Marvel G400 as VCR - How?

[Speed Pete]

Ok - I searched the forum, but I really found TOO many information, so now I'm really confused. Perhaps you can give me some short hints.
I own a Marvel G400, and want to record movies via the card's tuner. Then I want to archieve the movie on 2 CD-Rs, with this fine new CoDec (which name I forgot...).
I tried my AVI_IO but I get some dropped frames, so it was not good enough for me. How can I optimize this work? The marvel sits in a P-II/400 with 192 MB. I use really fast HDDs with an Compaq Array Controller, so speed and disc space should be no problem (and so I wonder: why these dropped frames?). I can use Win2000 or Win98SE - whatever you suggest.
Thanks for your effort,
Pete !

[Dr Mordrid]

IF you're dropping frames it's not likely AVI_IO's fault. That's the best capture proggie out there.

Even fast systems need to be optimized for video. Left without most of these changes system events can occur that can interrupt captures and cause dropped frames. Check here for a list of changes to make;

http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/fa.../video4.cfm#33

You should also make sure that you're capturing at 29.970 frames/second. If you set it for 30 frames/sec, a common beginners mistake, you'll often drop 1-2 frames a minute.

This is set up in AVI_IO's capture options.

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).]

[Speed Pete]

Thank you - I will try this. But:
1. your decision of 29.970fps is correct for NTSC, but not for PAL, am I right?
2. What do you think about the Disc Cache? My Controller has 64 MB of hardware Cache on Board. Is it better to disable or to enable it? I know that I should disable the Windows Disc Cache, but I don't know why. So I'm not sure about the hardware Cache.

[Dr Mordrid]

Yes, the frame rate for PAL is 25.0 fps.

Use whatever caches you have on your hardware but do NOT totally disable the Windows VCACHE. This may cause problems. Beyond that yes, it is necessary to get the VCACHE under control. I'd set it for either a fixed value of 8-20 megs or set it with a minfilecache of 2 megs and a maxfilecache of 8-20 megs.

The reason is simple: Windows gobbles up most of your free physical RAM for the VCACHE when it starts up. This reduces the amount of physical RAM for the execution of programs, forcing larger ones to run at least partially from the swapfile.

This can cause big problems with capture and editing programs which much prefer to run totally in physical RAM.

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

[Speed Pete]

Ok: I found out, that my Marvel works much better with Win98SE, so used my second partition with Win98. I disabled the Windows Write cache and my VCache is fixed on 50 MB (I will try it with 20 tomorrow). In addition I got HuffYUV and set it to it's "fastest" settings. Now I can record with AVI_IO with half size format, but the buffer is full after some minutes, and the recording is stopped. Is this a CPU problem, or a HDD problem?
I tried to turn on my hardware cache, but then the buffer is full in a few seconds. Any ideas why?
Do you know a simple tool to check my HDD performance? It should be really high, because of the U2W Array consisting of 3 fast HDDs, but it seems too slow to me.

[Speed Pete]

I tried a little bit more: I choosed the CIF format and HuffYUV Codec. In AVI_IO I got many dropped Frames, but in Virtual Dub none with the same settings. But with Virual Dub the sound is out of sync. There is a function build in to recalculate the fps, so that the duration of sound and movie matches. This calculates a little more than 20 fps. But while recording Virtual dub shows constantly 25 fps.
I'm totally weird....

[Speed Pete]

Looking around here I found this:

"Please don't forget to use only Vidtools 1.52 or earlier as the good Doctor has said, YUY2 functionality has been broken for 1.54."

What do you think about this? I use 2.00.012.

And: there are some rumours about problems with SB Live. I use such a soundcard.

[Speed Pete]

I tried a little with this soundcard issue: when I record with AVI_IO and capture only video (-> NO sound) I have 0 drops!! This works with Win98SE and with W2K.
So you will say: an IRQ conflict. Ok: W2K uses ONE irq for all my cards. Funny, eh? But Win98SE did it well, and my soundcard has one interrupt for its own.
Without sound it seems, capturing works better with W2K. Ican use full resolution here, while Win98 only makes half res without filling the buffer. But compaq doesn't support it's array controller with Win98, so this could be the reason...

[Speed Pete]

I tried a little with this soundcard issue: when I record with AVI_IO and capture only video (-> NO sound) I have 0 drops!! This works with Win98SE and with W2K.
So you will say: an IRQ conflict. Ok: W2K uses ONE irq for all my cards. Funny, eh? But Win98SE did it well, and my soundcard has one interrupt for its own.
Without sound it seems, capturing works better with W2K. Ican use full resolution here, while Win98 only makes half res without filling the buffer. But compaq doesn't support it's array controller with Win98, so this could be the reason...

[Speed Pete]

Sorry about this double posting..
1. I tried another sound card (with another chip) -> the same problem
2. I tried a fast HDD with my none array U2W controller -> no full buffer with Win98.

So with W2K I have enough HDD space but drops when I record sound. And with Win98SE I could record everything if this damn windows could handle my array controller. I used WinBench and measured a transferrate of 30MB/s. This should be enough, eh? But AVI_IO fills its buffer.

[cyberhof]

I only want to say THANKS(!) to Dr Mordrid for the link to matrox where I read abou optimizing my computer for capturing video...
Now I'm able to capture video at 704x576 25fps in low compression with out getting a single droped frame (!!!).

Regards
Cyberhof

My system:
PIII 700Mhz
128mb SDRAM
Two IBM 34GXP 34GB HDD:s (U-ATA66, 7200RPM, 2MB cache).

[Speed Pete]

You lucky guy... ;-)

[Sciascia]

Doc,
What the heck is Flex 3D? I saw in your previous post that you have a G400/Flex 3D. Is that a HW thing or a SW thing? Just curious...

[This_Idiot]

G400 Flex edition is the display adaptor that sells with the RT2000. The RT2K drivers make use of the 3D engine within the G400 Flex to enhance rendering speed, which is why Matrox advertise "Realtime Effects". I've seen it demonstrated, and it is truly awesome !

And that was before the latest sets of transitions.

[Sciascia]

Neat, so it actually uses the 3D HW for rendering. Kind of like an AVID with the 3D cards, (I think they're the Meridian cards). We actually have 1 with the 3D HW and 1 without and there is a big difference in rendering time. Both machines are connected to a 500M Unity Media Server so they usually edit on both, but for rendering they usually try to get into the AVID with the HW 3D cards. It must be nice to be able to have such fun toys at the house.