New Drivers for Marvel G400-TV

[Tony De Battista]

Hi all, This is my first post in this forum but I have been watching for a while now. I have been using my marvel 400 for a little over a year now and I must say that when I got it , I had a great time. Lots of fun and really useful. But along comes Win2k and all of a sudden I hear from this forum that Matrox might not fix up the Beta for 2000. Well I had a cold chill go down my spine. Why would I, a consumer, keep buying products from a company that doesn't support their products for the largest operating system in the world. You can't walk away from your customers or it will bite you back later. If this is the case there is no way in the world I could possibly buy another Matrox card. It just doesn't make sense... Please tell me it is not true. The beta drivers at present are terrible so I hope they have some pretty good answers. I spent over 700 aussie dollars on this card...tell me I can use it with win2k and not just as a television?

Matrox,,,,, if you are out there, can we have an answer??

[Ansigod]

If the RR-G won't work on future G-series cards, then doesn't that make the RR-G's name contradictory? Matrox should just change the designation of it's future line of products.

I'm awaiting confirmation on the VT's future before I pass judgement. I've been waiting EAGERLY and patiently for the Win2k VTs, and for a company with such great products as Matrox to waste my time and throw my investment away would be very disappointing and unprofessional, to say the least.

Any posts in the MGA forums suggesting a consumer wait for the Win2k tools is a good sign...

[Ant]

The issue of future support for the RR-G arose when the G450 appeared with no support and as far as I recall the response from Matrox when I asked was that the G400 was the end of the line for the RR-G.

I've contacted Matrox and asked for an official statement on the Video Tools issue.

[BryceMan]

This REALLY pisses me off... I just sent off an email to every address I could find on Matrox's site. How do they expect to maintain a customer base with decisions like this? When I buy a $150 product, I want to be able to use it for a few years, and with ALL standard operating systems!

It's thinks like this that really make me wish that Matrox was a public company. At least then they might have a sense of responsibility to their customers.

[This message has been edited by BryceMan (edited 30 May 2001).]

[BryceMan]

Full Text of my message:

I've just heard that you are dropping support of the G400 Marvel / Rainbow
Runner G-Series for Win2k. Please tell me this isn't true. If you have
really discontinued development of Video Tools for new (better) operating
systems, then you have made the worst possible decision. This kind of
decision will lose you your loyal user base. Believe me, if you don't
support recent products in Windows 2000, which all Microsoft users are
migrating to, you will lose customer support. I have been a diehard Matrox
fan for years and own a G400 w/ a Rainbow Runner. But if this is really
true, then you have lost me as a customer. I have been eagerly awaiting a
new graphics card from you that performs better in games. The only thing
keeping me from switching brands was the Rainbow Runner Card, which I love.
But I haven't even been able to get it working in Windows 2000 with your
beta video tools, and I'm a computer geek. Everyone I've seen on the
Desktop Video forum at MURC has said not to even try to get them working
because they are complete garbage. If these are what you're leaving me,
then you have really lost me and I believe a lot of other customers.
Furthermore, this lack of support makes me want my money back. These are
the kinds of decisions that transform loyal Matrox fans into Matrox haters.
If your management is really making these kinds of decisions, then I suggest
that you all start looking for new jobs, because under that kind of
management, Matrox will die.

A once loyal customer,
Bryce Schober.

P.S. I've included all your emails that I could find at your site in the
hope that I could contact someone with a functional brain that could make a
difference.



[This message has been edited by BryceMan (edited 30 May 2001).]

[BryceMan]

And for your convenience, the list of emails:

customerservice@matrox.com; mediarel@matrox.com; alison.lo@matrox.com; crystal.chan@matrox.com; Press_SEE@matrox.com; Press_CNE@matrox.com; graphic.press.uk@matrox.com; vincent.creste@matrox.com; Devrel@matrox.com; tech.asiapac@matrox.com; graphic.info.uk@matrox.com; Matrox.France@Matrox.Com; Info-CentralEurope@matrox.com; Info-NorthernEurope@matrox.com; Info-EasternEurope@matrox.com; 3Gelectronics@treg.it; usacustomerservice@shopmatrox.com; canadacustomerservice@shopmatrox.com; europecustomerservice@shop.matrox.com; customerserviceonline@shop.matrox.com; webmasteronline@shopmatrox.com; CustomerFeedback@shopmatrox.com; graphic.tech.uk@matrox.com; TechnischerSupport@matrox.com; TechnicalSupport.NE@matrox.com; TechnicalSupport.EE@matrox.com; supporto.3G@treg.it; webmaster@matrox.com

[ScottMillar]

i feel raped over this issue, i spent $300 last summer on one of these cards (one weeks wages) i've waited and waited earlier this year i heard that they would be releasing drivers at the end of May well it's the end of may and there is no sign of them, just rumors that the support under w2k will be dropped. I may rip this card out my PC crap on it and mail it to matrox's director or something like that. i'm very pissed off. this will be my first and last purchase if matrox do not deliver.

[matroxg200]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by BryceMan:
[B]This REALLY pisses me off... I just sent off an email to every address I could find on Matrox's site. How do they expect to maintain a customer base with decisions like this?

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

They don't care about end users, they want to sell their products in very big quantities to computer makers/builders.
I just hope they will release (but I'm almost sure they will not) the specs of the RRG's so we can write a good linux driver.

[moreau]

I guess this wouldn't bother me, except that the RR-G is still being sold. In a very real sense, win98 and WinNT4 are obselete, as they have been superceded by newer OS's.

It is really a bad business to continue to sell a card that requires you to "downgrade" your OS.

Charles

[John Wray]

This has an eerie similarity to something I went through with another (also Canadian) peripheral manufacturer several years back. Like Matrox, they had a unique hardware product, like Matrox they were always extremely late with driver releases, and like Matrox they had an extremely loyal user
base.

The move from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 (a similar move to Win9x->Win2K)proved to be their undoing. Nearly a year after the release of Win95, they finally released beta drivers. After that nothing except promises for months, then a sudden announcement that the company was moving out of the entire market segment, and that the beta drivers were all that would ever be available for Win 95.

That company was Advanced Gravis, one-time maker of hardware wave-table sound cards. Few of their previously loyal customers will ever buy another product with the Gravis name on it. I just hope that Matrox is not
intent on following in their footsteps.

John

[areia]

Really, this is too much for me... I'm still stuck with a g400 vanilla and a RRG under w2k because of that statement that new VT would come out at the end of this month; I have a capture card with an year and it doesn't work with the most popular OS in the market, w2k, what does matrox expects this clients do? Have confidence in a company with this comercial policy? Naaaaa.... I believe that without decent support for an year old product under W2K matrox costumers like me won't be anymore with matrox, it's too much this waiting for nothing. MATROX, try to sell your hardware wherever you want but this guys here, without a proper job from you will be quiting your products.

[stevenscott]

I understand the total alarm the W2k Marvel users are going through about drivers, but there are the people that use Win98 and are waiting for our NEW drivers, but have been thrown into the W2K driver outrage. I am going out on a limb and saying, hey are we getting our Win98, Marvel G400 NEW drivers? As promised, from the very, very get-go. While i have kept up a bit on almost all drivers, but since I do not use W2K, I am not sure when they built and sold the Marvel G400, if it was marketed as a card for all OS's, but Win98 is probably the most used PC system anywhere. And I will use it for at least 2 more years. While not ment to be confrontasional (sp?), our Win98 users are here too, and we are in line, with reservations, and some in Tux's.

[mikiem]

Thanks Steven!

There is -- has been an awful lot of concentration on win2k here, despite the fact that it is not setting the world on it's ear as an OS (well maybe literally -- if that's the way they fall).

Fact is, for I imagine millions of folks, the only way they can use *all* of their hardware is in win98 or ME. If this wasn't a problem, why is it addressed so heavily by XP? And why would anyone upgrade today knowing that a few months down the road everything's gonna be XP?

At any rate, there have been advances to win98 (&SE), with DX8 for example, that were often required installs... The current supported, Matrox listed software does not (cannot) work as well with the updated OS.

I really do hope that Matrox does support it's customers. I don't make the distinction as elsewhere about anything but the RT's being lowend, because I've not seen any examples of a company that successfully singled out which customers to support solely based on the dollar value of their product (not service) purchase.

I realize I might make more of this threat hanging over our heads then some, but I feel that it's because I've lost thousand's over the years when companies didn't support their products, & I was really thrilled to find that Matrox was in the past at least different.

On a kinder note, I hope they listen to all these posts, because if they do alienate this community, they really don't have much to offer, & I'd hate to see them hurt. I mean, let's face it -- without getting into a shouting war, compare the specs and prices on anything Matrox with everything else out there.

[This_Idiot]

Well be sure that the more traffic that passes throught these forums, the more seriously we'll be taken by Matrox

In reality, the vast majority of G200 users will NOT be using W2K. There are certainly more G400 users that will be, but I've no doubt that many of them will already have cottoned onto the techniques of capturing via software compression and directing the datastream to an appropriate software codec.

I don't envisage Matrox giving out details of how to achieve this, so it would be a good time to tune in to the MURC and DTVW to pick up hints from the experts !

[stevenscott]

Debbie,
It appears the W2K people will keep their flame burning in the Win98 threads. People, these are 2 seperate OS's. Please don't take the Win98 people down with you. We are with you, but we did not invest in W2K. (sorry if any choice of words was not perfect, but trying to get a point accross here).



[This message has been edited by stevenscott (edited 31 May 2001).]