Announcement

**Dr Mordrid** · 17 September 2001, 20:01

Firstly the Marvel & RRG require more bandwidth. This combined with the multitude of problems with the SBLive's resource usage that often cause the clicks, buzzes etc. Read these FAQ on VIA Hardware.com for info on what's going on;

http://www.viahardware.com/scfaq.shtm

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http://www.viahardware.com/686bfaq.shtm#_Toc518065965

The problem with Win2K drivers & the Matrox cards is a long story. The judicious use of the search button will get you more reading than you could possibly want or need.

Dr. Mordrid

**Hpar_** · 17 September 2001, 20:23

ok so its the sound card itself. I noticed you do not use the marvel but are using the rt2000. would I get the same problem with the soundblaster and the rt2000 or what is now the rt2500?

**Dr Mordrid** · 17 September 2001, 20:53

That depends on the rest of your system and the chipset you're using. The problems are both the hardware design and the drivers. This isn't to say that some can't get it working, but if one has a system with lots of toys or other devices that also hit the bus hard it causes serious problems.

Besides having lousy drivers the SBLive's ACPI interface is not properly designed. It also tends to hit the system time interrupt way too often. Add it all up and you have a mess.

I've found that the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (aka: VideoLogic Sonic Fury in Europe) is an excellent solution. It runs about $75, uses VERY few resources and sounds GREAT. The low resource use is because of the advanced DSP chip it uses.

When used with another device that has its own audio mixer, such as the RT-2x00 cards, Turtle Beach has issued a multi-mixer patch so both mixers can coexist on the SysTray.

Dr. Mordrid

**Hpar_** · 17 September 2001, 23:48

ok so what if I try another sound card? I have a vivo90 isa sound card from ensoniq. I know their audio pci is a decent general purpose sound card. anyway, I will try changing out the soundcard then and see what happens. thankyou.

**Dr Mordrid** · 18 September 2001, 06:05

Most ISA's work better than the first generations of PCI cards. The SBLive isn't the only PCI card with problems. The Maestro-1 and Maestro-2, AudioPCI and a few others are also resource hogs.

Dr. Mordrid

**AndrewDV** · 18 September 2001, 10:22

Hi,

Just a FYI, but CompUSA has the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz on sale right now. The price is $59 ($79 - $20 instant rebate).

**Hpar_** · 18 September 2001, 11:46

ok does the turtle beach santacruz boast the same features as the soundblaster live? can you load your own instraments etc...?

**Dr Mordrid** · 18 September 2001, 12:19

Check the feature list here;

http://www.voyetra-turtle-beach.com/site/products/santacru/producthome.asp

Dr. Mordrid

**Hpar_** · 18 September 2001, 15:39

hmmm, one other question. lets say I am outputting to vcd. I want to make an mpeg1 file,so, using TMPGEnc (beta 1.2j), my source is from the svideo from the dss reciever(foxsportsnet bluetorch tv extreme sports channel). do I want to use constant bite rate and normal in the settings or do I want to use automatic variable bite rate with the highest quality setting to the slowest compression? it takes twice as long to do it so maybe I need a processor update 1.4tbird? do you have a better idea on this?
what mpeg1 encoder is recommended? is it better to go to mpeg2 instead for svcd playback on the dvd player? the player is a raite avphile715 which it does dvd/vcd/svcd/cd/mp3. do you know of a better dvd player out now a day too btw? I would rather just keep my files in native mjpeg .avi myself at 352x240 with the quality settings cranked or 704x480 even better. that is very good quality. but I have noticed on my system you cannot set the mjpeg ratio quality tab to the highest. you have to use the normal setting in the pc-vcr software options.

thanks.

**Dr Mordrid** · 18 September 2001, 16:37

SVCD (480x480) beats VCD every time for quality. CQ_VBR is the way to go most times because it lets you fit more video on the same sized CD-r than CBR.

A T-bird would be an excellent choice as long as you match it to a good chipset. The AMD 760 or the new SiS 735 DDR chipset would work *very* nicely with the SiS being very cheap. A friend of mine built a 735 based 1.4 T-Bird system a couple of weeks ago and he's very happy with it, especially the systems rendering speed.

Until some real-world experience is garnered using new VIA chipsets I can't recommend them at all. Time will tell, but for now I'd let the early adopters do the beta work on them.

If you can't set the MJPeg quality all the way up then your capture disk is lacking a bit in performance. Most of the new ATA100 drives can fix that.

Dr. Mordrid

**Hpar_** · 18 September 2001, 18:24

ok, I will from now on use in rate control mode of TMPGEnc "Automatic VBR(CQ_VBR)" but what should I use for motion search precision? normal or maybe use higher quality? what is the file size difference of mpeg2 vs mjpeg? I imagine mpeg2 is at least 5 times smaller. also, it looks like I am stuck with the abit kt7a for now since I cannot afford to spend too much more on the computer upgrade thing. I will have to sell the sblive or something to recoup money lost. also, I read in one review of the turtle beach santa cruz it does not have stable drivers for win2k. I would like to use win2k with software raid on the 2 18.2 gig scsi drives I have to boost the performance and get the top quality captures I can for mpeg2 output at a later date. is this a very good idea?

**Dr Mordrid** · 18 September 2001, 20:32

Motion search precision can be left at "normal" if you don't have a lot of horizontal motion in the video. If you are filming kids, beach scenes (waves etc.) or are filming sports you'll have to crank it up. Each step up lenghens the rendering time.

The size difference between MJPeg and MPEG-2 depends on your settings. MPEG-2 can run from 10 to 40 times smaller than MJPeg using a simlar frame size.

I'm running the Santa Cruz in 8 systems, all of which are multiboot including Win2K. The current Win2K drivers are very stable on all of 'em.

I prefer hardware RAID (Fasttrak Tx4 at the moment) so I can use the array from multiple OS's. I've also found it more reliable than software RAID.

The last time I used software RAID I lost a whole array full of projects due to WindowsNT crashing during a write. Win2K may be better at this than NT4 was, but I have yet to lose a single byte on my Fasttrak rigs in over 3 years. Call me paranoid if you want.

Dr. Mordrid

**Hpar_** · 19 September 2001, 01:14

ewww, not good. I used CQ_VBR in TMPGEnc 1.2j and now I cannot put the mpeg 1 pieces back together with ifilmedit or myflix. that can only mean I have to use a different editor. does this also mean I cannot burn the mpeg1 file as vcd now?

**TnT** · 19 September 2001, 15:04

More info on the SB Live causing pops and clicks:

I have a Marvel G200, an SB Live Value, and a mobo with VIA chipset. When I was using Promise's Ultra66 I would get pops and clicks in audio and dropped frames. I recently switched to the Ultra100 TX2 and now no more audio problems, but I still drop 1 frame every 10xx frames (I'm guessing this is near the interval that the SB Live sends out signals).

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pops and clicks with g400 marvel...

pops and clicks with g400 marvel...

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