Best solution for video editing

[chunter2]

I would like some opinions on what hardware to get to do desktop video editing. I have a Matrox Millennium G450 32MB card. Is there going to be a Rainbow Runner G-Series made to work with the G450? Would a used PCI Marvel G200 TV card work? I'm not looking to spend a lot of money. $200 I think would be the limit. I only have a analog video camera. It has S-video out though. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Carl

[This_Idiot]

I'm not privy to G450 yet, but I don't believe that it supports RR-G.

There are alternatives available, the MiroDC10+ is currently available in North America from www.videoguys.com for just $99. Better still (a lot) the DC30+ costs $499 including Premiere 5.1 (and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a free upgrade to Prem6), TitleDeko (cool product) and Pixelan Spicerack video effects (plus other stuff)

The DC10+ is a good buy at that price.

Chris
(T_I)

[Dr Mordrid]

No. The G450 cannot handle a daughtercard like the RR-G as there is no feature connector. That's out.

A used PCI Marvel G200 *might* work if you set the mainboard BIOS up to use it as the primary display, but I'd ask Matrox Tech Support before banking on it. Win95 need not apply.

SoapBox_ON;

Matrox is missing the boat. They NEED, for competitive and practical reasons, to produce a simple hardware MJPeg PCI card akin the the RainbowRunner but without the need for a feature connector or Matrox display card.

Not everyone can afford an RT-2000 or have systems that can do the software compression offered by the eTV. Also those with other display cards now cannot even consider Matrox solutions.

It's called missing obvious sales opportunities. A card like this, done well, could be stocked and sold well in every Best Buy and Circuit City.

If a tiny company like Hauppage can pull it off....

SoapBox_OFF;

As for a <$200 solution the Studio DC10+ might just work as it has a hardware MJPeg codec and is reasonably priced. The hardware codec is a definite plus as about any current IDE drive will be plenty fast for it. It also has S-Video and composite I/O.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 21 March 2001).]

[cjyo~]

slap a firewire port on that imaginary card and you're in business...

[AmSci]

Problem with the DC10+ is that Pinnacle has stated that there are no plans for Win 2000 support.

[This_Idiot]

But we're talking about a "legacy" system here. Show me a hardware mjpeg card that DOES support win2K !

DV is great, but doesn't help capturing from analogue ya know ? Personally, for home video I'd recommend a fair DV camcorder (they run upwards of £600 sterling where we are), and either a good generic card such as the Pyro (there are loads cheaper, but plenty of the support is missing some), or for expensive but trouble-free experience, try a Canopus DVRaptor.

None of this falls in the sub $200 except the DC10+, and I have to admit that for analogue capture, simple editing with decent titles and FX, and then printing back to tape, this is a GOOD solution.

Yah pays yer money and yah takes yer choice, but in this sector there isn't a lot of choice to be spending yer money on !

[Dr Mordrid]

The only thing stopping hardware MJPeg from supporing Win2K is the absense of an SDK from Zoran that supports WDM/DirectShow. All they offer is VfW reference drivers, which means card makers are on their own.

Dr. Mordrid

[wkulecz]

A VfW driver working on W2K (like Hauppauge hs for its WinTV cards) for MJPEG would be adaquate. VirtualDub can capture with VfW drivers and appears to be able produce a >4GB openDML file. Clearly Matrox could download the source and see how its done and then make PC-VCR work that way too.

--wally.

[chunter2]

Thanks for the info. Is there anything like the RR-G that isn't tied to a specific video card. I guess an all in one without the video card would be nice.

[Dr Mordrid]

The WinTV isn't tied to a video card, but then its tuners quality is suspect.

Dr. Mordrid

[Biker]

Doc, ust had to say, I have an old PCI Win-TV card £59 GBP. AND the tuner quality is SO MUCH better than the Matrox G200 TV tuner. For whatever reason I know not !

------------------

[Dr Mordrid]

G200 yes, G400 and eTV....no. At least not in NTSC.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 23 March 2001).]

[dchip]

How much better is the tuner part of the G400 or eTV than G200TV? Like Biker, I did a comparison. I have another computer I've been playing with, and I put a very old ISA Happaugue WinV HiQ in it and hooked up my current monitor, and I must say, the tuner quality blows away my G200TV. It's so much crisper and brighter that I wish I had never compared the two.

One thing my G200 is, though, is an excellent video adapter. Rock-solid and easy on the eyes for long hours on the computer. I do wish there was some sort of update for it that would get me better TV out of it.

[AndrewDV]

Hi,

I just bought a machine that has a Hauppage WinTV-Radio in it. When compared to my other machine with the Marvel G400-TV, the Matrox side wins all the way. The WinTV card has lots of noise in it, s-video captures are only good at 320x240, but has a nice drver set.

[Dr Mordrid]

Yup. And the eTV is *that much* better than the G400-TV IMHO. It's got a very clean picture.

Dr. Mordrid