MarvelG200 TV OUT video color settings problem (again)

[cjyo~]

Marvel G200-TV AGP, PD 5.41.008, VT1.52.033, BIOS 2.6 - 20, DirectX 7.0upd.

I'm finally ready to output some video to a master tape to send off to the dub house, but I'm having the old TV Out settings problem again.

I do not have "Show Display on TV" checked, because I'm only trying to playback Marvel captured video. When I go into Advanced TV Settings > Desktop TV Settings none of my changes stick (even after rebooting). The setting number values stick, but no changes show up in the video output to TV.

1) Does anyone have a suggestion to get these values to stick and actually change the video output?

In this case (above), when I go in to change the color settings, color bars come on the TV screen, rather than showing the PC-VCR video output.

2) Is there an option to keep the PC-VCR video on the TV (rather than color bars) while adjusting color settings?

A partial, but unsatisfactory, solution to both problems was to check "Show Display on TV". In this case, the color bars did not show up and I could adjust color settings while looking at the video output on the TV.

If I keep the "Show Display on TV" checked and the "Advanced TV Settings > Desktop TV Settings" control panel open then play the video back, my new color settings DO show up on the TV out.

The problem here is that just by going into the "Desktop TV Settings", there is an overall slight reduction in Brightness/Gamma which cannot be offset with the settings controls (while the control panel is open).

So right now, (leaving the control panel open and checking "Show Display on TV") the best result I can get is darker and lower contrast than it should be.

Please help! I am hoping for a solution with these drivers, but if not I will take suggestions to go back to an older set of drivers(PD/VT).

Thanks very much.

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Please visit http://spincycle.n3.net - My System: Celeron 300a(@450/2v),ABit BH6, 128mb ram, Win98, Marvel G200TV, Diamond MX300, IBM 8.4gb UDMA Deskstar system drive, Adaptec 2940UW SCSI, 2x 9gb Seagate Barracuda UWSCSI video drives, Hitachi GD-2500 DVD-Rom, UltraPlex CD-Rom, Plexwriter CD-recorder, Viewsonic PT775, Soundworks 4.1 speakers

[cjyo~]

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Please help!

[wkulecz]

Looks like yet another bug that the Matrox shills here insist we aren't having. Glad to see I'm not the only one, not that I had any doubt about it.

I too find the Powerdesk TVout adjustments in PD 5.3 and VT 1.51 do nothing useful. Problem was in the original drivers on my CD too (over a year old). I don't have a good history on this problem because I've had to do two RMAs to get my Marvel to be usefully working at all. Come on Matrox step up to the plate and be honest, do some of us have partially defective hardware because the tape output color calibration is impossible or is just a driver bug you can't track down.
Since my second RMA was for a board that could not display the color red on analog output thru the BOB, I know defects are possible that don't affect the computer side operation at all.

I earn my living from writing real-time data aquisition and control software, so I truely know how hard debugging can be, but if you are honest about it, I might even try to help figure it out instead of just bitching about it.

I found a quick fix outside of Matrox and computers in the Sima SCC color corrector. $130 from videoguys.

I play the MJPEG with the BOB SVGA out hooked to the SCC box, whos output goes to my VCR and NTSC monitor. I then tweak the SCC controls to get the right color balance, saturation, brightness and contrast. The "sharpness" control helps a bit in precompensating for the loss caused by VHS recording, I doubt you will need this function for SVHS recording. If you are having macrovison problems recording from your camcorder this box is supposed to fix them as well. Can't verify it works for this since I've never had this false macrovision problem (but I've only captured from three different camcorders and two different VCRs).

Its a shame I had to buy an outboard dodad to get good output colors when editing to tape, but if you are at all serious about making good tapes, with the Marvel G200 at least, then you need something like this until they either fix the drivers or offer us an upgrade to hardware that actually works as advertised.

I want to emphisize that the captured video when displayed on my computer screen is an outstandingly good match to the camcorder's output displayed directly on my NTSC monitor, but output to tape is a very poor match and cannot be adjusted and kept across reboots.
I am not talking about expecting the Marvel to fix white balance problems or poor lighting.

--wally.

[cjyo~]

I guess I haven't had quite as many problems as you.

I still am desperate for solutions for getting the new driver color settings to stick. I need to output a master, so I can have dubs made (this week). I really do need to use color/contrast settings, otherwise the output shows a lot of compression blocking in night shots (which isn't there with proper output settings).

If no one has any suggestions, I guess I'll just uninstall and reinstall older drivers until I find a driver/VidTools combination that works.

help...?

[cjyo~]

Well, I "solved" the problem.

The solution:

Downgrade drivers to PowerDesk 4.26 and VidTools 1.21 (the 1998 drivers).

I did this and successfully output to a master tape, which I'll drop off at the dub house next week.

If anyone has the secret to getting the color settings (Video Out) to work with newer drivers (PD5.30 or 5.41 and the new VidTools). I'm still interested.

Please let me know! (Does no one have this problem with the new drivers?)