Possible Solution for G400 and XP Video Capture Issue

[tveith]

Hello all!

I've had a success this evening that is worth celebrating! Similar to many of you, I've been frustrated for months now over this whole video capture issue using my G400 TV card and Windows XP.

As many of you have done, I've maintained a dual-boot 98SE and XP machine and performed all of my video capturing in 98SE as video capture and MJPEG support is non-existant on XP.

Well, tonight I played around with some different drivers and video tool combinations and managed to find one that actually worked flawlessly!

I'm using the Windows 2000/XP driver ver. 5.82.18.0 and the Windows 2000 Video Tools ver. 2.10.010a. Both driver sets are available on the matrox site under Windows 2000 drivers for the Marvel G450 eTV card.

Strangely enough, when I went to run the PC-VCR program the first time, it game me an error. When I clicked OK, it allowed me to proceed and set up my tv channels. When I exited and restarted the program, the error went away on its own.

I then loaded up ULEAD MediaStudio 6.0 and launched Video Capture. I successfully captured more than 55,000 frames and only dropped 1 FRAME!!! I repeated this capture several times and was successful each time. The video played back flawlessly without any lines or static.

Don't know if this will work for you, but it worked for me. Thought I'd share my success - I'll be removing win98se from my system now and opening a bottle of champagne to celebrate.

Cheers!

[fefan]

Hi tveith
I also use the same drivers for a couple of months; I posted a note about it on this forum. Can you get your second display on a TV? it doesn't seem to work on my configuration . Anyway I don't know if I'm going to keep this configuration for long. I encountered a few frozen screens since I applied this solution. So I'm planning to change for a AIW from ATI.
cheers!

[tveith]

Yes, I've been able to output video to my TV using DVDMax (just finished watching a few movies!)

Having not spent too much time working on this configuration, I can't say how stable it will be...but hey, to me a few crashes or freezes is worth it to be able to stay in Windows XP.

Thanks for your reply, if anyone out there has also used this configuration successfully, or tweaked it to make it more stable, please let me know!

TVeith.

[orbital]

Hi

i would wait a bit if I were you.

I did that some time ago until a couple of critical updates later. I had to many crashes too often just as soon as I removed my Win 98 partition.

I am now stuck with Win 2000 as its the second best option after Win XP.

Otherwise I have to start all over again with a fresh installation! but I dont have time for that.

Orbital

[Debbie]

Hi All,

I have been plying about with Win 2k and Win XP
trying to get some good results with the Marvel
G400.

I am now convinced that for a stable system
and best results using the G400, the best version
of OS is by far Win98 SE.

OK I get the occasional crash and no bells and wistles but
at least I'm getting good results with all my software.


Regards,
Debbie

[tveith]

Hi Debbie, thanks for your reply.

I think everyone would agree that the Marvel g400-tv card works best with Win98SE. I agree wholeheartedly with you - especially having gone back and forth between operating systems about 100 times. The problem is that Win2000 and XP are better operating systems and many of us want to upgrade our OS and not use 98 anymore to avoid so many "blue screens of death".

Personally, I love the Marvel G-400 card and do not want to buy another card just to upgrade to Windows XP...that's why so many of us are looking for driver combinations that will allow us to continue to use our cards.

Thanks again

TVeith

[Fred H]

I am running PD5.39 for W2K and VT 2.04 patched and reghacked.
I capture with SW MJPEG (PIC Video). It works fine now, but no playback on TV in MSP6.0/6.5 with SW MJPEG, only HW MJPEG. Media Player and even VT 2.04 show the SW MJPEG on TV, but not MSP.
I am using AVI_IO to capture, but not HW MJPEG. Too many crashes with HW MJPEG.
I tried PD5.82/VT 2.10. No TV display at all with SW MJPEG. So I don’t dare to touch the 5.39/204 settings.
Does anybody capture SW MJPEG with 5.82/2.10 ?
Does the DualHead DVDmax display SW MJPEG om TV?

Fred H

[Vidgal]

I went around this mulberry bush a couple of times before deciding my solution was two machines. It was almost as cheap to build a new box around a new board as to upgrade -- and this way I can render on one box, while going on about my business on the other. My old machine has 98SE and the G400TV -- all working well for analog capture. The new machine has my Pyro DV board and is destined for XP. I've been testing it on my husband's system and like it well enough to give it a whirl. This new machine is new enough that not that much is installed yet, so switching won't be too traumatic. Only other changes I want is a DV board for the old machine (find I use DV more these days) and a firewire drive (DVD-R / RAM??) to transfer files back and forth. Don't think I'll mess with an analog solution on the new machine, as my DV cam has analog in. I have concerns about networking the boxes, but that might work as well. Could have done dual boot, but that wouldn't have provided the extra rendering station.

[tveith]

Everything Still Working Great!

Hi all,

Thought I would drop a line and update everyone on my success with the Marvel G400-tv card and Windows XP using the drivers I indicated in my first post with Ulead Media Studio 6.0.

It has been more than one month and EVERTHING IS WORKING GREAT!

I have been emailed numerous times from others who have also shared the same success with the drivers and software...terrific news!! I would like to mention, however, that I tried upgrading to Ulead Media Studio 6.5 and my video capture FAILED. I went back to version 6.0 and video capture/editing worked perfectly again. For some reason, Ulead Media Studio 6.5 does not capture - or in some cases - recognize the G400-TV card.

Here are some other products I am using to capture or edit video:

Vegas Video - Awesome Video Editing program (Capture does not work)
Ulead DVD Movie Factory
Ulead DVD Workshop
Ulead VideoStudio

I capture video using Ulead Media Studio 6. I then convert the AVI files to MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 using Vegas Video to save hard drive space and delete the AVI files. (For some reason, if I convert the AVI files using Ulead Media Studio, Vegas Video doesn't recognize the MPEG format). Once I complete and entire video using Vegas Video, I output it to SVCD MPEG-2 for high quality, then convert it to VCD MPEG-1 using Ulead Media Studio. I then burn the video to DVD using Ulead DVD Movie Factory or Ulead DVD Workshop.

Does all this sound complicated? I guess so - but it produces quality video. Not to mention that I love the functionality and ease of use of Vegas Video!

Cheers everyone!

TVeith

[orbital]

Hi TVeith

Great.
What about critical updates - have you done any so far? That`s when my troubles begun!!

By the way, what codecs are you using to capture and what their size per second?

Orbital

[tveith]

Hi again,

Yes, I've performed all critical updates under Windows XP and it has not caused me any problems.

As for codecs, I use the standard codec - not using anything special, i think the transfer is somewhere near 4MB per second? Not sure at the moment as I'm not in front of my home pc, I'll find out later this evening and post a reply with exact specs.

Cheers!

[orbital]

.....and what do you mean by "standard codec"??

Orbital

[Debbie]

Hi Orbital,

If you're keen on XP try the G450 eTV latest drivers, I had quite good results but some software did not work all that good, so I gave up.

Regards,

Debbie

[ceckard]

Has anyone had any sucess capturing using anything besides, ULEAD Video Studio 6? I installed it and it won't even run on my XP machine. I tried using 6.5 and it didn't even see my Matrox Card, so I had no option to capture.

[jjn1056]

Worked for me...

But PC-VCR won't do record or allow me to access the 'snapshot feature'. I'm looking for a registry hack to turn these options on. If anyone knows them, let me know, and I'll share whatever I find with the rest of you.