Marvel/Rainbow Runner or Hollywood DV Bridge

[IndyJones007]

Hi,

I am a long time user of Marvel G200 until recently when it got fried, I think, or soemthing to do with 2X/4X AGP. I have been really happy with the Marvel card for video editing and for photoshop work on my PII-350 system since 1998 and I am not planning on upgrading for another year. But recently I installed the card on another high end machine which came with onboard video but also had a AGP slot on it. Disabled the onboard video, installed the Marvel card and connected to monitor, turned on the machine, nothing came up, checked all jumpers again, checked the BIOS, still nothing. Connected the monitor back to onboard video, enabled it and eveyrthing worked fine. So anyway, took the Marvel out, put it back into my machine and turned it on, nothing came up, just 3 beeps, but everything booted properly as I heard the Windows welcome sound. Shut the machine off, checked and made sure the card was in properly, turned the machine on, still nothing. Had an old PCI card that I popped in, monitor came up, went to Matrox website, downloaded the file to flash the BIOS, followed the instructions and booted the machine with the data on the floppy, after replacing the PCI card wit the Marvel. Something started to happen, still nothing on the monitor, was going through the disk, after about good 10-15mins, the computer booted, stil no POST screen on the monitor, nothing. Tried it again and again, nothing, gave up on my good ol Marvel G200.

I am really happy with the Marvel card for it's MJPEG captures and would rather buy another used Marvel G400 or a Millenium G400 with a Rainbow Runner, mostly for analog captures.

Now I have been reading abotu Hollywood DV Bridge that's supposed to accept both analog and digital using firewire port.

My question is basically what advantage would I have in going after the Hollywood DV as opposed to the marvel g400. The Marvel captures in hardware MJPEG and then can be converted to any other format, what about the Hollywood DV. Is this a realtime capture device or does it just bring the video into the computer through the firewire port and I would have to use software to do the captures. In terms of analog capture for now, what benefits the Marvel over the Hollywood DV and vice versa.

Basically my question is what is DV capture. All you need is a firewire card and you are set, as long as you have a device that outputs from a DV interface and plug it into the firewire port. But how is capturing done, by using the firewire card or by software on the computer.

Sorry for all the questions but I haven't found any website that explains what I want to know and I believe you guys have more experince with this.

Thanks

IndyJones

[IndyJones007]

Wow, so many views and not one single reply. All I wanted to know was the difference between Analog and Digital capture as I plan to purchase a capture device soon but can't decide whether to get a used Marvel G400 or a Hollywood DV as I am not quite familiar with the capture differences between the two, that's analog and digital capture. How would i benefit by using the Marvel G400 as opposed to a Hollywood DV or vice versa.

Thanks

IndyJones

[wkulecz]

Dazzle Hollywood Bridge is crap. I've tried and returned 4 in the past 8 months. None worked right, but they were local purchases and hence easy to return.

Finally I took a chance and ordered a Canpus ADVC-100 for about the same price. It simply works. One minor annoyance is when a capture is stopped one has to press the button on the top to get it back into record mode. OTOH you don't have to disable device control to record from it or output back to tape thru it, so on balance its less hassle than swiching Ain mode on the menu of my TRV-120 which also requires I turn off device control for Analog to DV conversions.

IMHO unless you are stuck with Win9x, forget analog captures and do DV with either the Canopus ADVC-100 or Sony DVMC-DA2. The only reason to mess with analog capture these days is "bluescreen" work where the reduced color space of DV can cause problems. Then a $50 BT848 type capture card and HuffYUV and a 10+ MB/s hard drive subsystem is what you need here.

--wally.

[davpen]

Ok I will have a go at giving an answer, although I am no expert.

I went through a very similar upgrade from a G400+RRG to a Canopus ADVC-100 which is very similar to the DV Bridge. I was having all the same woes with the RRG and upgrading to newer operating systems that you read about in numerous posts to this forum. I looked at other analog capture solutions but they either tend to be proprietry in nature or cheap. This is probably due to the limitations of VFW which is only any good for basic video capture and forces the high end solutions in to other workarounds.

DV seemed to offer a fairly universal non proprietry alternative. So I went with the ADVC-100 (it was cheaper than the DV bridge in Australia and has gotten better reviews) and a cheap OHCI compliant firewire card. The end result was simple, reliable, high quality captures. At long last I can do a two hour capture with in sync audio and no 2/4G file limits. But be warned DV does not offer any control over compression/resolution settings so you end up with a fixed rate capture which results in a 23Gb file for that two hour capture. I would describe the quality as being on par with the RRG at its best.

The actual capture process is pretty much the same as an analog capture session on the RRG. However you do need a capture program that supports DV. I use the capture utility in Media Studio Pro 6.

Behind the scenes the DV capture process is a bit different to an analog capture. The capture/compression is actually done in the DV Bridge or ADVC-100 not in your PC. The compressed data is passed to the PC through the firewire card where the capture program simply wraps it in an AVI file. When you go to playback or edit the file it is decompressed using a software codec on the PC. This is usally the Microsoft codec which does not have the best reputation. You can find alternatives if you are prepared to do a bit of hunting.

I hope this helps a bit.


David.

[miya]

Definitely forget the Dazzle crap and go for the Canopus box. Dazzle products and support are both bottom of the barrel. Canopus, on the other hand, is top of the line. The funny thing is that both products are approximately the same price. The only reason Dazzle sells any products is because you can pick one up at your local electronics retailer, whereas you must buy the Canopus via mailorder.

I personally own the Sony DVMC-DA2, which is also a very nice box, but is no longer manufactured. The Canopus, however, has a few features that set it apart, such as locked audio and defeatable Macrovision.

[Frankie G]

Was this "high end machine" an Intel i845 or i850 chipset?
If so, you probably did toast your G200, although I have
read that it is the other way around: the 3.3V AGP G200
burns out the 1.5V AGP mobo. This is a known restriction.
I went through this on my last CPU upgrade, ended up with
a Giga-byte GA7DXR and Athlon XP1900. Love the speed, hate
the fan noise and heat.

[IndyJones007]

Thanks everyone for your input. I really appreciate the feedback and help. I have just found a used Marvel G400 for $100 US and also a DC10+ for $100 CDN. I will probably go with the Marvel. And when I am ready for Digital and ready to upgrade my system, I will definately consider the ADVC as so many of you have suggested is a good capture card for digital video. Thanks also for the broad explanation between Analog and Digital capture. It's just too bad my G200 Marvel passed away, I really loved that card. I hope with the G400, I won't have to deal with an serious voltage issues with the AGP on the newer motherboards.

Thanks again everyone.

IndyJones