What is a good video-editing card??

[Danfoss]

hi, i know this question isn't really matrox-related, but i think you all would know the answer.

A friend of mine is going to buy a new computer, and he is going to use it mostly for video-editing. At the store he was advised to buy a 3dfx 3500 TV AGP, is this a good choice? he is a complete newbie on computers and video-editing on computer so he doesn't need a very expensive video-capture card (not yet :-).

so is that card good for beginners and is the quality good? if not any advice?

Thanks in advance...

Dan.

[RoGuE]

AARRRRGH NO DON'T DO IT!!

I recently purchased a V3 3500TV (don't laugh) due to the fact it could capture MPEG-2 using the Ligos GoMotion codec. To cut a long story short the card is CRAP, the MPEG-2 quality and the lip-sync is so bad it has to be seen to be believed!

I e-mailed Ligos regarding the quality and they replied as follows:
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Chris,

Thanks for the feedback. We were well into implementation of this relationship before we discovered that the hardware would have serious problems that would not be corrected in this release. Remember, this was during the 3dfx acquisition of STB and no one was clear on specs, etc. We debated withdrawing from the relationship until the issues were corrected for exactly the reasons you point out, but decided to move forward based on 3dfx's promise that the problems would be corrected in the next release of the product.

The best implementation of GoMotion is on the ATI AiW128 Pro. We can't publicize this, but one subtle hint is the fact that we don't promote our relationship with 3dfx at all (no press release, no mention of the Voodoo 3500 on our site). I apologize for the inconvenience and hope that your dealer will consent to exchange the Voodoo for the AiW...

Thanks for the support.

Peter Forman
President & CEO
Ligos Corporation
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aka Chris H

[This message has been edited by RoGuE (edited 09-28-1999).]

[Elie]

Hi,

Buying a NLE card can be a bit hard these days because every company advertises video capturing yet fail to specify whether it's hardware or software.
ATI does not have any experience in the NLE world therefor you cannot depend on them for anything.
3DFX is a gaming card ONLY and a TV out video editing wanna be.

Matrox however have been in the buisiness for a very long time developing high end broadcast quality NLE cards like the DigiSuite Pro and LE.
Now Matrox developed the RR-G and now the Marvel G400 TV with excellent video quality and complete editing solution all in hardware so your CPU is free for other tasks, just check out http://www.matrox.com/mga/home.htm
and see what they have to offer.

Good Luck,
Elie


[This message has been edited by Elie (edited 09-28-1999).]

[This_Idiot]

Elie, are we getting a bit partisan here ? One would almost assume that this is a Matrox-only site

I tend to agree that Matrox have the leap on the rest (except for Miro/Pinnacle who are far more expensive for a similar performance level), but the last couple of months have been a free-for-all.

As has been said, the main thing at the moment is looking at what is NOT said rather than what IS said.

Call me suspicious if you like.....