little poll question

[Michel Carleer]

Should we care so much about W2K support? Isn't W2K dead already? The Matrox VfW driver and VT seem to work properly in WXP. At least with the Marvel G400.
Michka

[Sasq]

The problem there Michka (and yes I do own a legal copy of Win2k) is that many of us will not be upgrading to xp for some time - I personally don't have a few spare hundred $$ to do so. We've been waiting for this fix for some time.
Mjpeg isn't really a problem for me - stable drivers are.

I just hope M can restore some semblance of my belief in them.

Dan

[Flying dutchman]

Isn't it funny? The RR-G and Marvel G200/G400 have been around for a few years now so you might believe that Matrox' technicians have some experience with its hardware. They should know it inside out.

And now, all of a sudden, the complexity of creating Windows 2000 drivers for this tried-and-tested hardware is too high? Hey Matrox, if you can't even get it working on a platform you know everything about, do you really want us to believe that you're gonna produce decent drivers for something NEW (such as the Marvel G 450 etc)??? Or are you going to ship them with alpha drivers?

Windows 2000 has been around for over a year now. The beta versions have been around for almost TWO years. Fact is, the Win2k drivers could have been released twelve months ago if Matrox had done their homework.

My best guess is, they are not going to release new drivers because it's a marketing issue. They want you to "upgrade" to a Marvel G450. But why the heck should we upgrade? A Geforce runs circles around a G450. The capturing hardware is none better than a Marvel G200/G400. The only compelling reason to upgrade would be that the damn thing WORKS under Windows 2000!

I for one am not going to do them that favour. If they drop software support for the G200/G400, I am going to sell mine cheap (thus preventing some other poor soul to fall into the G450 trap) and buy something else! I am seriously contemplating a Geforce/WinTV combination now.

[jeff b]

Well, Doc, I guess the simplicity of the situation is just too subtle for mass consumption, despite your eloquent synopsis.

Jeff B

[IM_Riktar]

So in light of any new drivers coming down the pike and since I am using the YUY2/Huffy capture is there any good reason to shell out more money for a "new and (Cough) improved" G450 eTV?

Since My captures are working well as they stand I can't see any reason to.

Maybe this marketing move may bite em' in the butt. Probably not since the OEM stuff is where the big bucks are.

Then again, Why the stink did they ever get into this technically challenging area of consumer video? I dunno but thanks for the effort Matrox, and damn you for your marketing decisions.

Of course I must shoulder some of the blame since I have been shelling out with the rest of the cattle every time something new and shiny comes down the pike. And until the masses band together and say ENOUGH it will continue.

Hey Coolfish, I haven't heard anyone tell someone else to "get bent" since (long ago) high school. That brought a smile to my face. I needed that.

[Ansigod]

I just noticed that the Shugashack has a little blurb on their page about this issue, and they even throw a link back over here for "community reaction."

http://www.shacknews.com

heh, great title for the blurb, too.

[Dr Mordrid]

Jeff B;

Yup. I thought I made it clear enough for most folks to understand, techie or not.

I guess some either didn't take the time to read it or they are so hung up on blaming Matrox alone for the problem that they can't see the forest for the trees.

Oh Well....let's try it another way;

If anyone thinks Matrox & the beta teams have been sitting on their hands over the Win2K driver issue, they need their attitude seriously re-adjusted. Matrox's programmers, the project managers and the betatesters ALL tried like HELL to get this to work.

There has been beta build after build after build after build over the last couple of years trying to iron out the problems with the Win2K beta drivers. Each build required literally hundreds of hours of testing before the next build was coded. It just didn't work, but it sure as hell wasn't for lack of trying.

If anyone thinks that I'll meet 'em behind the bar anytime....

It didn't work because of fundamental problems with the MJPeg hardware and the broken portions of the Win2K operating system. That's IT. Matrox & co. cannot re-do the Zoran chipsets microcode and they certainly cannot rewrite the broken parts of Win2K that affect VfW translation.

At least give those involved in the attempt credit for trying in the first place, dammit.

Dr. Mordrid

[Ansigod]

Indeed, all people who honestly tried to get this lame duck off of the ground really deserve credit.

However, the way that this situation was handled really stinks. When was it that the team realized that MJPEG was going to be overly difficult to implement? When was it decided that MJPEG wasn't going to work at all? Why wait until the very day of the self-imposed deadline to call it off and announce it? It all sounds very shady.

I can live without the MJPEG support. I am, however, finding it hard to swallow that it's going to take another three weeks to get the other stuff (mentioned in Haig's post) working. With MJPEG being the uncooperative monster, why weren't the multitude of other fixes ready for release today???

[coolfish]

You know, telling people you're going to move a mountain and then go at it with shovels doesn't impress me, at all. OK Doc, let's say they tried like hell. Who cares, if all the effort was a waste of time in the first place? If it was an impossible task, they should have said so in the FIRST PLACE, instead of telling people "yeah, it'll be here in a while.."

This is a basic problem in ALL softare development - in large companies, only 9% of software projects actually succeed. (http://standishgroup.com/visitor/chaos.htm)

How do you avoid this? Well, let's try a little something called RISK MANAGEMENT...
(http://www.sdmagazine.com/articles/2001/0104/0104g/0104g.htm?topic=ppm). If it was going to be HIGHLY UNLIKELY to get drivers for Win2k going because of "SUBCONTRACTOR DIFFICULTY" (see my other post about passing the buck) then they should have realized this 2 hrs into a RISK ASSESSMENT.

Good grief!

[frogster]

This whole zoran chipset thing is a load of crap.
I didn't pay $300 because I wanted Matrox to try really, really hard. I paid $300 because Matrox said they were releasing win2k drivers in May. They failed. Fine, nice try. But, I want my money back.

I have no sympathy for Matrox. They got a lot of money from people who bought cards based on them stating they'd get working win2k drivers.

[Greebe]

Coolfish, Matrox also was told by M$ that certain bugs would be resolved in an SP update. Then they doubled back on their word to you, me and the rest of the entire planet. Pull your head out and smell the roses.

[Dr Mordrid]

1. Hauppage's drivers will work because they are only using YUV capture. Remember the problem has two aspects, the major one being the lack of DS support from Zoran, the other being related to Win2K itself.

2. When Matrox said they would be out in May they really meant it, but bugs arose that couldn't be swatted. Would you have preferred they release the drivers WITH those bugs?

3. I'm assuming your complaint about "risk management" comes with a provision providing them with a time machine with which they could have forseen the problems with Win2K and Zoran MJPeg?

4. As far as a "risk assessment" goes, part of that would be dependent on PROPER information from Microsoft as to the status of their WDM-to-VfW layer. Since day one M$ has been promising this would be fixed. Now they claim XP is the "multimedia OS" of the future.

So much for a timely, and free, fix in Win2K.....

Dr. Mordrid



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

[frogster]

they didn't just find out about the zoran chipset and lack of support from zoran.

i emailed matrox and told them i would wait another month if they were not sure about the win2k support for the g400tv.

i would have liked for them to have honestly responded saying that they were encountering some difficulties but "hoped" to have drivers out by may. i would have held off and bought the 450etv.

i, like many other users, bought the card to use in win2k, installed in win2k with the beta drivers (didn't work), and installed 98 to use the card temporarily until may.

i've seen numerous posts about how the hardware capture wasn't all that good anyway and a fast processor will let you capture at higher resolutions. but, the big benefit of the hardware capture was that you could be capturing tv shows or whatever and still use your computer for other things. the hardware capture uses such a small amount of CPU power. furthermore, the hardware encoder on the g400tv provided far superior results than other hardware encoders. this loss of support in win2k dramatically reduces the value of this card.

[Ansigod]

Nobody seems to be brave enough to acknowledge and address the fact that DualHead and software capture STILL don't work with these cards under Win2k. I'm looking for a valid defense of this from Matrox or its defenders on this forum.....

...

...still waiting.

[hapz]

So, what are we supposed to do? Hang on to Win98 forever? No way.

If I understand Haig correctly, there will be no YUV support either. The only option that seems to be supported is RGB, something that did not get recommendations in this forum in the past.

Does this mean that I have to dump RRG? What other options are there?

RT2500 from Matrox? That would be an even more expensive test endeavor. Does thiat card work under Win2k and will it work under XP?

Maybe I should get an analog/DV converter like Dazzle Hollywood DV after all, do all editing in DV and just forget about the Matrox betrayal?

------------------
Harald