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**Dr Mordrid** · 2 January 2001, 14:30

1. Who knows? Seems to be dragging on though....

2. Perhaps, but IMHO the Marvel G400 actually has a lot going for it. Hardware MJPeg, YUY2 capability and it too can do MPEG given the right capture software (VideoStudio, MSPro, VideoWave etc. etc.) with about the same system specs as the eTV.

3. Quite likely.

Dr. Mordrid

3.

**Michelle Cox** · 2 January 2001, 15:55

Sigh. I'm notoriously bad at making decisions. I've been looking at both the G400-TV and the G450/WinTV possibilities and they both seem about the same with one exception (below). Would you choose one over the other? If so, why?

If you'd choose the second, which WinTV card would you get to go with the G450? I was liking the Theater one until I noticed it doesn't do full screen capture. None of the ones I looked at did. Am I missing something? I know this isn't a Hauppauge site, but maybe someone knows. Do any of the WinTV cards do full screen AVI capture?

Thanks,

Michelle

**Dr Mordrid** · 2 January 2001, 16:08

The WinTV is based on the Brooktree Bt848 chipset which is capable of full frame capture.

With the WinTV cards, however, you can only do this with the card in Preview mode (Overlay turned off). Not a real big deal once you get used to it. Even the el-Cheapo WinTV GO! ($49 USD at CompUSA) can do this. Of course some of the full sized WinTV models have built in radio tuners and physical remote controls for their tuners.

Combined with the PICVideo MJPeg and HuffYUV compressors the WinTV/G450 is a nice setup. So is the Marvel G400-TV with it's hardware MJPeg and YUY2 capture capability.

Perhaps the one big thing in the WinTV/G450's favor is that you can configure the second head as either a TV output or as a VGA secondary display at will with the DualHead setups in the display setups.

That's not a shabby option to have, just ask the RR-G users, and the Marvel/eTV cards can't do it.

Time to make a choice

Dr. Mordrid

[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 02 January 2001).]

**Indiana** · 2 January 2001, 17:46

Plus, the Hauppauge cards are one of the very few capture cards with Win2k drivers that are actually working.
No problem capturing 768x576 uncompressed YUY2 @25fps here in Win2k. No problem with full resolution HuffYUV or MJPEG (with the free PicVideo MJpeg codec) captures either.

But be aware that you'll need one hell of a fast CPU and/or HD (preferably a RAID array) for full res. captures. For example I don't drop any frames in HuffYUV/MJPEG capturing with my Duron800 oc'ed to 1026, but at the default 800MHz there are some dropped frames...

[This message has been edited by Indiana (edited 03 January 2001).]

**Michelle Cox** · 2 January 2001, 17:56

Sigh. You guys have given me more questions.

1. Speaking only of capture ability and none of the bells and whistles like remote controls and such, is there any difference between the cheapest and most expensive WinTV cards?

2. I only have a P3-600 processor and a 7200RPM drive. No RAID and no way to upgrade the processor. Is there any card that relies less on the CPU so that I can do full size captures (AVI) without dropping frames?

Thanks,

Michelle

[This message has been edited by Michelle Cox (edited 03 January 2001).]

**Indiana** · 2 January 2001, 18:21

1. The Hauppauge WinTV PVR to my knowledge features hardware MPEG2-capturing and thus doesn't need a CPU as fast as the cheaper ones for doing this. Don't know the exact specifics of the other various models, but the differences seem to mainly be the "bells'n'whistles" you mentioned.

2. This is a trade-off. If you do uncompressed captures you don't need as much CPU power but a VERY fast HD (no way to do this with my single IBM U-DMA66 drive, while the RAID - of course - can keep up with the data rate).
If you're compressing with HuffYUV you need much CPU-Power (maybe under Win98 a P-III 600 is enough but I wouldn't rely on it) but the data rate decreases roughly to the half, which the "average" UDMA HD of today can handle...

Perhaps you'll have the best luck with PicVideo's MJPEG codec, this seems to use less CPU than HuffYUV and has better compression. Of course this is not lossless, but there is always a trade-off, and you can get excellent quality with this codec if you configure it corectly and can live with a b it higher data-rate.

**Michelle Cox** · 2 January 2001, 18:46

I need a spinning head emoticon.

I looked at the WinTV-PVR, but at that price, I would have to keep my current video card, which can't do TV out. I also want to capture to AVI, not MPEG, so the hardware MPEG encoding does me no good.

Ok, people were doing full size captures when my processor was considered fast, so there must be some way. I'm getting so frustrated. Every question I ask brings more questions. I've been trying to decide on a card for months and everytime I get close, something changes my mind.

If it wasn't for the fact that there's shows I want to encode starting next fall, I'd just give up on this whole mess until I get a new computer in Spring of '02.

So is there a card that will take the burden of AVI (not MPEG) capturing off the CPU and hard drive? I need AVI because I need to edit out the commercials before I compress it to MPEG.

If there's not, and there's really no difference in the cards, I guess I'll just buy the cheapest WinTV and take my chances.

Thanks very much for all your help. I appreciate you guys taking the time to help me sort this out.

Michelle

**Michelle Cox** · 2 January 2001, 19:03

Me again.

I was just reading this page: http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/m...ware_mjpeg.cfm

It sounds like what I need. MJPEG is editible, right? And this card does it in the hardware. So I can do it with my CPU and hard drive?

Am I missing something yet again, or is this my best option?

Thanks,

Michelle

Announcement

Effects of G450 E-TV on G400-TV?

Effects of G450 E-TV on G400-TV?

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