What hardware do you use to output your projects to VHS tape?

[Hulk]

I'm curious how most people output to VHS tape.

TV out card in the computer? Which card?

Export project back to the dv cam and then output to VHS?

I currently use ATI AIW to go back to tape and am searching for a higher quality alternative.

[Dr Mordrid]

The Matrox G400/450 dualhead cards offer the best alternative for this. Its dualhead mode, configured to use the "DVDMax" option, allows you to output video of about any *.avi or *.mpg format to the video output for recording. This really widens your export options a lot.

This feature is available on the Marvel G400-TV capture/display combo card or you can use a "normal" G400/450 Milennium dualhead card with a PCI capture card (WinTV etc.) to import the video. It also works great in conjunction with IEEE-1394 DV cards.

Yes, with the appropriate editing software you can either export the project to your DV cam or record it on tape. This mode of operation works very nicely in Win2K.

U Pick.

Dr. Mordrid


------------------
Asus P3B-F 6 PCI
PIII/850
Gigabyte GA-6R7+ slotkey
Matrox G400/Flex3D
Matrox RT-2000
256 megs RAM
Promise SuperTrak100 (4 x 60g IBM 75GXP: 240g RAID0)
AWE64 Gold

[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 23 December 2000).]

[Hulk]

I'm curious, why does the method of uploading back to the dv camera and then to tape work better with Win2k, as opposed to Win98SE?

I have a Sony TRV900 and Pyro card on order and am hoping the install goes well...

Do any G400 series Matrox cards have video out besides the Marvel? Your message implies that but I wasnt' sure. If so, does the video out work like the Marvel. That is, you can work in 1024x768 screen resolution and still output to video at 6x4 or 8x6?

[Dr Mordrid]

The Matrox G400 and G450 dualhead cards all can put out to a second device. This can be a TV, VCR, flat panel display or another VGA monitor.

The Marvel G400-TV is a G400 with the ability to capture MJPeg, RGB or uncompressed YUY2 video, however its only output modes for are S-Video (for SVHS decks) and composite. It cannot do VGA or flatpanel. Another limitation of the Marvel G400-TV is that it only has beta drivers for Win2K.

I didn't imply that Win2K necessarily works better than Win98SE for DV, but it does have advantages. One is that if you use a video drive formatted with the NTFS filesystem your files can be of any size.

With Win9x/WinME and the FAT32 filesystem the limit is either 2 or 4 gigs, depending on what editor you're using. This only amounts to only 9 or 18 minutes of video respectively. Win2K + NTFS thus delivers a huge advantage in how long a project you can save as a DV file to the hard drive.

Dr. Mordrid


------------------
Asus P3B-F 6 PCI
PIII/850
Gigabyte GA-6R7+ slotkey
Matrox G400/Flex3D
Matrox RT-2000
256 megs RAM
Promise SuperTrak100 (4 x 60g IBM 75GXP: 240g RAID0)
AWE64 Gold

[wkulecz]

I can't explain why MSP6 timeline playback is better with w2k than win98se but I can verify that is.

I have a PIII-500, 256MB RAM AGP Voodoo3 2000, 100 GB on Fasttrack66 Raid 0, ISA Soundblaster16, Hauppauge WinTV, and Netgear 310fx 10/100 ethernet on a 100BaseTX switch, and ADS Pyro for firewire.

When w2k first came out in Feb, I setup dual boot between w2k and 98se and installed everything on both OSes. Neither worked worth beans for DV editing until the DVpatchII came out from Ulead in June.

Device control and capture was "flakey" on win98se, hardly usable, but worked well on w2k.

Timeline playback on 98se was only of recordable quality if I turned off everything
else. On win2k this wasn't necessary. Add to the fact there is no 2/4GB limit on w2k, I without hesitation converted the fasttrack drives to NTFS and haven't booted win98se since.

I've since setup a similar system using an ASUS K7M and 700 MHz Athelon, it only has a small 25 GB capture drive for testing, but for grins I mounted my fasttrack raid with "map network drive" as f: and created a project from only files on the networked drive. Added crossfades to all the files and quicky had a 1 hr 1 min 45 sec. project. After rendering the transition previews, I had great timeline playback and recorded to VHS tape thru the camcorder. Rendered it into a single 12GB DV file on the local drive D: and it too played back smoothly. This is why I think w2k is the way to go!

--wally.