What are the disappointed replacing their matrox gear with ?

[zaz]

Has anyone given this much thought ? What are you going to replace your matrox cards with to get that 3D performance you want and supported video capturing hardware ?

I haven't had time to look into this much myself. I would accept several different configurations including using a secondary card to provide the video capture or even 3D ala the old voodoo cards.

I do need it to work with MSP 6 and provide some sort of YUV/YUY2 raw input for MPEG captures and uncompressed editing via Huffy or other lossless encoding. I'd like to see the 3D performance competitive with the current nvidia releases and, since I run linux most of the time, need 2D and 3D linux drivers available (not a problem for nvidia based cards).

Use of the video capture/output side under linux is nice, but not necessary. As far as windoze goes, 98SE is what I've got and don't plan on changing it anytime in the near future. Oh, yeah, I need something from a company that releases drivers more than once every 14 months when the currently released drivers have known problems and limitations.

I want this information for myself as well as for some friends asking me for recommendations as they are just getting into video editing and do spend a good deal of time with 3D games as I do.

[Uwe]

Hi Zaz,

well I have to admit that I like my Marvel G400 and the G450 eTV very much.

For me it is not important that there will be no more support for some old-fashioned Zoran chips, because I have used software MJPG-codecs like the Morgan-codec for years now in different OS with great success.

So I only would replace my G400/G450 with a G550, G800 or G1200XL.

Bye, Uwe.

[This_Idiot]

Hi Uwe

What are those G800 and G1200's like ? Worth saving up for ?

Cheers

Chris
(T_I)

[coolfish]

Replaced my Matrox RRG with a Hauppage WinTV. It's much better. Matrox is poop.

coolfish

[frankie]

what software do you use to capture in win2k, and what codec do you use coolfish?

[This message has been edited by frankie (edited 13 June 2001).]

[Flying dutchman]

Coolfish, I'm probably going the same way.

One question though; does the WinTV offer overlays of some kind? How does it transfer the image into the memory of the graphics card, if not over the PCI/AGP bus?

My concern is that this will gobble-up a lot of PCI bandwidth and cause dropouts...

[Flying dutchman]

One more question, coolfish, what's the maximum resolution it will capture? Can it cope with 704x576 (PAL) ?

[Uwe]

Hi Chris,

did you never hear of the new Matrox flagship Marvel G1200XL ????

This will be the start of a very new generation of multimedia-cards at all !

It will be a 3D-AGP card with integrated sound-DSP, MPEG2/4-hardware de/encoder, Firewire+analogue IO and the brand new DCSvAP combined with a Athlon CPU.

You know that one benefit of a AGP graphics card is its direct memory access via the AGP-port. The DCSvAP (Dual CPU Support via AGP Protocol) is an AGP-protocol enhancement which allows an additional CPU located at the graphics-card to use the memory of the mainboard too.
Therefore you will get the complete advantages of a dual-processor mainboard with your old single CPU mainboard combined with a Marvel G1200XL.

With the softload-feature you can for example load compression-codecs like DivX, Morgan or PIC in the memory of the graphics card, where the onboard Athlon CPU performs the realtime compression of the video-stream.
This way the software-compression of any codec which is done by the graphics-card now looks like a hardware-compression for the main-system.

I really look forward to this card !

Bye, Uwe

[dhopkins]

Keeping the Marvel 400 for now as a 2d/3d card. (I only play Counterstrike so i dont need anything more powerful)

I just installed a Pyro Pro to capture with. I'd been wanting to go full DV for a while now anyway. I boot into 98 and use the Marvel if i need to get a clip from VHS.

My next 2d/3d card will be the one with the most mature drivers at the time of purchase. I dont trust any company to 'fix' their drivers at a later date.

D

[This_Idiot]

Uwe,

Can't wait to try one. I think I'll try sneaking in as a beta tester under an assumed name.

Back to Zaz's original query. I don't do very much gaming, so having the fastest 3D card around isn't high on my priority list. Currently I'm using a G450eTV in my testbed machine (must get around to writing that review), and an Nvidia GeForce2 MX on this machine alongside a DC30+.

[smanzo]

Decided to try out a Radeon SDR on my Win2k box, but the damn thing would freeze on closing any window (complete system lock, no blue screen). Considering my systems been problem free for months, I wasn't too happy with the Radeon. Now I just have to find a local mom'n'pop who'll let me test drive a Radeon LE and a Kyro II without whacking me with restocking fees...

That, plus I would miss DualHead

[jeepman]

I am just gonna take the plunge and get an I-Mac and run FCP on it. Based on my system stats below, it will probably free up time to actually do video work instead of loading the 4 in 1 driver of the day.

/Humor off

------------------
ASUS A7V133, 384MB CL2 Crucial PC133, "Copper" Athlon 1.3GHz@1.43GHz (8*143, GlobalWin FOP38 with Delta 7000 RPM 38CFM fan. AIW Radeon, 3COM 905B NIC, Adaptec 2940UW Ultra-Wide SCSI, SBLive PCI 1024. Segate Medalist PRO 9.1GB UW SCSI 7200RPM, Seagate Barracuda 4.3GB UW SCSI 7200RPM, Maxtor 20.4GB ATA66 7200RPM 2MB Cache, 8GB tape b/u, Sony IDE Spressa 8x/4x/32x CDROM RW, RAID 0 stripe set on Promise ATA100 with dual Quantum Fireball Plus LM 30GB ATA66 drives.

[jeff b]

I dropped out of the Matrox rat-race about a year and a half ago, and went all DV with a cheap 1394 card as soon as Ulead got their asses in gear with VideoStudio and MSP6.

A funny thing happened after I divorced my computer from Matrox products: no more crap-outs, no more "special configuration" tips and tweaks to hunt down and use, and no more spending every day scouring bbs's like this to see if something has finally been released to "fix the problems".

Capturing, Editing, and playing back DV on a PC is such a piece of cake!

Jeff B

[zaz]

I just looked at WinTV and it appears that the highest resolution of video capture is 320x240. This isn't good enough for what I want.

In the past, I've stayed away from pinnacle after NOT enjoying my experience with their dazzle, but I did go over to their web site today and checked out their DC line of products. It appears that the CD-30+ is now only available for the Mac and the windoze/PC option would be the DC-30Pro or possibly the CD-50.

How do people like their pinnacle analog products today ? Do they play well with AVI_IO, MSP 6.0, Huffy, etc. ?

[cyberhof]

ATT: Flying dutchman!

Yes the maximum resolution it captures is 704x576 for PAL...

Here is a little bit of data takend from there webbsite:

MPEG capture specifications:

MPEG1 capture at 1152KB/sec (video CD data rate)
MPEG2 capture rates: 2MBit/sec, 4MBit/sec, 6Mbit/sec, 8Mbit/sec, 12Mbit/sec
NTSC format at 29.97fps: Full D1: 704x480, Half D1: 352x480, MPEG1: 352x240
PAL format at 25fps: Full D1: 704x576, Half D1: 352x576, MPEG1: 352x288
Audio sampling: 32, 44.1, 48 KHz
Chroma sampling: YUV 4:2:2
Video file format: .MPG
MPEG file tested compatible with: MediaStudio 6.0

More info on this card here:
http://www.hauppauge.com/html/wintvpvr_datasheet.htm

I'm thinking of bying this little card myself

Regards

Cyberhof