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**milehiguy** · 28 November 2003, 07:33

If you dig through the archives, either here or over in Matrox's G Series forum, you may see that this topic has come up previously. What you'll find is that with the Matrox PowerDesk drivers & associated Video Tools installed for your Marvel G400, neither MSN Messenger nor Windows Movie Maker will properly recognize &/or configure the capture device. These applications work fine with a WDM capture device, but not one that uses VFW drivers like the Marvel G400. As an experiment, you might try what I've done in the past. First, backup/Ghost your current configuration, then completely remove your Video Tools, then the PowerDesk drivers (do each from the control panel), then ... after a reboot, allow Windows (you're using XP I assume?) to discover your Marvel G400. Allow XP to install it's "native" drivers for the card. What you'll find is that you can then use it in apps like AVI_IO, MSN Messenger, and Movie Maker, and the capture device will be WDM. Of course, even if this works, you are now without PowerDesk and the benefit of Video Tools, so ... the option is yours. This is from memory (not detailed notes), so buyer beware. You may want to just post the question outright, ... will the Marvel G400 card work as a capture device in apps such as MSN (or Windows) Messenger, and see what kind of responses you get. If you DO come up with a solution (or a set of WDM drivers for the Marvel G400 card), please let me know! Good luck.

**Fred H** · 28 November 2003, 07:46

Thanks, milehiguy.

The capture with the native Matrox G400 driver in XP, interesting. How about the dual head, or TV display. I never capture with the PC VCR. I am using AVI_IO and PICVideo codec.
I will try it. Of course I always Gost the system.
Another solution could be to install an extra capture card, e.g. a Pinnacle PCTV.
I mean the cheapest could be ok just for web cam capture. The question is if a second capture card doesn’t interfere with the Marvel.
Anyway, the web cam is not my highest wish, and I can live without it.

Fred H

**Fred H** · 29 November 2003, 13:04

after a reboot, allow Windows (you're using XP I assume?) to discover your Marvel G400. Allow XP to install it's "native" drivers for the card.

It doesnt work for me. It installs but no capture and no second displaydriver there.
I tried it with my actual setup and an earlier re-Ghosted system with no luck.
I also reinstalled WinXP over the old one. It didn't help. Maybe there is something wrong in my XP Pro system and only a new, clean winXP installation helps. Anyway, I am back with a working system (PD 5.39+ & VT3.04+). In fact I don't need any webcam, I just tried to play with installing my analog camcorder as web cam.

Fred H

**milehiguy** · 30 November 2003, 07:54

Fred, you might be correct in that only a clean WinXP install will properly recognize the Marvel G400 card and provide native drivers for it.

When I was going through this a few months ago, I ended up with multiple entries in my registry for the video capture driver, including a couple of bogus/null entries. Take a look at the following key in your XP registry:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\<long number>\Software\Microsoft\ActiveMovie\devenum\<lo ng number>]

Under there, you should see entries for your capture drivers. At one point, I had the following 4 branches under the above key:

...\Matrox VidCap Driver
...\WDM Video For Windows Capture Driver (Win32)
...\WDM Video For Windows Capture Driver (Win3 - -
...\- - - - - - - -

(the dashes above are extended ascii characters that looked like small boxes that I dare not even type here!)

Obviously, the 3rd and 4th entries were bogus - I would try deleting them, but they would keep coming back. The 1st entry is Matrox's capture driver, and the 2nd entry is the one I was referring to, which is the one that I believe is installed natively by WinXP after a clean install.

WDM Video For Windows Capture Driver (Win32)

This native WinXP capture driver for the Marvel G400 was installed by Windows XP Pro, and BEFORE I installed either PowerDesk or VideoTools, I could use it in Windows Movie Maker, Windows (& MSN) Messenger, VirtualDub, AVI_IO, etc.

The above 4 entries existed in my registry at one point a few months ago when I was experimenting. I'm currently using Video Tools version 3.04+, and now only the following 2 branches exist, versus the 4 listed above:

...\Matrox VidCap Driver
...\VfWWDM32.dll

(adis, what's this second entry?)

Anyway, hopefully this info helps someone. I'm still confused about a lot of this. I enjoy the features that adis's VideoTools provides, so I've installed & enjoy them, even though I can no longer use my Sony HandyCam for (occasional) use in Movie Maker and MSN Messenger. The Matrox VidCap Driver works fine for me in both VirtualDub and AVI_IO, and of course the Matrox PC-VCR.

**Fred H** · 30 November 2003, 11:15

Thanks, milehiguy for the very useful information.
The 3.04+ is the best VT indeed except in combo with PD 5.39+. It automatically switches from PAL to NTSC whenever I render a video clip in MSP7 to a new file with the 2K3 MJPEG HW codec. The issue is not there with PD 5.82 and VT 3.03.
I will try PD 5.82 (or 5.91) with the VT 3.04+.
See also my reply at :

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45511&perpage=15&pagenumber=2

Fred H

**milehiguy** · 30 November 2003, 11:45

Originally posted by Fred H
I will try PD 5.82 (or 5.91) with the VT 3.04+.

Glad I could shed some additional light on this. For what it's worth, I've settled upon PD 5.82 with VT 3.04+ ... I tried 5.39 and then 5.91, but had issues with both of them, so I decided to stick with 5.82 and the new VT. I can't remember the exact details, but I recall that Windows Media Player 7 wouldn't even launch after installing one of them, 5.91 with the new VT I believe - something about a .dll being out of date or something. Normally I document this stuff better, sorry. Note that this behavior may be related more to MY setup, versus this particular combination of PD/VT. In any case, for now I'm happy with 5.82 and 3.04+, even though the new VT don't appear to "hook themselves into" PD 5.82 in the way they apparently do in 5.39+

Announcement

Webb Camera with Marvel G400 and MS Messenger 6.01. How?

Webb Camera with Marvel G400 and MS Messenger 6.01. How?

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