Hidden features of the new Driver !!!!!

[Sun]

I have the newest driver and video tools for my g200 marvel tv and I tried some registry setting
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Matrox\RainbowRunner\0 \VidCap\CurrentValues\ColorFormat

Set this key to YUY2 and see the wonder !!
This is an undocumented redording format.
If you set you will be able to record realtime MPEG4 recompressed movie without dropped frames. The MPEG4 at the maximum data
rate is half file size of the lowest quality
MJPEG setting (but the quality is much better), and the MPEG4 to MPG conversion time better than MJPEG to MPG !!!!!!!!!!!

If you want to know more hidden features mail or write me!

[TAZ]

Yo Sun,

that is a nice job you did there. It might be an interesting idea, if you have other features like these, that maybe Chris can add them to the tips and TRICKS list.

I will be installing the new drivers the next week when my new harddrive arrives and cant wait to tweak the system just a little.

Good luck hacking, TAZ

[DaveJ]

Sun,

Your email was non-functional so I'll ask my questions here... first, what driver revision are you using? Did you have to create the "ColorFormat" key or was it already there? I couldn't find it in my registry. Once this is done, what tools do you use to record Mpeg4 video? Thanks!

Dave

[Peacemaker]

same question... i also do not have this key so I I made it myself but it does not work.

Would be a really nice feature and I hope you are not just fooling us

Thanks

[Sun]

Hi Boys!

I use
Matrox Video Tools for Windows 95/98 Version 1.50.017

These setting and the trick only works with an external recording program eg: Vidcap32.
Not the matrox video tools.

To have these registry keys run an external recording program (eg: Vidcap32) and record a small video. This program will create a tonns of registry settings.

Sun :-(

[Phil Pugh]

I altered the setting in the registry and tried to capture 10 secs of video using Ulead Video capture. What settings of the MPEG4 compression did you use? No matter what I tried I always ended up with dropping 40-50% of the frames!

Cheers
Phil

[Sun]

Hi!

Color format: YUY2
Video size: 352x288
Video compression:MPEG4
Quality: 75%
Data rate:6000 kbps

[Phil Pugh]

Sun,

I tried that and it still kept dropping about 30% of the frames. If I tell ULead VideoCapture NOT to do compression I get a file that claims to have 5+Mbytes/sec data rate but 'unrecognized' format. If you try to run it with MS Mediaplayer it tries to load the "YUV2 codec" and fails, then plays back the captured sound!

Phil

[Dedushka]

It seems that you did not set compression to MPEG4.
YUY2 format usually is not "recognized" by the system, if you do not place a line in the system.ini file. And it actually takes about 5M/sec in data rate.
Grigory

[Phil Pugh]

Grigory,

I tried MPEG4 compression but it threw away about 40% of the frames. (See previous reply). Is my problem that I only have 266Mhz PII processor and can't keep up with the processing? I can capture at the 5Mb/s though.

What is the format without compression is it MPEG4 but not marked as such in the file?

Phil

[TommyS]

Grigory, wich line we have to place in the system.ini file for the YUY2 format?
I have the same problems that Phil Pugh has

Sebastiano

[IM_Riktar]

I tried the reg hack and it seemed to capture just fine. Problem is I can't play it back. Windows tells me it couldn't find a suitable compressor to read the file. What am I missing?

[RBryant]

YUY2 is not a useful format by itself... it is a fast format....

It is designed mainly to be piped to another software compression plugin. most people on this board use MPEG4... it looks better than MJPEG and takes less space than MPEG1...

Garrett

[Mikey]

I tried this and did get it to work, captured some MPEG4 at 1500 b/sec
352x240 and it looked no worse than MPEG1. Is there any hope
of going to MPEG1 in VideoCD mode on a PII-400? That
would be really useful for making VCD's from tape, cutting out the AVI step.
I tried, with VirtualDub 1.3, DVMPEG but it complained about
no sound, and the result video was totally green.

I love these hidden features. Thanks Sun. What do you do, run
a debugger on the DLL and trace what it's doing?

[Grigory]

YUY2 is supported by some of ... Indeo codec. Decompression only.

vidc.yuy2 = ir41_32.ax

in system.ini will give yuy2 support on any PC. For NT/2000, do
==========

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Drivers32]

"vidc.yuy2"="ir41_32.ax"

===========
This is Indeo 4 codec file that live in Win9.x and NT.

Unfortunately, you may have problems with it operation, like green screens instead of pictures.
Note, the codec actually does NOTHING, just sends data to the video card. You can check this by the CPU load value.

Most cards can show this stream using internal hardware filtering, as this 4:2:2 colorspace format is actually used in most games.

Y've used this format with BT848 card for some time, and decoded the video with this codec.

Actually, you can try to use YUY2 format for capture and try also BT 4:1:1 "compression"

This is another raw format, with only 12 bits per pixel.
The dll is called btvcc32.dll and can be found in any BT card driver. In win9x, install the drivers and find the reference to this dll in drivers32 section of system.ini. Sorry, I cannot tell the vidc.xxxx code now.

This format actually matches the TV color space: the chroma bandwidth is 1/4 or even less than the luma bandwidth for any analog source, like broadcasting, S-video, or VHS. There is no need to have more color samples.
You can (probably) see the difference in chroma keying, but it is not very noticeable.
4:1:1 format is also native NTSC DV format before compression.

Grigory