Matrox G200 Replacement

[Reggie]

I need a new Win XP card for capturing 704/720 x 576 interlaced PAL from an analouge Hi8XR. Today I use a G200 with yuy and
picvideo quality 20 under Win 98. I am extreamly happy with
the G200 Analouge - digital converter (zoran or something) which
gives a very good result.

Will Hauppauge under win xp with vfv drivers make me happy?

I have heard some unfounded rumours that the Hauppauge ship changes the field order from time to time in the middle of the capture and that hauppauge delivers poor quality compared with
g200/400/rainbow

Regards

Norway-PAL land

[wkulecz]

Personally I'd forget about analog capture and go DV. A D8 camcorder will play your Hi8 tapes and convert them on the fly to DV and transfer to your computer over 1394 (Firewire, aka I-Link) for editing. The 3.6 MB/s of this is about the same as the best quality captures from your G200 Marvel, and you'll have a spare camcorder that records DV for new projects.

IF Hi8XR is something other than Hi8, get a Canopus ADVC100 converter box for ~$300 to do the analog to DV and DV to analog conversions. Works very well for me.

Good 1394 cards based on the TI chipset can be had for ~$40 and you can use any video card you like.

--wally.

[landrover]

If you want television capabilities also, you could opt for an ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 7500 (analogue) or 8500DV (analogue AND IEEE1394). Reviewers are raving about them.

landrover

[Reggie]

Hmmm , Thanx

However, think I just need to stick to my G200 until I can afford
a new Mini DV. Bhuu another 2000$. I have already bought a
gforce 4 card, hence radeon is no longer a choise.
Still waiting for the G800 :-)

Unfortunately, Mini DV is not "much" better than Hi 8 XR (eXtended Resolution).
My old hi8xr (from 1997) have 420 pixel horizontal resolution (according to Sony) and a better colour space than DV (I Guess). Since I mostly create mpeg-2 (dvd compliant) streams, uncompressed video (or close to) gives
less compression artifacts. Unfortunately, compressing an already
compressed source like DV with mpeg-2 gives more compression artifacts. However, dv gives a sligthly better result all in all, but is it worth the 2000$, except that mini dv cameraes
are small and easy to carry.

Some serious Hauppauge driver criticism

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=hauppauge+capture+field&hl=no&selm=r0668.3743%24mR5.110183%40news2.east.cox.net&rnum=8

Regards

Ragnar

[Reggie]

However, if you have problem capturing with the Hhauppauge or any bt8xx chip you can download an open source driver here
which solves the field problem. I do not know anything about
the capture quality !

http://btwincap.sourceforge.net/

Regards


Ragnar

[Reggie]

However, (Talking to myselfe)

I have ordered a Terratec (bt878 chip) card.
Unfortunately, the card was not in stock so I will have to wait
until May.


I will do some quality comparasion between the Terratec with
btwincap drivers and virtualdub (win XP) and the G200/400 under
Win 98 in the end of next month.

I will post the result when I am done.

Regards


Rag

[Patrick]

Excuse me?

Unfortunately, Mini DV is not "much" better than Hi 8 XR (eXtended Resolution).

Oh, I think you'll change your mind when you're actually looking at footage and not just specs!

[Brian Ellis]

Ragnar

Resolution isn't the be all and end all of video quality. In fact, with analogue video, such as Hi-8 or VHS, in any flavour, often the best resolution gives the worst visual impression. Why? Because signal to noise ratio is much more important. The eye can forgive a lack of resolution but noise on the image is unforgiveable. For a given amplifier type, the electronics, especially of consumer camcorders, will give a s/n ratio which is inversely proportional to the signal bandwidth (i.e., the resolution). The tape is included in this and, even if the electronics handles the XR, how can the tape? Something's got to give. I'll bet you a pound to a penny that if you shoot the same scene with your XR and a cheap mini-DV, import each into your computer by the best means and play them into a good monitor, one after the other, you will wonder why you put up with analogue for so long! Only today, I shot a mini-DV scene at 1/50 sec, f1.8 and 6 dB extra gain. It is still beautifully crisp and noise-free.

[Rob100]

I know MiniDV is not the be all and end all, but there's no comparison between footage shot with my Sony Hi8 TRV78E and my Panasonic MiniDV NV-MX300B. Yes I know the Panasonic costs 3 times as much as the Sony, but even so as cheap MiniDV is so so much better than analogue...

[Reggie]

After mpeg-2 Compression ?

Sony Hi 8 xr with HME Metal Evaporated Tape
Yuv2 -> huffuyv -> Mpeg-2 (Ligos or Tmpgenc) -> Tv

vs

DV -> Firewire -> Mpeg-2 -> Tv

Problem is that I have 20 tapes from trips to Canada, Usa and
Africa which will take me "years" to render and edit. Think Dv vill
be history long time before I am finished! Hence, first of all I just
want a cheap 8 - 10 bit analouge / digital converter so that I can
Burn everything on dvd-r. Things on tape have an tendency to collect dust.

However, it is difficult for me to argue that hi 8 is better than dv
which I know its not.

Here are some thoughts !

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=dv+to+mpeg-2+compression&start=50&hl=en&selm=90mqci%24bqa%241%40nnrp1.deja.com&rnum=58

One huge dissapointment with the dv standard is the lack of
a real progressive mode. They still cant tape 50 FRAMES PAL (60 NTSC) progressive.
Only 50/60 fields or 25/24 frames second.
They should have killed the interlaced mode once and for all when they went from analouge to digital.


Here is my new toy 50$ Toy

http://www.terratec.com/products/cinergy400tv/cinergy400_info.htm

I will compare the quality against G200. Frame by Frame
One of the cards will be thrown in the garbage. Hopefully
not the G200 :-)


Regards from Norway.

Next year I will buy a dv cam,

[paulw]

I wonder why the last line??

http://www.terratec.com/products/cinergy400tv/cinergy400_info.htm

(Not available in the UK)

Any of the UK reader know??

[Reggie]

Probably something to do with the British
PAL-I format or unfinished drivers.

http://www.chipcenter.com/analog/tn021.htm

I dont think it matter if using Svhs input only ?

Anyway , the Terratec card is in production these days
and wil hopefully reach the consumers in May. There are still
no drivers available. Think this card with beta wdm drivers will make me bussy for a week or two, in the end I will probably find my master card and buy a mini dv and firewire

Regards

Reggie