fussy? Strangely now I just listen to Long wave radio, having decided the content was more important.

Will potential customers ever feel that way about my current Multimedia exploits I wonder? ('potential' because I cant make anything of good enough quality to think worthy of attempting to sell yet!)

OK now I have bored every one to death (good this internet isn't it!)- I have lit the blue touch paper, now I will just stand back and wait for the 'Flak' to appear.

PS. Which makes me wonder, what on earth do people actually do with their Marvel G200 cards???

Keep it up guys.

Biker

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**This_Idiot** · 13 November 1999, 14:26

Hi Adrian,

We're in the same industry now. The fortnightly sign-on

Now I begin to see how important the output quality is to you, and I think we are observing through different pairs of glasses. I've always claimed that the G200 that I own, running on my particular system gave me a result on VHS equivalent to dumping the C-VHS footage directly across to the VCR. I couldn't see a significant difference in quality (don't tempt me, I might have to pop down to the southwest and subject you to some wedding video footage).

I also used to drive rallies in a beat-up old Mk2 escort. And order the videos afterwards. As a competitor I was always more intereseted in seeing myself on the video than seeing super quality of everyone else. I recentlt dragged out all those videos so that I could archive all that footage of myself. I was disgusted with the overall quality of the videos, although these were edited way before the advent of PC editing.

I guess that what I am trying to say here is that personal expectations vary, and currently there isn't an easy way to qualify results other than with the naked eye. You rightly point out that content is far more important than quality, and that an audience will be looking for content.

That isn't to say that we shouldn't be striving for quality, and all the posters here are doing just that. It's still important to realise that we are not in the position to produce starwars quality (yet) at a budget price.

Would you do me a favour and email me, since I lost your details when I reloaded the system earlier in the week ?

Thanks

Chris

**Grigory** · 15 November 1999, 01:22

Biker,

You have touched several more problems, apart what was discussed in pure theoretical for me thread about resolution.

1. As G200 owner in the past, I have posted many times a lot of remark about its poor quality, including several replies about your particular problem. I had reproduced it with my own video shot over grass field in sunshine. The card has lot more defects, so I also cannot say it has no impact on the video quality.

However, the quality, as we feel it, is not the same as what was discussed as theory and what was measured by myself in regards to resolution only.
To be correct, I have to say that the resolution does not suffer from RR_G.
It has several more quality problems, but everything is OK with resolution.
I decided to stop using this card only because it did not fit my expectations in quality.

2. Mpeg and other "480 lines per frame" software. We both live in PAL countries, and use 576 lines.
Some companies are located in NTSC countries, of those I can count USA, Canada, Taiwan, Japan.

In most of these countries, if you come to TV shop and ask about PAL or multisystem TV, you in return will be asked - what is PAL, are there any other systems except what is in USA? You will be asked by TRAINED persons!
I have a lot of examples by myself.

In next shop you will get a lot of surprised faces when you ask about electric shaver with 220 V support. Why do you need this strange voltage?

Do not try to ask about NTSC or PAL or SECAM names on the streets.

4 years ago, a son of my brother went to USA with a team of his school mates. He could speak english that time much better than me . He arrived to Albuquerque and one of the first questions he got from american teenagers was "can you, russians, use spoons, forks and knives while eating, or, you eat with hands?" Seriously.

In Europe and Japan, I never had even feel such "cultural" misunderstanding.

Returning to video:

a)Matrox made a bug with RGB PAL captures, corrected ONE year later. Could this be with NTSC?
b)Matrox "skipped" DK standard support in TV tuner of RR_G, thus excluding the countries with population greater than USA from ability to hear sound with RR_G TV tuner.

c)Cyberlink PowerDVD player ALWAYS sets the window height to 480 pixels, even though it can play PAL mpeg2 video correctly, but only if I manually resize the window to correct height. It always returns to NTSC default on new file, ignoring PAL attribute.

d)Matrox released DVD player based on cinemaster engine for G400. This player plays very well NTSC movie samples that I have, but produce many small green squares on screen when I try to play my own PAL mpeg2 movies.

e)Many software DVD players were optimized to play 24 fps frame coded DVD titles as NTSC video, and have poor quality or cannot play mpeg2 PAL field-based coded video. Hollywood rules the world!

f)Hollywood+ mpeg decoder card had many problems with playing NTSC movies on PAL TV, some of them were corrected after a long time of complaints from european users.

g)Intel Indeo Video Raw YUV9 codec can support only 480 or less frame height on compression. Many other codecs have the same limitation, clearly originating from NTSC standard. Some even do not support 25 fps.

h)Microsoft on demand producer and Windows Media tools did not include PAL presets and defaulted to 30 fps.

Some other manufacturers of video software/hardware very often forget to support PAL video features.

If you try to read video-oriented publications on the Net, you will find a lot of funny things about what is PAL, SECAM, how they work.

I got replies that NTSC 4.43 is not a valid variation of standard from americans, while I can read these digits on every multisystem VCR sold on Russian market. (most Sony TV sets sold in Russia are made in Great Britain and support NTSC 3.58 and 4.43).

Last year 25 families from my company moved to USA for 5 years (as a beginning). They had a lot of recordings in PAL or SECAM. This turned to be a problem for them: at first, they had to find a dealer who can understand PAL word. Then they were asked to pay x2 more money for multisystem video.

Because of tax policy in europe and other limiting reasons, many users here have multisystem video devices to be able to see american-originated content. This is not true in reverse. So, this explains many.

Just remarks, do not take seriously,

Grigory

**Biker** · 15 November 1999, 15:03

Hi Grigory

Thank you for the reply. Yes I realise the conversation here are often 'pure theory' and much hypothesis', - and I really enjoy reading it. Lets hope the people who actually get paid to design the stuff we try using, call in for a quick education now and then.

Regarding your comments on 'multi standard' (or not) equipment, I can only partially imagine some of your frustrations.

I often wonder how many companies play the 'game' of selling poor equipment purposely, to increase revenue a year later. Obviously a risky game as they may get 'upstaged' by another company.

I think most people believe that messrs Microsoft do just that and oh so succesfully, but of course they are not likely to get upstaged to easily in there monopolistic position, not for a while anyhow.

I am hoping that 'BEOS' may be the answer for artists who need multimedia creation computer equipment. I expect outcries from MAC users now telling me their system is the 'be all and end all'.

You know I have been waiting for over 2 years to purchase a Digital stills camera. I am still waiting for a company to build one with 'both' of the most useful features in one camera!

Alas we get allsorts of various gimmicks, most of which won't help most people take a picture!

I find it quite amazing how marketing people come up with 'necessary must have features', do you think they ever use the gear they help design. - how long before we get a 'sunroof' on our PC's? Actually thinking about it with the current crop of HOT chips we could probably do with one.

Anyway, sorry to ramble. I hope you can comprehend my poor grammar even though it is my mother tongue? You think my English is bad you ought to hear my French - no best not, no one would understand it (What I am saying here is I admire your command of the English language).

Actually back to something more serious, the G200 can produce reasonable results! BUT it depends on the material being captured - let me explain what I mean. With close up shots and plain backgrounds it CAN BE fine , but with fine details and strong hue's it tends to run into serious trouble. I notice that particularly GREEN and high contrast video shots, produce diabolical results. Unfortunately my main use is outdoor countryside. Where of course - bright sky/green grass and fields play havoc with the G200. So in this case it is not just resolution that matters here, although I think it is probably partly the problem as it fails to resolve the individual blades of grass - which is a 'tall' order I know - but S-VHS to S-VHS does it!!

Fast moving objects that also change direction rapidly make things even worse!

Back to the drawing board.

Biker (UK).

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**Serengeti** · 16 November 1999, 01:30

Grigory, I hope you don't categorise Americans and Canadians togethor. As an English Canadian, I know exactly what you're talking about, and, for the most part I can assure you theres a significant difference between us and U.S.!

I have a short story as well, passed on from my father. He went down south to scuba dive off of Florida and stopped for gas. When he went in to pay, the cashier looked at the money funny, and when my father explained that it was Canadian currency, the guy asked "If you're Canadian, where's your dog team?".

A friend of mine, who happened to be a German citizen, travelled with me to the states for a few days, at the border, they put him through almost an HOUR of questioning, simply because he was German.

Anyways, this is far off topic. Sorry!

YG · 16 November 1999, 17:23

Some practical words
I have Marvel G200 - + VHS
I capture 352x576 - make moves by Premiere 5.1 (704x576)
Export film by 352x576 - and write it to tape VHS by preview Ulead Media Studio 5.
Then make MPEG1 by Panasonic coder - it can make 352x288 from 352x576 good
bitrate - 2048 video - it's 40 min at CD-R
This is best result I can get
Yuri

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**Grigory** · 17 November 1999, 03:27

Hi,

First of all, I did not want to cathegorize any nation at all. I just made a reply on how to explain the root of some software limitations. I have nothing against any national specifics, as well as I always had good relations with people in all countries I have visited. All of them were typically kind and helpful for me.

The difficulties in understanding standards of TV or living style do not meant I do not like any country. If you come to Russia, you can find a lot of things which you cannot understand well, as well as Russians will have problem understanding what you say or mean. This is normal.

However, software industry could be better organized because of its international nature.
For example, since roads and cars are used everywhere, the community could establish driving rules that work in any right-sided country. Left-sided country may be little difficult to drive, but my friends say that it is true for a first day or two.

Maybe, common traffic rules were established just because of safety reasons. PC cannot kill anybody.

As for MPEG encoding, yes Panasonic is the best for both systems.

Grigory

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G200 -> Mpeg wont go !

G200 -> Mpeg wont go !

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