Is Matrox RT.X100 captured video quality better than Canopus DVStorm2?

[juzzie]

Had anybody ever used both of these great cards? I'm interested to find out wich one gives BETTER image quality when capturing analog or DV source? Which card better encodes to MPEG?

Please do not confuse my question with editing capabilities - I know there is no single opinion which card is better in terms of EDITING. But I am more concerned with PICTURE QUALITY - both of capturing to AVI and encoding to MPEG using their internal hardware accelerator?

Can anybody advise.

Thanks,
Yuriy

P.S. I'm trying to figure out which card to buy. My task is to edit captured video from analog and/or digital video source using SIMPLE editing tools (no complex effects or graphycs) and get BEST QUALITY AVI VIDEO and then encode it to DVD mpeg with BEST QUALITY output.

[George Lin]

There are slight differences in quality, depending on what sort of source you have, one may be better than the other.

Have a look at this site:

http://video.mylittlefamily.com

If you are doing very simple editing, why do you want a RTX or DVStorm? Why not just get an analog->DV converter for $200, then use Premiere Pro or a DVD authoring program to edit and master out to DVD.

There isn't a simple answer that fits all scenarios.

For instance, if you do realtime encoding direct to a program stream MPEG2 with fairly high bitrate, the Canopus with onboard MPEG encoder is a quite reasonable.

However, if you want higher compression (smaller files) and lower bitrate, then you'll want to go with a software based tool that has 2-pass VBR for optimum quality. Canopus, Matrox, Adobe all have different software compressor for MPEG and the software tools have better quality than any of the hardware MPEG encoders in this category for low bitrates.

If you want easy of editing and an overall good platform, the RTX is an overall winner.

1. what is your source? is it DV or Analog?
2. what is your final goal or output?
3. what sort of editing are you going to do?
4. what is the rest of your system like? (ie. CPU & RAM)
5. what other tools do you have? are you considering software as well?

[juzzie]

Thanks, George, for your answer. You are a real professional!

Well, I tried Analog-to-DV converter like Canopus ADVC-100. Everything is perfect, except there is no REAL TIME when you try to apply filters or transitions or titles. I used Ulead MediaStudio pro 7 and created intermediate AVI. Then I input that AVI into standalone CCE encoder to get DVD mpeg.

My objectives are as follows:

1. Capture & low-edit (simple transitions or denoise filters, plus narrations and titles) analog camcorder recordings to create so-called "home-movies" in real time. Maybe I'll want more in future. My only requirements are final video quality & real time processing. My output is DVD mpeg (after editing as mentioned above). As far as I understood from your article on http://video.mylittlefamily.com
it's better not to create intermediate AVI file but to export timeline directly to MPEG.

2. Capture programs (read movies) from Satellite receiver and/or VCR either directly to DVD mpeg or to AVI, and then convert it to mpeg without any editing. Quality matters... I believe capturing to AVI and then converting to mpeg will give more quality. Doesn't it? Also, I will prefer to have hardware that can capture clips from macrovision protected sources (for personal use, of course). Do you know if matrox allows that? I know Canopus DVStorm doesn't.

3. Full or partial hardware acceleration when encoding to mpeg using CCE plugin for Adobe or standalone CCE.

4. Full or partial support of real time features with non-Adobe applications such as Ulead Mediastudio pro or Vegas 4. Eventhough I doubt that these cards can do it - I believe they are 100% Premiere oriented. Aren't they? Eventhough Canopus is supported additionally by Edius software.

That's about it. Couple more question though: will I get better results (better MPEG) if capturing to analog AVI rather than converting analog to DV AVI first (providing that little or no editing was done in a timeline)? Is matrox card very picky towards system hardware configuration? I heard many people have problems getting that card to work with their existing hardware. Does the same apply to DVStorm2?

Here is my system configuration:
Pentium IV 3.0 MHz, 800 MHz FSB,
Abit IC7 motherboard
1 Gb of RAM (Corsair XMS3500 - DDR433)
ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 7500
SoundBlaster Audigy MP3
80 GB Western digital hard drive - 2 pcs.

So what would you recommend me: RT.X100 or DVStorm2?

Thanks for your help,
Yuriy

[Brian Ellis]

My view is that RT conversion to MPEG from either DV or analogue sources is not really possible with the highest quality. Just think: you are asking your CPU to not only manage the capture, but also to transcode it simultaneously. Either of these can consume the better part of your resources at best quality. Put them together and you beat the system, so something has to give. I have a 3.06 GHz P4 HT CPU with 1 Gb PC2700 RAM and that cannot capture/transcode in RT at CBR6000 in best quality. I have to use the intermediate AVI. OTOH, I'm beta-testing an app which does allow me to do this, but comparative tests do show a deterioration of picture quality, notably how colours are rendered, so it must be taking some short-cut to achieve it.

There is very little difference in quality between directly captured analogue (Marvel hardware MJPEG, highest quality settings) and converted-to-DV analogue (Canopus ADVC-100), again shown by direct comparisons from a high-quality analogue source. The DV method may be slightly inferior for very fast movements, but very slightly better for less mobile scenes, but this is rather subjective. After conversion to MPEG-2 CBR 6000, DVD compliant, I cannot detect any real difference with either TMPGEnc or MPEG.now encoding. I therefore have not felt the need to go for cards like you mention. They will offer more RT features, but I get all I need from MSP7.

[George Lin]

1. You can rule out the Storm if you need to capture stuff with Macrovision. It doesn't work with Macrovision. In fact, it detects older Hi8 tapes as Macrovision very frequently and the capture goes grey. Matrox doesn't have this frustration (limitation).

2. You might search the Canopus forums for Macrovision overrides with the ADVC-100. I know for some of their stand-alone products there's ways to get around the Macrovision.

3. You need to answer the question: What is more important: Realtime MPEG encoding or to have the highest MPEG2 quality possible. You can't have both here with the $$$ ranges we are discussing.

To answer Brian Ellis' question also:
Canopus Storm has the onboard hardware Panasonic(?) MPEG2 encoder which does a good job at mid to high bitrates. That's why you can do RT MPEG2 capture with the Storm at very, very low CPU loads. At low bitrates, you'll want to go software based for quality sake. I think Matrox does RT MPEG capture with the onboard encoder (ie. doesn't heavily load the CPU), but I'm not sure. However, the same thing applies to Matrox. If you want high quality at low bitrates, use software encoding.
Software 2-pass VBR is better than anything RT Hardware that I've seen in this pricerange including the Dazzle product (which I would not wish on my enemies) but for the $, does a reasonable job encoding to MPEG2.

4. It's better not to go to DV colorspace if you are working with stills. The difference is significant, although some would argue that most people could not tell the difference. If you are starting with source such as Hi8, the difference will be much less. If you're starting with DV, there's no difference because it's already in DV colorspace.

5. You can forget about support for non-Adobe applications with the Storm (with the exception of Canopus' homegrown Edius software which is $600.) With Matrox, there is Video For windows support, so it may provide output for some apps, but no RT effects other than whatever is software based from those applications (other than Premiere).

6. In terms of card compatibility, they are about the same. Don't use VIA. Don't use NVIDIA chipsets (video cards are OK). In terms of bugs, I find Canopus has more showstoppers than Matrox.

7. You have a pretty good system. If I were you, I'd either go with a software based solution (take your pick), or I would get the RTX. If you need to capture from Macrovision sources, the choice is already made.

[George Lin]

BTW, to disable macrovision on the ADVC-100:

1.) Press and hold the Input Select button on the front panel
until you see the color bars appear.

2.) Keep the button pressed (about 15 seconds) until the color
bars disappear. (Note: with some capture cards the color
bars may not appear. In any case, keep the button pressed
for the full 15 seconds.

3.) Macrovision copy-protection is now disabled until you switch
off the ADVC-100.

[juzzie]

Thanks, George for your answer.

Look, I'm a little bit confused. From your post I figured out that realtime MPEG hardware encoding only occurs when you feed a video (analog or DV) directly into DVStorm or Matrox card and get mpeg as an output.

What I was thinking is a little bit different. I thought after I capture a video (in AVI format), then edit it in Adobe Premiere, I will be able to use on-board mpeg-encoder to encode timeline (or rendered AVI) to mpeg using hardware encoding. In other words: let's say you have fully edited AVI file on your hard drive. Is there any way I can enable hardware mpeg encoding to convert my AVI to mpeg, rather than software encoding? I understand that software encoding may be of a higher qualiy on certain bitrates but my objective was to export timeline (or fully rendered AVI file) from Premiere into DVD mpeg format using realtime hardware encoder. Does it work this way??? If not, I am dissapointed, if not to say more...

[George Lin]

Sorry for the confusion,
Yes, it works this way.

If you are going to spend all that time, capturing to AVI, editing and then outputing again, I assumed you'd want the highest quality MPEG2 and thus software encoding.

If you want to save time, you could capture MPEG2 RT, use MPEG tools to chop out what you don't want, join what you need to. Overall would be more time efficient, but you wouldn't be able to edit. (although you might want to check MSP7 because I remember someone suggesting that it edited MPEG without recompressing everything.)

[Ray Austin]

let's say you have fully edited AVI file on your hard drive. Is there any way I can enable hardware mpeg encoding to convert my AVI to mpeg, rather than software encoding? I understand that software encoding may be of a higher qualiy on certain bitrates but my objective was to export timeline (or fully rendered AVI file) from Premiere into DVD mpeg format using realtime hardware encoder. Does it work this way??? If not, I am dissapointed, if not to say more...

yes you can export to dvd RT using the RTX100. In order to export RT you use the Matrox card to achieve this. It's very good as long as you aren't trying to cram 2hrs on a dvd. However even that could be changing with the new DVD DL format that will give even more real estate for data.

FYI, RT = Real Time. If your movie/ Avi is 60minutes long it will take 60min to encode to DVD.

Software encodes to dvd are usually used when trying to cram alot of video on a dvd in order to get everything on one dvd the software encodes the video typically by making 2 or more passes. This can be time consuming although it's getting better all the time.

I own the RTX100 too and agree with George on all points.

[juzzie]

Well, thanks everybody for your input.

Last question though. Does RT.X100 allows to input macrovision protected video by OUT OF THE BOX condition or you need to apply "special"patches or use "special" drivers with it?

[George Lin]

It should work out of the box.

[Elie]

George is correct, Mcrovision detection doesn't even exist in the RT.X100

Regards,
Elie

[Dr Mordrid]

eYup. It's sure nice not having to deal with that particular can of worms.

Dr. Mordrid