Marvel vs. Marvel

[JavaMan]

Hi Folks,

For a little over 2 years I was using a Matrox Marvel G200, and I was very happy with it. My biggest concern was video editing, and it really fit the bill.

Well, somehow I managed to short out the card and it's no longer working. My question is, should I seek to replace it with another G200, knowing that I'll be happy with it, or are the G400 and G450 equally safe bets? I can't seem to find the G200 for much less than the other two, so cost isn't really an issue. My biggest concern is whether the product line somehow got worse (it happens), and, although it's not crucial, I'd like to be able to utilize some mjpeg videos that were compressed by my now-defunct card. I'm also open to suggestions of any other sub-$300 cards that would meet my needs (in short, capturing analog video at full-quality and editing it with Adobe Premiere). Thanks for your input.

Mark Monroy
javaman@infosite.com

[Dr Mordrid]

Which is better depends on what you need to do with it.

G400-TV upside: if you want hardware MJPeg then the G400-TV is the pick. This also lets you capture full frame MJPeg video with a 300+ mhz system.

G400-TV downside: the hardware MJPeg is a bit short on quality. YUY2/PICVideo MJPeg captures need a patch on an older driver (for now) and another capture program (AVI_IO, VirtualDUB).

eTV upside: works very nicely for YUY2/PICVideo MJPeg etc. without driver patches (but still needs the alternate capture program) and can do MPEG-2 captures. Can do timeshifting (TiVo type function) and PIP. It's also a much smaller card and doesn't have that huge cable connected to the BOB.

eTV downside: needs 933mhz or better for those full frame MPEG-2 captures. No BOB.

If you're in NTSC land I feel the G450 eTV's tuner and output are cleaner than the G200/400's. Both have the HUGE advantage of the DVDMax mode which allows you to send about any video codec to the vidout.

Dr. Mordrid



[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 27 April 2001).]

[JavaMan]

One last question...does the G450 allow you to capture full-quality MJPEG on a 350mhz system?

Mark Monroy
javaman@infosite.com

[Dr Mordrid]

No, it would take a bit more than that using the software PICVideo MJPeg codec. It has no MJPeg codec of it's own. PICVideo runs $18 USD here;

http://www.jpg.com/video/mjpeg.htm

It'll do full frame with speed to burn using a 600mhz processor, which are going pretty cheap these days. A 350 will likely be a tad light.

Dr. Mordrid