Would you like the hardware Marvel and RR to continue?

[AndrewDV]

Hi,

I was walking through the local computer shop and noticed that the DC10+ is still in ample supply. People are still purchasing it despite the lack of Win2K drivers (XP status is unknown). If you are not aware of it, the DC10+ uses the same Zoran chip as the early Marvels and RRs. Also, Markus Zingg (you know, the genius who wrote AVI_IO) helped Pinnacle out with some driver issues.

I started to wonder. If Matrox was to continue selling a Marvel line with the Zoran chip in it under the regulation there would be no Win2K drivers, would you buy one?

I'd buy it as long as I could have the flexibility of Matrox MJPEG and YUY2. Software captures are so flexible and easy, but playback can be rough on the machine. That little Zoran chip really made playback look nice (barring any flashing problems). The captured video has colors that are clear and you know you get both fields at 29.97frames/sec. That's really nice.

What if Matrox released a Marvel setup (home user in mind) with a single stream C-Cube in it (ala Dazzle DVC II)? The hardware MPEG capture is nice. Would you be satisfied with software MPEG editing and playback?

What do you think?






We will endure

[Dr Mordrid]

The eTV already does most of what you're discussing. Also: I have yet to see a hardware MPEG chip that beats the updated Ligos GoMotion at MPEG capture. The only weakness of software MPEG is that it requires 933+ mhz, which today (and this sounds weird to say) is rather SLOW and also cheap to set up (Duron).

Dr. Mordrid

[AndrewDV]

Hi,

I am not aware of this, but does the eTV have the same color boosting qualities of the G400-TV? Does it also support playback of files? The one I've been playing around with seems more a good quality TV Tuner with no hardware assist in capture or playback.

Is the Ligos software encoder really better than the C-Cube? Some of the ones I've seen from the RT2x00 are fantastic. The ones from the DVCII are pretty impressive. The ones I've seen from realtime encoding do not look all that great. The only exception is the ones encoded from TMPGEnc.






We will endure

[Brian Ellis]

Andrew

Can't vote, sorry! You haven't included "None of the above!". I'm very happy with the Zoran chip in my G-200 Marvel, but I would not be in the market for another Marvel (not even the eTV), knowing that Matrox cannot be relied upon to continue driver development beyond the present day.

And, Doc, not everyone can afford to update their system from a hardware codec to a complete system capable of allowing a software codec to work. You may have the financial resources to change your n computers every five minutes. I'm not poor, but I try to keep my expenditures within my State retirement pensions because I cannot be sure how long my other incomes may last (especially with the stock markets not doing brilliantly). This means that the average age of my IT stuff is several years. My video computer is a PIII/450/384 Mb. The monitor I use with it is a Hitachi 21" which is 12 years old. The CD-R burner in it is an HP 4020i which pre-dates Win 95. My Linux computer is a P-200 MMX with 64 Mb. So your "The only weakness of software MPEG is that it requires 933+ mhz, which today (and this sounds weird to say) is rather SLOW and also cheap to set up (Duron)." borders on the "holier-than-thou", to my ears.

[This_Idiot]

Voting seems like wasted effort to me, since Matrox will NOT be supporting any further hardware codec development or support from their Graphics division (the people responsible for Rainbow Runner and Marvel).

Still, as was pointed out, DC10 and DC30 are still available and getting cheaper. There's always been arguments about the relative quality (and quality of problems) between Miro/Pinnacle and Matrox vidcap products, my own take on this has always been more to do with their value for money than quality. I've reviewed a DC10+ which was OK although the PC it was in couldn't play back captured video at anything like an adequate rate, and I've had a DC30 for a couple of years too. I like the DC30, but it is recognised as being a bit of a beast to set up. Luckily I had the experience of setting up several matrox powered vidcap PCs by then so knew a few of the wrinkles.