New drivers and VT

[Michel Carleer]

Someone tried the new G450eTV drivers and Video Tools for W2K?
I installed them on my Marvel G400 (after editing the drivers install.inf) and... they work without a problem, with capture and MJPEG and all.
But not MPEG of course.
What's going on
Michka

[JoeDaring]

Errr... Michel,

please, how did you modify the installer to wotk with Marvel 400?

can it be done for G200?

I wouldn't mind to give these drivers a try...

BTW, which versions are you using?

Thanks in advance!

Joe daring

[Michel Carleer]

Hi Joe,
The drivers and the VT I am talking about are the latest G450eTV for W2K just published 31/08/01. And of course I installed them under W2K. The drivers are 5.35.011 and VT are 2.02.017.
The problem with the 5.35 driver installer is that it does not recognize the Marvel G400. But this is quite easy to correct.
Open the file install.inf (in Notepad) and add to it the following line:
%Str19%%ENG%=IN11.ENG,PCI\VEN_102B&DEV_0525&SUBSYS _3693102B
in the section named:
[Mfg.Matrox]
After that, the Marvel G400 will be recognized (although it will be called a G450eTV) and the drivers will be installed.

What is very strange is that if you want to test the drivers on a Marvel G200, well I think you don't need to edit the install.inf at all. The necessary line for the Marvel G200 seems to be in it already. If I say "seems", it is because I don't have a Marvel G200 handy in order to check.

Michka

[Rob100]

As reported by Michka I can also confirm that the latest drivers and vidtools for the G450eTV work fine on the Marvel G400. YUY2 and MJPEG are both there and as far as I can see so far the MJPEG works great. Maybe these can be used on the G200 Marvel also?

Michka: Notice how although card is listed as a G450 eTV when looking at Display Propeties/Setting when you go to Advanced/Information the drivers still know it's a G400 Marvel.

Now all we need is to get MPEG2 working... if only I had a G450eTV to play with :-(( It must be a software thing that restricts MPEG2 capture when using the G400.

Also for those that want to know, the latest Macrovision patch (MV-vtools-2.02.0171.exe) works fine on these VT's.

Rob

[SatMan]

Hey folks,
Those "latest" Drivers posted are not new, they have the same date stamps and software version numbers as the original drivers that come on the G450 etv CDrom.
They are not the new fixed drivers for the PAL choppy Playback and ligos codec interlace issues.
I wish I was wrong as I did not realise until I had downloaded them and checked. with the CD version.

[JoeDaring]

...OK guys... I'm going to test this on my 200... thanks Michel for the info... even if they are not new... it is worth trying!

Ciao!

Joe daring

[JoeDaring]

Ok... an update...

Just tried the so-called eTV PD/VT from the Matr*x's site...

I'm very disappointed but it's my fault: I should have checked them carefully before installing them...

What's the problem??? Well, while they actually work, simply they are EXACTLY the same VT 2.02.017 that Sergio Valentino kept reccommending as they were fully functional in his system with his Marvel G400... plus, he reported that this VT set works fine with latest PD release 5.39, so I see no reason to use an outdated 5.35 PD set!

In other words, SatMan is right: this PD/VT set is OLD and they have just bumped up the date in the driver's compatibility grid to the 31st of Aug 01...

AFAIK, there is nothing to be gained with this setup against the Official release and the companion YUY2-and-more Flying DutchMan enabler tool...

Don't waste time... I'm reverting back to Official release!

Ciao!

Joe Daring

[Rob100]

SatMan: What PAL choppy playback issues?

Haven't noticed any problem using these with G400 Marvel.

[SatMan]

The problems with Choppy Pal playback are when using the G450 etv card that the above software comes with. As far as I know the G400 with MJPEG hardware is not affected.
This is an ongoing issue that matrox have promised will be fixed in their next driver release hence my disapointment when I saw the 31 august date on the etv drivers only to find out they were the february issue that I allready had.

[Rob100]

Here's a strange one....

Having uninstalled the G450eTV drivers/VT's and rebooted I then installed the 5.39 drivers and 2.04 final vid tools for the G400 Marvel. Now although my PCVCR has lost the record option, when I use AVI_IO etc I get MJPEG permenantly there as an option and don't need to use Flying Dutchman's tool to "show" the MJPEG button!

[Rob100]

SatMan: Have you tried later drivers intended for the G400 Marvel? Can these be installed on the G450eTV? If not by default, then a simple mod of the inf file should do the trick.

Rob.

[Michel Carleer]

Sorry if I triggered false hopes in the minds of some of you.
However these drivers and VT, let them be old or not, do work better for me (Marvel G400) than either the latest 2.04 VT or the leaked version. Now, for the first time, I can capture in YUY2 and/or MJPEG. OK, I could do it before with the aid of patches (thanks, FD), but the picture showed some flaws like a green band at the bottom. For the first time also, I can scan all TV channels from my cable provider. Using the 2.04, scanning stops after detecting the first 6 or 7 channels.
What is mind bogging to me is that these are things I cannot do with the official (or the leaked) Marvel G400 releases. But now I can with the G450eTV drivers and tools. Think of it: why is hardware MJPEG capture supported in the G450eTV tools???? And why does it apparently work better than in the Marvel G400 own tools????
OK, I admit that looking only at my own experience is not really statistically meaningfull. That's why I asked if someone else tried these drivers.
Rob100: Yes, the card is still recognized as a G400. Thats because, to make it simple, I only reported part of what is used to enable the drivers to be installed on a G400. In case you want the installer to report a G400, you should in fact add to install.inf the following:
1) In [Mfg.Matrox] :
%Str20%%ENG%=IN11.ENG,PCI\VEN_102B&DEV_0525&SUBSYS _3693102B
2) In [Strings] :
Str20 = "Matrox Marvel G400 AGP"
Michka

[SatMan]

hello Rob,
I did locate and download the driver for the G400 max. These were the latest on the matrox web site.
This was the windows 2000 version. I found that it would not install when running the setup but by using the device manager and going through the update driver routine managed to update the powerdesk from the g450etv to the g400.
The good news is that the choppy playback is almost gone .
This is the problrm affecting The g450etv with the current drivers assosiated with PAL playback.
Seems that the powerdesk drivers with the g450etv are the problem.
I did try the same with windows98 but nowwhere near the same level of success.
It has given me new hope that the matrox people will release there fixed driver soon and that harware is not the problem.
regards john

[SatMan]

Sorry slight correction the driver was that of the G400 TV not the G400 max