Real Magic Xcard?

[Peter B]

Has anyone used this card yet, seen any reviews, consumer feedback in forums etc.

I am quite keen to get one as my Marvel G200 does not have the DVDMax feature, but am concerned about the usual first version problems with new hardware and software?

[zeb7]

what do you want to know ?
I've not ordered one yet ( i will be )

The Xcard doesn't have a DVDmax feature , one is promised .

A large amount of people need divx ver 3.11a playback (wich is not real mp4 )
so in response sigma designs said their will be a DVDmax feature able to play
any directshow software decoded video.
Their is not time line for the DVDmax , i would think at lest 2 months away.

In this first driver release mpeg2 isn't functioning properly , although most DVD and VCD work.

DivX 5.1 files play upto 720x576 at a bitrae of 4mbs (try doing that on a PC lower than 1.4ghz )
Mp3 audio will be fixed in 2 weeks with support of playback of 56kbs,64kbs mono
and 96kbs and above , stereo
at the moment only stereo works.

I have not heard any reports on fully compliant Mp4 streams, such as from
C-cube / LSI / Lingos / phillips / .......

The reason i say this is because mp3 audio is not in the Mpeg4 spec , AAC is
the audio format , and you will have less audio sync problems with this.

[Peter B]

Thanks for the great information, that is exactly the type of info I have been after!

I mostly capture using huffyuv and convert to DivX 4 or MS V2 using nandub and use vbr mp3 (stereo), although I do have a couple with AC3. I am not familar with AAC and a brief search looks like it is not a free encoding codec.

What I really after is playback of these videos to TV with full overlay (not the usually TVout from most cards eg Marvel g200). I plan to put it in a P4 1600 with 1GB ram so speed etc should not be a problem, though I may put it in the G200 (PIII 500) if it can provide all the speed needed and does not conflict with the marvel.

I haven't used DVDmax, just read the mostly positive comments here, the local importer still has some Marvel G400 in stcok but wants $800+ for them (reconditioned models too!!), thats local money, about $400US. As I am happy with the G200 capture this seems excessive for just adding the DVDMax feature so I thought the Xcard would be a cheap option.

In the P4 I won't need the card to do the decoding as such, it is really the TV out function That I am after.

Is there somthing else that can do this?

[lindberg]

Can the xcard show divx subtitles? Such as *.sub or *.srt files. I suspect that vobsub will not work with that ghey sigma interface.