Can I use the new G450 eTV PC-VCR software with my G400+RRG?

[bugblatt]

From a review I read the G450 TV product has far more sophisticated PC-VCR software than I'm currently using, and apparently it supports time-shifting.

Can I use this software with my G400+RRG, and if so where can I get it?

If not then does anyone know when Matrox plans to make a version available that I can use?

Thanks.

[Haig]

You won't be able to do this becuase the timeshifting we have applied to the eTV is using the ligos mpeg2 software codec which won't be applied to our mjpeg cards.

Haig

[This message has been edited by Haig (edited 19 March 2001).]

[bugblatt]

That's a shame, presumably there's no hardware reason it couldn't be done but I can see why it wouldn't be economic to develop a version of PC-VCR with both the MPEG2 and MJPEG stuff in it.

Couldn't you just make the software available to RRG owners, let them choose which they use (assuming it would work)? Or would there be a licensing issue with ligos?

Does anyone know of a stand-alone VCR program that can do time-shifting etc?

Thanks.

[Haig]

Hi,

Licensing issues with Ligos and royalty fees with Mpeg-LA come into play.

Haig

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[bugblatt]

Fair enough, thanks for the info.

Ok, does anyone know of a stand-alone VCR program that can do time-shifting etc? And maybe capture to MPEG2 directly?

[This_Idiot]

Good Lord, does that mean that new customers are worthy of royalty fees but existing customers must just do without ?

Surely your innovative marketing department can find an equitable solution ? I mean, if it's only a matter of a small royalty fee to upgrade then I'm sure that the vast majority of existing customers would be glad to contribute.

[Haig]

Couldn't tell ya if they have nor haven't. You'd have to talk to your PR contact about that one.

The new clients won't have hardware mjpeg but the old ones will have both hardware mjpeg and YUY2, so I don't see this being an issue other than just the timeshifting feature.

Haig

[bugblatt]

I'd certainly be prepared to pay a fee.

I can understand why Matrox haven't offered this software upgrade to RRG owners, after all they're not generating any new revenue. However it would certainly help their reputation if they did, especially after all the problems RRG users (including myself) had to put up with before they had drivers and software that were useable for captures over around 5 minutes.

[This_Idiot]

Sorry Haig,

Can't help being a bit mischievous

Besides, I'm not actually sure who my PR contact is any more, since the girls left no-one has actually contacted me ! Having said that, I did hijack Ant's contact here in the UK, but that isn't what you'd call official. At least, I don't think so.

But if I did have a PR contact, I might well suggest that there is a market for upgrading existing RR-G users. Although I'd take on-board the fact that we can already use YUY2 - except that it's a technically illegal hack which is unsupported by Matrox.

Bloody clever though, what ?

[Haig]

A bit?

For the YUY2, it will still be an unsupported feature. In worst case scenario, I'll have the switch put in our MTSTUtil so that no one has to mess with the registry.

You can tell Ant's contact about how you feel about upgrading RRG users to give them timeshifting but you should have a survey done as to how many of these users have at least a PIII600 with 128m becuase that is what is needed to half res capture with TS.

ttfn

[bugblatt]

I'll kick off, I have a 1GHz Athlon with 256MB PC133 RAM. From the review I read that should allow full-res caps.

[This_Idiot]

Yeah, only a bit

As far as I read it, YUY2 on a G400 is about as good as the eTV qualitywise ? I know it's difficult to tell out here in consumerland 'cos we still haven't seen an eTV. Difference being that we can pull fullframe YUY2 with around a 700/800 Mhz chip, but you need a full Gig for the Ligos MPEG2.

The main thrust of Bugblatts enquiry seemed to be about the timeshift capability. Seems to me a lot is being made of this capability - not just with Matrox, but also with some extremely expensive consumer gear. Personally, I can't think of an occasion that I can't wait a couple of hours to watch the video rather than trying to shift 15 minutes or so.

Haig, can you confirm who I should be talking to now ?

[Haig]

Yes YUY2 is as good as the Ligos plugin with very minimal difference in quality.

TS is the equivalent of Tivo and Smart Tv. I guess it's the in thing right now on the Pc ever since our competitor's created another need that no one needed before

These units can go upto $800 and one of them will allow you to FF 30 seconds at a time. Suprisingly, that's the average time for commercials these days. There's talk that this will actually turn off the sponsors becuase everyone will be skipping the commercials.

The other one will just allow you to FF 1 second at a time and I beleive both will give you 60 hours of hard disk space. You'll need a few hours to set it up along with a few more hours to download the programming guide.

I don't know who you would talk to in the UK but you can ask Seb to get you a new contact. You can cc me if you like.

Haig

[Dr Mordrid]

For G400-TV/Ulead users there may well be a non-Ligos light at the end of the MPEG tunnel.

Ulead is coming out with GoDVD for VideoStudio, an enhanced MPEG encoder with VCD, SVCD and DVD capabilitiy, for about $39 USD.

http://www.ulead.com/GoDVD/features.htm

IF they follow through and come out with a version of this (or mpEGG!) for MediaStudio Pro then this (combined with YUY2) would provide a lot of the eTV's MPEG-2 editing capabilities. It should also be at higher quality than the existing MSP6 Ligos encoder, which is not-so-hot.

No timeshifting of course, but then that's not really an "editing" feature.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 20 March 2001).]

[Wyntha]

I'd really be happy for Matrox to come out with a new version of the PC-VCR software they issued with their earlier G400/RRG cards. Should be able to skirt around all licensing and royalty fee issues.

I agree that it would be a great PR (25th anniversary present to many Matrox faithful's) jesture.