Matrox "rebate" plan for Win2K/Marvel-RRG users

[This_Idiot]

OK Charles, I think we get the point. I'm not disagreeing with you, but you've repeated the same statement 4 times in the last hour or so.

[moreau]

BTW, what translation don't I want to know?

If the answer isn't PG rated, that you should probably email me

[moreau]

practice makes perfect.

squeaky wheel ...

for the record, this is my first real flame. I'm not really sure how it feels yet.
I ususally spend my time trying to be "the voice of reason" or at worst "devil's advocate" on groups like this. At least, when I'm not lurking.

Oh well. Having opinions always gets me in trouble. Just ask my wife. ;P

P.P.S. As far as what rebate, if any, I would partake of, I still don't know if matrox has deemed me "qualified" yet.

[This message has been edited by moreau (edited 18 June 2001).]

[This message has been edited by moreau (edited 18 June 2001).]

[sergiovalentino]

The only decent solution should be that to give us Marvel and RR users the possibility of using the vtools 2.02 with the Ligos Go-Motion Mpeg-2 enabled, not ask us to spend other money.

[Dr Mordrid]

Well...perhaps I was a bit loud, but I found the comments targeted and condescending. End of my contribution here...

Dr. Mordrid

[hapz]

Haig,

I don't know whether I should lough or cry. This is not an incentive, this is again a slap into the face of burned Matrox customers. I can buy an RT2500 for less retail than what Matrox considers a "rebate".

What Matrox should have done: visibly bleed. As an apology an good will.

Matrox, you are the weakest link.
Good bye.

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Harald

[theprophe1]

Well, this is typical, the best thing i can do, is take my business to another company and make sure that i spread the word about Matrox to as many people that will listen, adios matrox, it's been nice knowing you!

[sclark]

This rebate plan is a joke. Matrox will be making more money selling us replacements than selling through their distributors.

Check out these prices and compare them to the rebate offer:

http://www.pricewatch.com/

I can beat their entire “rebate plan" schemes on this site for full retail boxed product.

I can beat Matrox online for a G450 eTV by $50.00 including free shipping. Or how about a RT 2500 for $849.00 plus free shipping?

Thanks but no thanks Matrox! Now if you would allow me to trade my RRG for a G450 eTV for say $100.00 US, I would be interested since it is a useless piece of junk.


[This message has been edited by sclark (edited 19 June 2001).]

[Brian Ellis]

I'll come into this scrap a little late, but I do have a point I'd like to add.

I agree that the special offer should have been made at a price equal to that which Matrox sell to their wholesalers plus the extra cost of individual handling. This would have been less than general street price.

However, a number of companies making really low offer prices do not buy from Matrox or official wholesalers but from bankrupt stock at less than cost. Obviously Matrox cannot compete here. In the past, I bid for a load of 47 DOS WordPerfect boxes (pre-Corel) at a bankruptcy auction and got them for the equivalent of about $20 each. At the time, the street price was about $90 and I sold them for about $65 each (all bar one, which I used myself!). I made myself a small packet and my customers were happy saving $25 or thereabouts. The only guys who weren't happy were the official WP resellers!

So don't believe that the lowest prices offered on the Internet are necessarily higher than the Matrox cost price. In this particular case, I strongly suspect that this offer is a rip-off, but I cannot be categorical about it.

The other point that I should like to raise is that most of us with RRG/Marvel bought them in the pre-digital era. They worked fine for analogue capture and use with the native MJPEG hardware codec, initially with W95. We did have difficulties when W98 first came out, and this was not brilliant until 98SE came out. We survived this culture shock and most of us were content with our investment (apart from a very few like SebastianX). I, for one, have used my G-200 Marvel generally with satisfaction, despite the odd hiccup. I forget how much I paid for it (I think about GBP 180), but I consider my investment is amortised. Naturally, I am disappointed that the hardware support has ended but it is not the end of the world. What has upset me is not this fact, but the lack of psychology that Matrox has exhibited in this whole affair. Their arrogance really does take the cake and is typical of a company without any market research resources. They made a mistake, which can happen to anyone, then they compounded this one with another, and then another again. It really is incredible how they have escalated the errors to really rile everyone. It makes one think that they must use the same advisers as George W. and Ariel Sharon

My personal view is that I shall not take Matrox up on their offer: I'll continue using my Marvel as long as is feasible. When, for any reason, I can no longer use it, I'll hunt around the market to see what is available and make my choice accordingly. I'm not a type who MUST have the latest of everything but, when I do decide on something, I try to choose the best available. I have a dedicated computer for video work and it works very happily with W98SE and Marvel, with MSPro 6. Why should I even want to change anything for as long as this works, special offer (?) or not? When the moment does come, then my retentive memory will weight a decision against Matrox, not because they were unable to produce a solution to a problem, but because I would be afraid to believe them.

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Brian (the terrible)

[PurpleHaze]

I've had problems with my RR-G since day one. You can find some of my posts from more than a year ago about this thing. Matrox support was stumped.

Now they're basically telling us, "too bad -- we'll sell you one of our other products at the market price instead of the MSRP, though."

The least that Matrox could do is give us a replacement, i.e., the G450etv at *their cost* that way, no harm no foul, no loss no gain, and perhaps continuing customers.

What is it with marketing folks these days who don't understand that you have to keep customers? That making people want to come back and continue business with you is IMPORTANT? Today, all the slick hot marketing guys seem to think that all there is, is the here, the now, the price, the ledger, the immediate bottom line.

Matrox is sliding down into nothing, guys. The G550 is one of the most lukewarm cards on the market. And I don't see them releasing anything competitive anytime soon.

... And trust me. People here know, if anyone is still around, that I used to be a Matrox faithful...

------------------
Ami Y. Koriuchi - foxyviolet@hotmail.com
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Hello... my name is ami. and this is my signature.

[This message has been edited by PurpleHaze (edited 19 June 2001).]

[minsight]

I think this whole debacle is like going to a restaurant and finding a cockroach in your salad and the restaurant making it up to you by letting you have more salad at a discount.

[frogster]

good analogy minisight. but, i think it's more like ordering a steak, getting a plate without a steak, being promised the steak will come, then being told the steak won't come, and then being told you can order another steak for 5% off.

we are now one day away from the supposed release of partially working win2k drivers

is anyone planning on taking the day off tomorrow to install win2k and the new drivers? i was going to take off tomorrow, but i think i'll wait till thursday.

[Ansigod]

Great (and appropriate) analogies Minsight and Frogster!

I am confident that our friends at Matrox are going to either 1) miss the already postponed release date for the Win2k drivers and VTs or 2) puke up some half-assed drivers to spite us.

EDIT: typo in minsight's name

[This message has been edited by Ansigod (edited 19 June 2001).]

[zaz]

Quite frankly, this really does nothing for my opinion of matrox, other than show how poorly this entire fiasco has been managed, or rather NOT managed. As someone already pointed out on the matrox product "upgrades" offered, it basically brings the price down to street price resulting in no net benefit to the frustrated end user.

More importantly, in my opinion, it does NOT fix the real issues here. First matrox sabotaged the development of the drivers by moving many developers from the marvel driver development to rt-2000 development. They did this at a time when there were known bugs in the then available drivers that stopped many from being able to use those drivers. They then spend an inordinant amount of time unsuccessfully attempting to program around bugs/limitations with windoze to get the MJPEG part of the driver working.

Granted the more important bugged feature to me was the unsupported YUY2 capture, but matrox knew well and good that many were using this feature, that the feature was broken and that it was going to be a supported feature soon (at least in the 450+ series).

Marginally more importantly to me, matrox has decided that they cannot compete in the 3D world. The marginal increase in performance (as reviewed at Tom's Hardware) poorly serves those who need 3D for work or play, especially in light that it comes 1-2 years after the release of the G400 based chips.

I believe the driver issue is indicative of poor management of resources on matrox's part at least. I also believe the non-competitive 3D performance is at best short sighted as 3D features are being used in more applications everyday. And what the heck is this VOC stuff ? The descriptions at Tom's make it seem pretty useless and even if it is useful, a better 3D card will do the job better than a matrox card anyway.

I need to buy hardware from a company that supports their products and maintains a competitive stance in the market place. Matrox used to be a company like that and I used to both purchase many of their products and make recommendations to both friends and customers. Supporting their products requires a company to manage their resources properly and staying competitive in the market requires long term planning. I believe matrox has not managed the above issues well over the last 14 or so months and has lost their direction in deciding they cannot compete in the 3D market any more.

BTW, I haven't used MJPEG since shortly after getting my first Marvel G200 and can't ever remember using it with my Marvel G400s. Also, I don't expect to ever have w2k or xp installed on any system I own. My issues with matrox are purely as I described above.

[This_Idiot]

Hi Zaz,

Hope you're not taking my word for it that the lousy G-series VT development over the last year or so is due to the RT2000 development programme - I haven't heard anyone else making that connection, and it is unsubstantiated. That isn't to say that it's NOT true, but it's only a theory.

Chris
(This_Idiot)