G450eTV owners, need your experience please

[IvanP]

Hi,

I have to replace my old Marvel G200 because my new mainboard doesn't support AGP2x 3.3V. It's an AGP 4x 1.5V (Gigabyte 8ITXE)

My hottest candidate is Marvel G450 eTV. I was loofing for all information avalaible here more than three hours. I've foud a partiala answer to my questions but also a little bit old to take it as 100% reliable.

I'like to:

1. Use it on <b>Windows XP Pro</b>
2. Capture (in XP) at <b>full PAL</b> resolution 704*576 using <b>YUY2</b> compressed with HuffYUV (AVI_IO)
3. Capture from video inputs only with <b>AVI_IO</b> (I found there are some problems with AVI_IO running on WinXP. Is that true?)
4. <b>Disable macrovision</b> because I hate to restart the capture after each little drop on the tape. (I've got some patch. but I don't know if it works. It's MV-vtools-2.10.010a-eng-2K-XP.exe I've foud somewhere before (16/1/2002))
5. Are the PD5.81 VT2.10 works with G450etv on XP without any serios problem?

Owners of the 450eTV, let me know please if you have any serious problem concernig my requirements.

Thanks very much for any responce.

Ivan

[Sciascia]

OK I am going to get flamed for this one.

If you are looking for a solid capture device that is WinXp compatible then I would suggest checking into the ATI AIW 8500DV. It may cost more, but I just got one and it is amazing. The only feature that you give up is a good DVDMax option and they are working on that with their "theater mode". I was very leery about replacing my G400TV, but I can honestly say that I have no regrets whatsoever. It is a very stable card and the drivers that are coming out for it (seems like everyother day) are all good. They have licensed other vendors to sel their chips as well so there are more development teams working on drivers and you will have more options to choose from in the different iterations of the cards.

WinXP (not even Win2k) and the Marvel cards have not been a match made in heaven. That may change one of these days, but until then I cannot recommend buying a card that is already outdated and is buggy with the OS of your choice. Check out Matrox's support forum and you will see the problems with WinXP.

[Christrati]

I agree with IvanP, stick with Radeon or a WinTV capture card. I have a G450 eTV, and it records well, but only with the PC-VCR remote. In AVI_IO, I suffer from frame drops, which could still be the soundcard, but doubtful (Santa Cruz).

Another reason to avoid the eTV is because of Windows XP (2k). Field Order is reversed. BIG bug if you ask me, but from what I've got from tech support, I'm the only problem. But I see a HUGE quality difference when capturing in Win ME (9x) and Win XP. In Win XP, I see constant flickering and bad interlacing.

So, in order to get the best capture results, I've been capturing in Win ME (with interlacing patch) and then editing in Win XP.

Best of luck!

Chris

[IvanP]

Thanks you both for your recomendations. But as I said I need the card only and only for seamless (no 2 or 4GB barrier, 60mins and more..). The <b>only capture format I want to use is YUY2 compressed with HuffYUV</b>. Nothing more nothing less. This is possible as I'm experienced with <b>AVI_IO.</b> I'm satisfied with my old Marvel G200. There was and there are problems with Matrox support. Functional drivers for their products are available one year after the new harware realease (in avarage). The only reason why I have to replace is an old AGP 2x interface.

Sciascia, Radeon 8500DV:
It's probably not supported by AVI_IO.
I don't need DV feature bacause I"ve got an excelent Canopus EzDV card. BTW that card is a "SIR CARD" because of it stability, all platform driver availability. I've never had any little problem with that.

There is also AIW Radeon (32MB, AGP) but I've read somewhere abou some problem with brightness auto correction, dropped frames in PAL, bad support ,etc.

Christrati:
I'm not sure exactly what problem you mean but also Marvel G200 captured in reverse field order (caused by ZOran's chipset). The whole frame is divided to two separate fields that is represented by even and odd lines of the picture (frame). It's called Event and Odd field. Somewhere you can find Top/Lower field or Field A/Field B. If you're capturing in PAL it happend 50times per second. Some capture cards capture the fields in order Top First, some in reversed order. But that is not problem. You can set/change the field order in editing software (Premiere) and also in MPEG encoder, if you want to encode interlaced video. So if you see jittering and flickering it can happend when you playback the video in reversed field order compared to captured one. But maybe there is also another problem.

Nobody gives me a possitive recomendation?

Ivan

[dslewis]

Capturing Huffyuv using an eTV card works very well in 704x[480 or 576] using YUY2.

The eTV card uses field order "B" but that isn't a problem if you are capturing with Huffyuv and then encoding for VCD (as frame), SVCD or other Mpeg2 because they work fine with "B" order.

The issues come about when you want to mingle with any DV video which is always field order "A" or want to play any DV files to TV to preview transitions or whatever.

For playing DV files on eTV, install the shareware tool DivX400 which can reverse the fields and fixes up the frame width so the eTV can play DV's 720x480 size.

Dave

[IvanP]

Dave, which OS are you using for capture?
Do you use the latest PD and VT?
And the last thing I'm interested in is if you can use AVI_IO if your OS is WinXP.

thanks

Ivan

[dslewis]

I'm using Win2k.

Do you use the latest PD and VT? Don't understand.

I used AVI_IO and Win2k. I don't think XP should behave differently.

If you have an eTV card and want to use AVI_IO I might suggest you join the MUG users group's software list. Markus Zingg who wrote AVI_IO posts there pretty regular and there are frequent posts from users who are using AVI_IO, Huffyuv on eTV cards who will share their experience.
(www.mugcentral.com)

[IvanP]

Thank you for the link Dave.
Sorry I was lazy to write the full name of PD and VT software. PD is Matrox Power Desk - driver, settings of the graphics adapter... VT are Matrox Video Tools - used for video capture and TV tuner.

Ivan

[Sciascia]

Actually the Radeon works great with avi_io. It took me installing some vfw drivers, but the quality is fabulous using uncompressed, huff and PicVideo. With my Marvel I would get drops all of the time, but I attribute those to the poor tuner that the Marvel had in comparison to the ATI. It wasn't that bad, but my cable signal is not great and the ATI seems to do a little better with it. It also captures in 720*480 which is big for trying to do DVD. As soon as I can figure out what format to go with (DVD-R/+R/RW/whatever) I will go that route and buy a DVD burner. The MPEG capturing quality is what surprised me. It is very good. Nice quality, great color saturation and no artifacts. I plan to do some testing, but it looks like I can capture straight to DVD format. That will save a lot of rendering time. That feature alone justifies the cost of the card.

It's also easy enough to disable the DV portion, there are some DIP switches on the card.

I can't complain about this card at all, it has done everything and more that I expected. If you find what you need and are happy with it, that is all that matters.

On another note, they just released an 8500DV with 128M Ram. That is just disgusting. It also comes with MMC 7.6 (which I found on the net) and is much better than the MMC bundled with the regular 8500DV. Some bug fixes and improved DVD player.

[dslewis]

While I already have an eTV I have been researching the ATI and the Happauge cards. I primarily work in DV which is 720x480 with field order A. I was too much of a newbie when I bought the eTV card to realize just how significant a problem would be realized because it only captures up to 704x480 and is field order B.

Make no mistake - I am a disgruntled eTV owner. Had I not found the DivXG400 shareware application I likely would have sold the eTV on ebay. Having found that I can now play DV files, effectively allowing me to preview my edits - which is a primary reason to have a TV out type card for me.

I found and experimented with the MainConcept DV codec, which is a VFW codec, using AVI_IO on the eTV card but it fails because the MC codec needs 720x480 and the eTV won't do that framesize. Very frustrating.

The eTV does do a great job when coupled with Huffyuv but since Huffyuv can't really be played (like in Media Player), it doesn't help me because I want to preview my edits before encoding to VCD, SVCD, or whatever. DV works really well for capture, playback and generational loss is not a problem so for my purposes DV beats out Huffyuv.

In my opinion, the eTV card is ill suited for anyone who is primarily interested in DV since it will torment them. Folks who use Huffy or some other codec might not notice the frame size or field order issues at all.

[IvanP]

Now I really don't know. I'm just on the beginning..

Sciascia,
Do you know AIW Radeon ?(not 7500, not 8500 not 8500DV, <b>just AIW Radeon 32MB AGP.</b>). It's also on the Ati's web-site. It's price is similar to Marvel 450, has a DVI output that sholud be usefull in future.
Can I assume that it has the same core as your's one and behaves in the same way ?

Dave,
I never mix DV with analog in one project. The analog material I usually work with are the old VHS tapes, the best case Hi8ths. I capture it via S-video in YUY2/HuffYUV. The only edits are cuts of unused parts and then I encode it to MPEG2 DVD compliant. Then author in SpruceUp and burn on Pioneer A03 DVD-R. It <b>REALLY</b> doesn't matter that it's 704 in horizontal resolution. Both resolution 720 and 704 are DVD compliant and are accepted by encoder and authoring sw too. Neighter on TV-set nor on "plasma-display" are the black bars or something on left or right side of the screen . There is nothing like that, nothing missing.
Analog I encode Top field first and DV lower field first and the DVD's are played back without any problem on set-top DVD players or computer's monitor. The only rule is to encode in the same field order as the captured material. So ...

Capturing to DV on the fly is impossible I suppose. It needs maybe >2GHz. I don't know.


Ivan

[dslewis]

FWIW, I have been advised to get a Hauppauge WinTV Theatre board by a very experiences user who says it lives happily along side his eTV card and provides good inputs and outputs.

As to the framesize issue I will say this. It doesn't really matter that you don't mix the DV with analog footage. I don't either. It matters if you want to play the DV files before dumping to tape or encode. The eTV needs the DivXG400 utility just to be able to play ANY files over 704x480. And it needs it because DV is field order A and the DivXG400 can reverse the field order at play time because it runs as a filter in Win Media Player.

Your analog captures will be field order B. You can of course reverse that in the Huffyuv codec at compression or de-compression. Your DV files will be field order A.

The DivXG400 will also enable you to view SVCD's in corrected aspect ratio in Media Player and on the TV (the TV part can be done on an eTV without the utility but Matrox never tells you how). I can also view Mpeg2 files encoded for DVD with Media Player. I'm not aware if this is also possible on other tuner cards - just passing on info.

I also want to capture video in the 2 hour range - edit out commercials and dump it back out. But I want to dump to VHS tape instead of DVD so it becomes important to have a method to get it back out. Huffy doesn't do that so I would have to compress to some other format like DV but nothing is gained such as when you encode for DVD in order to burn to disc. Again, Huffyuv doesn't work for me. I wanted to capture using the MainConcept DV codec which can convert analog to DV in a 1Ghz machine (maybe less) which I have. But, alas the eTV doesn't support the framesize. I tried PicVideo but it doesn't seem to have the quality I'm looking for.

If your method is Analog-->Huffyuv-->Encode and delete the files then you will probably enjoy the card.

[Fred H]

We are living in a sick (computer) world.
My Marvel G400 is less than 3 years old and it is considered an OLD card now. No drivers no support. I bought it for an equiv. of $300.
A 3D Prophet Radeon 8500DV costs here an equiv. of $500 (quote:“That is just disgusting”) After 3 years it will be an old card, and the cost will be about $167/year. Is it worth for home users? Are we sure they will continue with the drivers after 3 years? Who knows what B.G. will find out for a new OS etc?
If I’d have a Radeon8500DV today or a Win TV, etc I would say a quick bye-bye to any Matrox Forum.
All this sounds bitter. But I am…

Fred H

[IvanP]

Dave, now I understand your requirements for the card. Have you tried (in AVI_IO) the custom frame size in Capure settings? I mean change to 720. Also you can try some MJPEG codec (Pegasus PICVideo) that shold be comparable to DV maybe better. DV uses DCT 5:1 compression with datarate about 3.6Mbps. MJPEG you can choose compression that will provide better quality I suppose. Have you tried one? Maybe it also works with 704 resolution.

BTW I'm really surpriced that DV capture is possible on 1GHz machine. I thought that it needs more CPU Power.

Ivan

[dslewis]

Changing the frame size to 720x480 in AVI_IO doesn't work with the eTV card. That card cannot scale to that size and all you get is green frames or garbage. The ATI and Hauppage cards can scale because of the Brooktree/Rockwell/Connexant chipset in them.

I tried PicVideo to see if it might work. I can say without reservation that MJPEG will never look as good as DV. In any case, the PicVideo is supposed to be the best MJPEG codec and it still was either jerky or pixelated. I tried all sorts of different combinations of framesize and frames per second with interlaced and single frame and it never got rid of the blockiness. I would be quite happy if I could find some settings that would work.

MJPeg works with 640x480. The eTV provides 320x240 which should be ok if the strange motion problem didn't show up.

Markus Zingg has posted that the MainConcept DV codec can capture on a PIII 700 or better, using AVI_IO of course. I expect he actually tested it himself.

Dave