Marvel G450 eTV still not 2k/XP ready (rant)

[Christrati]

Ok, So Matrox is nice enough to give all the G450 eTV card buyers a Xmas gift. That I'm am grateful, but what I'm not grateful for is the major bug they forgot to fix--Field Order!

Well, after installing their drivers, I noticed that in Win 9x they were not working (interlaced captures) again (see original http://forum.matrox.com/mgaforum/For...ML/003114.html and new http://forum.matrox.com/mgaforum/For...ML/004803.html)

1st Rant:

How nice of Matrox to close the support sight at 12pm (EST) on Dec 23rd. According to their Holiday schedule, they were not going to close it down until 5pm. Funny how they stopped the forum when I started posting my concerns.

2nd Rant:

Why is it so hard to fix something so basic? I hope I'm not the only person experiencing this problem (interlacing issues) in Win 2k. At least in Win 9x I can capture with PC-VCR, but in Win 2k or XP--not even a possiblity. If I was a programmer and had the knowledge of how to "hack" their drivers, I would not even be posting. But here is what I suspect:

When capturing interlaced video, the fields are swapped. After recording with PC-VCR or AVI_IO, the captured file plays back very jerky and you can see aliasing or "jaggies" during playback. The most evident footage is anything with circles or straight lines. Also, this happens only in Win 2k/XP.

I have tried the newest drivers and even adjusted the registry ([HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Ligos\GoMotion Interlaced]
"FieldOrder"=dword:00000000
"Interlaced"=dword:00000001 and
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Ligos\GoMotion Interlaced]
"FieldOrder"=dword:00000000
"Interlaced"=dword:00000001)

In either case, I am unable to do any video capturing in Win 2k/XP. Along with this annoyance is the problem with old VHS tapes--something that will not transfer over since it is a "weak" signal and triggers "macrovision". I hope there is someone out there who can take the Matrox Capture driver and just swap the fields! Grrr. Well, after this horrible nightmare of video capturing, I'm going to have to move onto another company which would provide a better answer to video capturing.

Chris

[DrP]

Noticed the (final) under all the G450eTV stuff on the Matrox drivers page? You can look at this two ways ... this is the final driver (ie the release version) after a beta series - or this is the final driver in the manner in which all the W2k G400TV users were dealt with.

HMMMMMMMMMMMM.

[Ant]

Well in the past whenever Matrox have put <b><i>"final"</b></i> next to a driver it has meant <b><i>"that's all folks"</b></i>.

[Damascus]

Figures that Matrox would stop issuing drivers for a card that is still being sold and an operating system that a lot of people still use.

[Hulk]

I don't have this problem with PCVCR MPEG II captures but I do when capturing using avi_io.

Hmmm.

[Sciascia]

If I didn't own a Marvel G400 I wouldn't believe it. Kind of sad, especially since I thought that the G450 was the "new" standard. Obviously the G400 support was the beginnning of the new standard. I guess since they're getting their asses handed to them by ATI and nVidia, they figured they should catch upi by having the same level of support.

On a related note, I did some checking into the zoran chip that is also used in the Pinnacle DC30 and their customers seem to be in the same boat, so it can't all be blamed on Matrox (for the G400 anyway). As for the G450, it is really sad.

I'm about ready to pull out my old Win98SE disc later this week to throw on an old HD. The g400 just works so much better with it that I can't find enough benefits of Win2k to keep it on.

When I do upgrade to WinXP you can bet that there will be nothing with the name Matrox in my machine.