TV-Output on Marvel G400-TV

[c*e*m]

Damn.
For three months I´m trying to output my videos through my Matrox G400-TV Card (PAL Version) - and it just doesn´t work. I´ve been checking with Martox Support I guess over a hundred times and now a friend told me ´bout this forum, so I hope somebody can help me here.

I´ve no probs with the card, except that I simply can´t output anything (S-VHS, Composite, whatever) - nothing changes on the TV. I´ve already tried (un-)installing drivers, other progs, using different TV sets, different cables and even another card. I guess I´m to dumb for this.

PLEASE HELP.

PII-450/256 MB
ASUS P2B-SL
Quantum Atlas 10KII 36GB on Adaptec 29160
IBM 45GB ATA100
Pinoneer SCSI CDROM
Ricoh CDRW 7060S
Creative Encore II DVD Set
SB Live!

[This_Idiot]

Well obviously we don't know what you've tried so far, so forgive us if we're asking what seem like obvious questions..

First of which is : Have you tried using the DVDMax output option yet ? Click on the symbol in your systray that resembles a monitor, click on the "Settings" tab and then the "Advanced" button. Select the "DualHead" tab, check the "DualHead Clone, DVDMax or Zoom" radio button, and then the "Use DualHead DVDMax" checkbox. You can then use the TV Standard and TV Settings controls at the bottom of the tabsheet.

Lemme know.....

[c*e*m]

First of all, thanks for the quick reply.

I´ve to apologize that I´ve not given enough detailed info, but since I´ve hardly though of anything else lately... well.

OK. Yes, I´ve activated the "standard" DVDMax output, but nothing happened. The problem occured first after installing the card and software, the drivers check for output/input and everything. While the input option worked perfectly fine, the prog didn´t find any output device connected. So I checked the connections, but the checked out to be just fine. I tried a differnt TV set - nothing. OK, so I did that DVDMax option thing, updated my drivers (currently PD 5.55.022, Driver 4.12.01.1550 with 1.9-33 BIOS on WIN98SE) and tried playing around with the options menu (I had really every possible switch tested in really every combination).
Finally I contacted Matrox-Helpdesk, who had me buy a special SCART-Composite cable, exchange my Matrox card and the blue box - nothing worked.

Then I read in another forum that somebody had simular probs and solved them by removing Quicktime. Well, that doesn´t seem to be the prob either on my machine.

I really hope you can make something out of this, since I REALLY get desperate over here.
TIA

[This_Idiot]

Don't worry about VideoTools not finding an output device, just connect up your TV (or whatever) to the video output connections on the breakout box (I use composites since I don't have a Svideo TV/VCR). Whenever you play an AV clip then it should poke it out to the TV. This seems to work for about ANY flavour of clip (MPG, MPG2 etc) as well as the MJPEG that Matrox tells us about.

Doc might have some more ideas on this

[c*e*m]

Unfortunatly that doesn´t seem to work either.
I´ve already searched the murc forums for this Doc, you where refering to, but found only one entry from june 2000.

I would be very grateful if you would point me into the right direction.

Anyway, thank´s once again "This_Idiot".

[This_Idiot]

Hi

Sorry, "Doc" is Dr Mordrid. He's a regular poster, so you'll have an awful lot of posts to wade through. No doubt he'll be about sometime this afternoon/evening and he generally reads all the posts - I'm sure he'll wade in with some more suggestions.

I only have one more for the time being, and that is to make sure that your TV or VCR is set to receive from whichever line that you are using to output. For instance, I use a 5" LCD TV as my output monitor, which is fine for checking that I've got my brightness/colour settings right (they vary tremendously between what you see on your PC monitor and the output device). It has a "tuner/line" switch at the back which has to be set to "line" before I get a display. If I use my VCR, then I have to select the appropriate AV input channel.

Cheers

Chris

[This_Idiot]

Just a quick extra note.

I haven't used this particular machine for capture for a while (I tend to do most of that when I'm away in the North during the week), so I followed my own instructions (above) regarding enabling DVDMax dualhead and switched my TV monitor to "line in" mode. I was able to play both AVI and MPG straight out to the TV monitor by double-clicking the filename and letting MediaPlayer do all the work.

Like you I'm using W98SE, and I'm using the following drivers etc :

Graphics BIOS 1.5 - 22
Display Driver 4.11.01.1410
Powerdesk 5.41.008

This is on a Celery300@450 with an AGP G400 Marvel. No trick stuff installed, no reg hacks etc.

[c*e*m]

OK. I hope he drops by. I´ve been studying his posts for the last hours.
Yes, he seems to know a lot about that Matrox hardware stuff.
Perhaps he can help me out.

Once again thank you Chris.

Chris (<- really)

P.S. Have a great new year.