Marvel G200 TV and MJPEG

[Chuckwagon]

Hi all,

Just a quick question. I have a Marvel G200 TV and I was wondering what the best OS and driver combo is for capturing with the MJPEG support. I am most interested in the quality of the capture, and I don't care what OS I use, so I'd like suggestions for which OS and what version of the tools and driver I should use to get the best MJPEG captures. Any Ideas?

Thanks,
Chuck

[Brian Ellis]

Chuck

No doubt about O/S: Win98SE, although some have said that Win95 is better. I use Power Desk 5.41.008 and VT 1.52, under SE. However, I do have the G-200 Marvel without TV, so cannot answer for that side of the card!

[Chuckwagon]

Brian,

Thanks for the input.

I see in the file archive that the driver and vtools version you are using are an older rev. Is there a reason you don't use any of the newer driver/vtool revs? Is there a difference in the newer drivers that affects the quality of captures?

Chuck

[Brian Ellis]

Sure, there is a reason. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! It works just fine!.

[Dr Mordrid]

Another reason for not using drivers beyond 1.52 in Win98SE: the YUY2 support in 1.54 is seriously broken.

Without that the use of alternate codecs like PICVideo or HuffYUV is not practical.

Dr. Mordrid

[Chuckwagon]

Thanks guys.

I guess I'll give 98SE with the 1.52 VT a try.

Any other suggestions for making sure I get the best quality out of my MJPEG captures?

[Dr Mordrid]

Yup. Enable YUY2 and use PICVideo MJPeg.

Dr. Mordrid

[miya]

With the g200, only use picvideo if you don't care about exporting back to tape. Picvideo mjpg will not play out of the g200 marvel's tv-outs without sending your entire desktop through the tv-out and running the video full screen (a less than optimal solution in most cases.) Morgan mjpg will play out the g200 tv-outs automatically under certain circumstances (depending on the software used to play it.)

[Chuckwagon]

Doc,

I downloaded the 1.52 VT and the 5.41 driver from the archive, and I grabbed the YUY2 patch file that was there as well. I assume I need to apply the YUY2 patch to get the fuctionality you suggested. True?

Miya,

Thanks for the tip. I'll keep it in mind when I capture. Most of the stuff I capture I just put on cd, but from time to time I do output to tapes.

[Fred H]

I feel that this is the right thread to pray for help
New seious trouble here with the vidcap.
I fidled with the PD/VT combos in my new machine and installed PICVideo.
The problems come when I tryed to capture with AVI_IO + YUY2 1/1 & 1/2 compressed with PICVideo MJPEG and PD 5.55/VT2.04 Leaked (Win 98SE).

Now, every time I start AVI_IO, it requests a Device setting, than starts. In the Device menu, there are 3 devices:

-VfW MM 16 bit Driver for WDM V. Cap Devices
-Matrox Vid Cap Driver,
-Matrox Vid Cap Driver (for the 2nd)

Ulead Video Capture: can't start it.
The error message:

Video Capture is unable to access the capture device.
Make sure that the capture driver has been installed and is not being used by another program.
If you choose to continue, you can only play back existing video files.
Click OK to continue or Cancel to quit.

No way. It doesn't start at all, so I can't play anything with it.

In my desperation, I uninstalled the VT 2.04 Leaked and reinstalled the VT 1.55.
Now, 1,55 doesn't recognize the TV tuner, neither the video input, causing me a near heart-stop. (Suspected a HW failure)
But reinstalling the VT 2.04 the TV and vidcap cane back and works in PCVCR but not in Ulead and the same tripple devices in AVI_IO.

Finaly, uninstalled the PICVideo codec, but it didn't help.

Yes, I know, it was crasy to change, several time, between the different VT, and I'm affraid only a reinstallation of Win 98 SE helps, or maybe just a clean installation...

Any ideas, please?

Fred H

[Dr Mordrid]

If you're running Win98SE try VT-152.

If you allow Ulead's capture program to run you should be able to change the capture plugin. Try each one, restarting it before you try capturing. One of the Matrox drivers will work, but not the other.

I have no idea why it does this.

Dr. Mordrid

[Fred H]

Thanks, Doc.
It was a quick answer.
Yes the 1.52 + 5.41 were my favourites until 2.04 came (the only thing I like is the different TV channel setting, otherwise the 1.52 worked fine in my earlier box)
I know, I'm a ful to play with the different PD/VT.
It gonna go to repair the fault, but it takes time.

Fred H