Anyone seen this??

[paulw]

http://www.rt2000.com

[Chris B]

Wow... some major harshin´ from the Matrox people. What do they expect to obtain by something like that ??

[jeff b]

Well, it just goes to show ya: If you're "well-adjusted" THESE days, then you're just not paying attention!

Jeff B

[peterclifton]

Hello People

I got the following from "The Unofficial RT2000 Discussion Board.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
here's more info...
Scandalous Matrox attack on DV user group is for real.

Howdy from Texas,

Believe it or not, it's true. In a bizarre series of events, Matrox
(Matrox Electronic Systems Ltd.) -- via Canadian attorney
Serge Capozzo -- has tendered a cease-and-desist order
upon one of its own customers, Greg Smith of Cleveland, Ohio.

Smith, a Matrox customer and the owner of a Matrox RT2000
non-linear DV editing system, sponsors an RT2000 user's group.
There's a couple-hundred RT2000 customers frequenting it, and
they discuss various issues pertaining to the installation and proper
use of the Matrox RT2000. There's no "Matrox bashing" or any
sort of corporate defamation within the group... they just happen
to use the RT2000 system, and like to talk about it and DV editing
amongst themselves and answer questions from folks who are new
to the RT2000 system.

The cost to Matrox for this useful service? Nothing. Smith provides
it for free, because until the cease-and-desist letter came, he's been
a firm believer in the company and its products, and created the
Matrox support group out of personal time and expenses. It would
be difficult to put a price tag on this kind of customer loyalty, anyway.

So, what would prompt a large corporation to aim their high-powered
attorney at Smith? Why serve him with a cease-and-desist letter, threatening
legal action against him, in a strong-arm attempt to bully Smith into shutting
down his service -- a free service which, in the long run, has only
helped Matrox?

The problem is the name of Smith's website. It's http://www.rt2000.com

You see, Matrox neglected to register this name for themselves,
despite having a popular product called the RT2000. Noticing that
the name rt2000.com had been passed over by Matrox and was
up for grabs, Smith registered it himself... as hundreds of people
register domain names every day... and promptly put the name
to work for Matrox. He used it to sponsor a Matrox RT2000 user
group. The enormous benefit Matrox and its customers have derived
from this are self-evident, not to mention that it doesn't cost Matrox a
dime. But it's important to realize also that Smith doesn't receive any
gain, financial or otherwise, for doing this service for Matrox and its
RT2000 user base of non-linear DV editors.

Yet Matrox, now suddenly interested in the website domain name
that it previously didn't care about, is apparently experiencing some
frustration with its oversight of not appropriately registering domain
names for its own products. That corporate frustration has manifested
itself in the form of threatening litigation against Smith, a Matrox customer
who was so loyal to the company that he paid for the rt2000.com name
from his own pocket and used it the way Matrox should have done in
the first place... for the benefit of other Matrox RT2000 customers.

Matrox, now deciding that it wants the rt2000.com name after all,
has chosen to forego the usual customer-relations routes (along with
any sense of good will) and has turned its attorney loose on Smith.
The cease-and-desist letter is an attempt to coerce Smith, through
harsh, intimidating words and threat of legal action, into simply handing
over the rt2000.com domain name to Matrox to use for its own purposes.
Which is strange, considering Matrox chose not to register the name when
it had the chance. No mention by Matrox of sponsoring a customer's user
group with it, as Smith did.

But what's even stranger is the fact that Smith previously offered
the rt2000.com name to Matrox for free... under the condition
that whatever plans Matrox had for it, it would include the Matrox
RT2000 user community which Smith established. That's a very
reasonable request, considering the fact that Smith's support
group is a popular hangout for RT2000 owners as well as
prospective Matrox customers. His offer to Matrox didn't
have an expiration date... he was ready to let them have it
any time Matrox wanted.

But in a bizarre move which would baffle even the most
jaded public-relations department, Matrox refused Smith's
offer to hand them the domain name for free, and instead has
threatened to sue Smith... unless he does what? Why, hand
them the very same domain name... for free. Now, there's
a head-scratcher.

Matrox attorney Serge Capozzo, in his strongly-worded
cease-and-desist letter to Smith, accuses Smith of holding
the rt2000.com domain name for the sole purpose of
selling it. Perhaps Capozzo didn't bother to browse through
the large, established RT2000 user group Smith has built with
the name for the benefit of Matrox. Or, perhaps Capozzo
didn't bother to research the other offers Smith has received
for the rt2000.com name. Smith has been approached by at
least one other corporation -- not Matrox -- trying to buy the
name. Smith refused to sell, wanting the rt2000.com name to
go only to Matrox.

Now he's not so sure. Having done his best to give the
name to Matrox, and now under threat of litigation by
Matrox to do just what he's tried to do all along, Smith is
having second thoughts about his feelings for the corporation...
and reservations about the future of the rt2000.com domain
name.Smith is researching his rights and has been advised to
seek legal counsel of his own. And if he checks into the history
of domain name disputes, he'll find that usually the person who
registers the name, keeps the name... despite what a behind-the-
game corporation thinks it can muscle one of its customers into.

Smith is more concerned about the safety of other independent
support sites similar to his own which serve Matrox customers.
He points out that there are numerous other privately-owned
Matrox-related sites with "rt2000" as part of the domain name.
Smith worries that they may come under similar fire from the
same high-pressure attorney, although he's not sure why his
own site was attacked. All Smith is sure of today is that he's
no longer ready to just hand over the domain name anymore,
now that he's been threatened with a lawsuit... from the very
same company whose customers he was helping.

Greg Smith can be reached at greg@eperfectimage.com

Matrox attorney Serge Capozzo is in Dorval, Quebec.
He can be reached by telephone at (514) 822-6316.

Matrox Electronic Systems, Ltd. is based in
Quebec and is on the web at www.matrox.com

[This_Idiot]

I'm APPALLED !

Matrox once again demonstrates their excellent public relation skills. I'm bloody glad that I removed the "Rainbow Runner" from this sites original persona, and moreover concerned about the implications to the MURC in general (of which I'm a proud member and contributor).

[Indiana]

Originally posted by This_Idiot:
I'm APPALLED !

Matrox once again demonstrates their excellent public relation skills.

Maybe they just wanted to prove they can beat NVidia in EVERY aspect...

[Riddek]

Welcome to the new Mat***!

Am I the only one who sees what's really going on? 6 months ago Mat*** was sold to nVi***, who set in motion an elaborate plan to slowly dissolve the company and it's faithful following:

Step #1-destroy all lines of communication between the company and it's end users.

Step #2-don't commit to any new product release dates.

Step #3-use intimidation tactics to systematically shut down all value added end user community forums that contribute to Mat***'s good reputation.

Step #4-if all else fails, plant nVi*** field agents in the Mat*** community to discover why they still have faith in the company, then devise stategies to crush their spirits.

Legal disclaimer:
The above hypothetical situation does in no way represent reality. Any similarites to existing corporations and/or corporate stategies are purely coincidental. The opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect those of Riddek or his unborn children.

[This message has been edited by Riddek (edited 17 August 2000).]

[jeff b]

Clearly, Matrox is currently being run by sociopaths.

...y'know, in the 10 months that have gone by since I removed the Matrox stuff from my computer, I haven't had to re-install Windows once (to get my NLE stuff to work again). In the two years that I DID have Matrox stuff in my computer, I had to re-install Windows, on average, about every two months to keep the Matrox stuff happy. I've been scratching my head about that lately, but when you see stuff like this Greg Smith episode coming into view, it tends to make a little more sense. Just picture having to work for a company being run by sociopaths who would behave in this manner toward loyal customers. Those who would remain employed at such a place would end up, ultimately, having to become apologists for the products, apologists for the conduct of the customer service (or lack thereof), and apologists for the overall image of the business that they're stuck working for.

There's a big "L" over the Matrox name now.

LOSERS!


My advice to anyone stuck working for Matrox at this time: find another company to work for, because this one is run by self-destructive idiots.

- Jeff B

[Ant]

That stinks, and is very worrying. What are they gonna do next come after us for using the word M****x in matroxusers.com? Anyone have any contact info for the RT2000.com guys I'd like to speak to them.

[Elie]

Relax Jeff, it's not the end of the world you know.

Give Matrox the benefit of the doubt, you MUST here the story from both sides before you can make a true judgement.
I pretty sure they had a good reason for doing so.

Matrox still provides the best quality products around and if you have to reinstall Windows every 2 months, well....

Cheers,
Elie

[Elie]

HERE'S AN OFFICIAL RESPONCE FROM MATROX, SO YOU CAN ALL RELAX NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Picked this up from the news groups....
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is what Matrox had to say when I emailed them complaining about their
tactics:

Dear Mr. Schweitzer,

Thank you for contacting us on this issue. It was never our intention to
shut down this
discussion forum, and we are in process of contacting the current owner of
the site to try and
get the discussion forum back up while we continue discussions on the site
ownership
with him.

We appreciate your interest in our products and hope that this unfortunate
incident does
not turn you off from choosing Matrox products for your needs.

If there is anything else I can do for you, please let me know.

Best regards,
Spiro Plagakis
VP Sales and Marketing

[Riddek]

I think Matrox should reward ($$) Mr. Smith for his hard work in building the site to what it is today and apologize for the way he was treated. He was providing customer service and troubleshooting on Matrox's behalf. For FREE. On his OWN TIME. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

------------------
"Whoa..."
Keanu Reeves.

[jeff b]

Hey Elie!

Yeah, the Mystique220/RRS and Win95, (followed by Win98) tended to wreak havoc after a couple of months of usage... Win98SE seems to be behaving much better, it only had to get re-installed once, sometime between May and September of last year before the Mystique220/RRS came out of the box. I haven't done a cleanup or re-install to handle any problems since, though. As a matter of fact, I have had none of the previous "tweaks" in effect on this machine for quite a while. CD is actively polling, read ahead optimization is always on, write behind cache is always on, etc. and yet the OHCI 1394 / MSP6 setup is happily doing its thing.

In retrospect, I had always been happy with the Matrox stuff while I was using it, despite the poor support for problems (it only took them a year to deliver software for Mystique220/RRS that actually worked, and right after that they obsoleted the product). Meanwhile, the stability of the setup was always deteriorating with every boot-up, but I simply figured that this was the way it had to be. Y'know, just do what has to be done since nothing is ever "perfect" in life.

Now I've had these past 10 months to go through the evolution of the 1394 / DV scenario, and the one thing that really strikes me is that, despite the waits (much less than a year on this score), my system doesn't have to be "fussed with" to work. I just tend to believe that Matrox, as a company, has got some weird ideas about what customers have to say to them. They appear to do business "the old fashioned way", ie- "WE give customers what WE want to give them, when WE feel like delivering it!"

But I'm not terribly upset about any of those past experiences. Really! I've just got a tendency to be verbose and perhaps appear to get inflammatory when my posts read like a soapbox performance. (My wife says that I can too easily come off as a didactic pedant!)

I know that you and Doc both have RT2K's running quite nicely and are happy with them. My only trepidations about going that route are concerned with how many special tweaks and fussy little problems that have to be handled in order to get the thing to be happy. I just want to be able to capture, edit, and output back to tape when I have something in the can. It's the "KISS" paradigm that I try to work from (Keep It Simple, Stupid!).

Dis-ing Matrox, however, is the "flavor of the week" here in this thread, and I hate to see such venom and excitement get dampened by reason or sanity, eh?

(the preceding was written with my tongue in cheek, and a mischievous smirk throughout...)

- Jeff B

[Elie]

Ant, This is the first time I heard about the site myself.

Jeff, I didn't know you still had the RR-S/Mystique combo, your right win98 can be a bit fussy at times and SE sure helped fix some problems but not all, I hope to see support for WinME soon, maybe Microsoft got their act together and made a good OS, but that's like an Oxy Moron isn't it

I also have a Marvel G400 which I use periodically asside from the RT2000 believe it or not, running on a PII400 128 mb ram Asus P2B board without problems.

I noticed your settings....."CD is actively polling, read ahead optimization is always on, write behind cache is always on, etc. and yet the OHCI 1394 / MSP6 setup is happily doing its thing."

I suggest disabling write behind cache and read ahead optimization if your capturing and playing back video, also you don't want the CD constantly polling right?

Rikter, I don't think Matrox is obligated to post any official statements on this site because MURC is not affected.

Cheers,
Elie

[Ant]

Did anyone actually use www.rt2000.com before all of this? The first I heard of it was when this appeared, was there actually a site there?