Questions on G400 and DVD/TV Out....

[Stez]

Hi guys, been a while since I was here last.. I used to be known as Slovideo, but can't reg that name anymore

Anyways, I currently have a 32Mb TNT2 with TV out on my 'play' machine, which has now become more of a DVD machine than a gaming machine. As with the old Mystake G200 I had some time back, it has the black border syndrome, which for desktop stuff is fine, but for games and DVD sucks. I have read and seen screenshots of the G400 running in overscan mode to fill out the screen properly, but after owning two G200's and operating the old Gtech website, I need feedback before I'll ever touch another Matrox product...

I connect my play computer only to PAL TVs, so if anyone can give me details of the card running on this rather than NTSC that would be great.

Anyhoo, here's my questions:

1. What is the quality of the picture quality like? (if it is as good as the Mystake G200 then it's better than any TNT2 offerings)

2. Does the Matrox Soft-DVD support DD 5.1 to 4 channel downmixing with a Diamond MX300 sound card?

3. Does the Matrox SoftDVD support Pan&Scan mode wihout the need for P&S vectors? (ie like PowerDVD 1.6+ does)

4. Can I use my own SoftDVD player and still use Fullscreen (overscan) TV output?

5. Can I boot without a monitor connected at all (just TV) and have the card automatically switch to TV mode? (the TNT2 does this, but the Mystake G200 had to be switched manually before you disconnected the monitor)

6. Are there any Screen adjustments on Powerdesk for TV out? ie: H & V position, H & V scaling etc.

7. How shit are the current Drivers? ie: what can I expect not to work.

8. Do I still have to change my drivers every week just to make 1 more game work, but 2 more games not work?

Thanks to all who answer, sorry for the attitude, but I've been here and done it all before...

Cheers,
Stez
(Slovideo)
(James from Gtech)

[Stez]

BTW - I noticed ppl whining coz they can't get max's etc.. For a change, it seems us guys in au have actually got the stuff!

There are 5 models all readily avaible here:
G400 SH 16Mb AU$260
G400 SH 32Mb AU$395
G400 DH 16Mb AU$290
G400 DH 32Mb AU$435
G400 DM 32Mb MAX AU$565

The prices will scare the pants off the yanks here tho...

I'll be looking at the 16Mb DH for DVD playback...

[Kruzin]

JAMES!

Long time no see, old timer

Did you know G-Tech is being resurected, under the o/c happy hands of Maggi and SteveC

Anyway...I can't give you too many specifics on your questions....I do use my Dualhead hooked up to a TV for DVD viewing (and it is sweet), but I have not tried without a monitor, and I am on NTSC. I'll answer the ones I can, and leave the others to those

[Stez]

Wow these forums are really screwed.. It says I've had 5 responses but I can only see 3 no matter how I try to refresh the page.. So this is just a test to see if it comes up

[Steve C]

Hi James,

I'll try to answer your question, but as with Kruzin - have nnever tried without a monitor...

1) Bloody good! I can only compare to what I've seen, but it's better than ATi's and SiS'.

2 & 3) Matrox no longer use SoftDVD - it's now Divicore's (or whatever they're called this week) DVD player - MUCH MUCH better than softDVD. It's the same as the cinemaster one.

4) Most probably. I say this because I've seen AVI's etc play on my 2nd output when DVDMAX was enabled and I didn't play them through Matrox' own player - I used things like Media Player.

5) Don't know.

6) Yes! You can adjust everything to make the picture fill the screen perfectly.

7 & 8) Look around these forums for that. They're not too bad AFAIK, but I haven't used the released ones lately... The next release should help matters a lot

Hope this helps, and yes, these forums are screwed.

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

All sorts of crap in my messy PC underneath a messy desk.
(ICQ: 29468849)

[pnkflyd51]

Strange. Both Kruzin and I posted longish answers last night (Kruzin had two posts, now only one show.)

They're gone! Okay, who is doing the censoring?!?!

[pnkflyd51]

I bet it's because this is article 2600.

Stop cracking now, whoever you are!

[agallag]

When I checked in here this morning, the forums were all screwy. Now they're back, but there are several threads with missing posts. The must have recovered an old backup to fix the problems...

[Stez2]

this sux.. Kruzins 1st post has been truncated, and at least 3 other posts have been deleted...

If this new username works I'll repost my lost message - if the others that lost messages as well could repost too that would be great!

[Stez2]

It seems that a few ppl didn't quite understand what I meant in Question 3:

3. Does the Matrox SoftDVD support Pan&Scan mode wihout the need for P&S vectors? (ie like PowerDVD 1.6+ does)

Pan & Scan is essentially 'zooming in' on wide aspect ratio titles. On 16:9 aspect movies it will zoom in enough to eliminate the top and bottom black borders, on 2.35:1 aspect title the borders will be reduced considerably. Basically this is what they have to do to master the movie for video tape. I'm sure that anyone who's ever watched a 2.35:1 title (on a normal TV) wished they could zoom in as the height of the picture ends up only around half screen.


The DVD standard allows for Pan&Scan vectors to be encoded during mastering, so that decoders will know what portion of the screen to zoom into - they can pan it left an right to ensure faces/objects etc stay in frame when 'zoomed in'. Unfortunantly, there is no (known) DVD titles that utilize Pan&Scan vectors.. (it is not a requirement of the standard, only optional).

Of the Software DVD decoders available, I only know of 2 that support Pan&Scan: WinDVD 1.75+ and PowerDVD 1.6+
WinDVD only supports P&S if the vectors are encoded onto the DVD during mastering - so is basically useless at this point in time, well until P&S vectors start being introduced into titles anyway..

PowerDVD has Software Pan&Scan which means that it can zoom in on any widescreen title, vectors or not. When you are zoomed in with PowerDVD you can click and drag your mouse left & right to pan across the horizon - very cool. If only PowerDVD didn't have such bad picture quality, and absolutely terrible sound quality...

If the Matrox Software DVD is based on the Cinemaster engine then it won't support this feature, neither will it do Dolby Digital 5.1 to 4 channel downmixing.. what a bummer.
Cinemaster is nice software, but WinDVD is (imho) the best overall package available... if only it did software P&S.....

[AdrianHensler]

Just a comment here: I have the Matrox zoom feature mapped to my F12 and my middle mouse button. I frequently use this in conjunction with my DVD player to zoom in and do my own pan and scan.
It is a fun feature.
---Adrian

[This message has been edited by AdrianHensler (edited 08-05-99).]

[Stez2]

Doesn't anyone else here watch DVD's with their G400's?

[rylan]

I am using the same DVD decoder engine that Matrox is supposed to use for the G400, namely the cinemaster engine. Currently I ma using the ATI plater ver 3.1 with cinemaster decoder rev 1.028 on a non ati card. This one _does_ have a pan-and-scan feature, while the player fromt he cinemaster site does not have it, which leads me to believe that the engine allows this, but it only needs to be implemented in the front end.
Anyway, the playback is very good.. I only wish it did 5.1 to 4 channel decoding for my SBlive. Also, anyone who actually has the player that came with the g400, what version is the cinemaster engine?

P.S. Does anyone have/know where I can get scinemaster decoder engine revs 1.029 or 1.030? I also have 1.032, but that version doesn't like my non-ati card. heheheh

[This message has been edited by rylan (edited 08-07-99).]