G400 and DVD questions....

[CrazyBee]

Is the SoftDVD that comes with the G400 good?

Or, should i go for a DxR3 with drive and decoder board? I need to get a DVD drive anyways so i am wondering if I should go for the whole sha-bang or just the drive.

Thanks,

CB

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Abit BX6 Rev.1
Celeron 366A PPGA @ 550
320 meg RAM
13.0 gig HD
HP8110i and NEC 32x
SB Live! Retail
Internal IDE ZIP 100
Matrox G400 Max (soon to be)
Two KDS 17" Trinitron monitors

[maxie]

The SoftDVD doesnt work with any 5.x drivers. (haha)

Well, I bought the DVD-addon for my G200, and it is not bad, but I´m regretting my buy. The player that uses the hardware is not so good. I´m always using PoserDVD without any hardware-acc. and I think it is outstanding, PowerDVD is a great softwareplayer, lots of good features, and good picture-quality.
If PowerDVD had support for MAtrox Hardware decoder it would be great, but for now I am happy with only software decoding.

[Snake-Eyes]

Actually, the G400 doesn't use SoftDVD, unlike the G200s. Since I'm at work, I can't give you the name of the actual player used (it's relabelled as Matrox DVD Player, but the docs/setup use the original company/product name). And as for working with the 5.x drivers, mine is working right now with the 5.21 drivers, although I'm preparing to downgrade back to 5.13, due to slowdowns in the OpenGL performance of the newer drivers. I still expect no probs with the software DVD player.

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Ace

[LrngToFly]

The player that Matrox bundles is Software Cinemaster. Most people think it's the top or second best player.

[Brian R.]

I use the DXr3 decoder board with my MAX. I found the software which comes with the MAX looks great with one exception. I have found a periodic twitching when I view the output on my computer monitor. If I output to a TV, this is gone.

If your interested in the particulars, see http://forums.gagames.com/forums/For...ML/002603.html

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450 PIII @ 581 MHz, ABIT BX6-2 MB, G400 MAX, Diamond V2 SLI, Diamond MX300, CL Dxr3 Decoder, Adaptec AHA2940 w/uw SCSI, Supermicro SC750A, Win98SE

[tiqq]

Yes, I just sold my REALmagic Hollywood Plus !

tiqq

[IceStorm]

I've the G400 MAX, AND the Hollywood Plus (received both yesterday:

- The DVD playback proggie that comes with the G400 MAX outputs ONLY to the primary display, but that output is quite sharp. Watched some of Bubblegum Crisis and Payback on it. If you're web surfing on the second head, you'll see a twich, but when I look at it head-on, that went away...

- The Hollywood Plus DOESN'T like the G400 when in multi-monitor. The video comes through, but it's not exactly in the right place, or viewable. Without multi-monitor (with my Millennium II operating as the secondary display adapter), DVD playback via the Hollywood is fine on the first display. Again, it won't go to the second display (working on that).

- I want the Hollywood working because of the region and Macrovision overrides. I don't have a TV, so my video routes through a VCR to a composite monitor, hence the need for Macrovision deprotection. That's not an option on the G400, and even if it were, I need the second output for my second monitor, not a TV. Plus, with the Hollywood, you get your .wav sound channels back, so you can theoretically game while watching a movie (the driving force behind my DVD/G400 purchases).

Just my $0.02




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Primary System: PIII-540 (450@4.5x120), Soyo 6BA+ III, 256MB PC100 ECC SDRAM, Millennium G200 AGP, Millennium II, Voodoo2 SLI, Two Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 900u monitors, 3Com 3C905, SoundBlaster 32, Altec Lansing AC5 spkrs, 2nd Parallel Port, WD AC41800 18GB HD, WD AC310100 10GB HD, Toshiba XM-6102b CD-ROM, HP 8100i CD-RW, Epson Stylus Pro, Sharp JX-9400 LJ-II compatible, OptiUPS PowerES 650, MS SideWinder Precision Pro USB joystick, Logitech 3-button mouse, Mitsumi keyboard, Win98 SE, Belkin OmniCube 4-port KVM

Secondary System: PII-266, Asus P2B BIOS 1008, 128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM, Millennium II, 3Com 3C590, ADSL Modem 640kbit down/90kbit up, 3Com 3C509, Mylex BT-930 SCSI card, Seagate 2GB Hawk, NEC 6x CD-ROM, Linux distro S.u.S.E. 6.1 (IP Masquerade works!)

Tertiary System: DFI G568IPC Intel 430HX chipset, P200MMX, 96MB of non-parity RAM, Millennium II, 3Com 3C900, SoundBlaster 16 MCD, Fujitsu 3.5GB HD, WD 1.2GB HD, OS of the week

All specs subject to change.

[Pelle]

The Region Selector 1.97 does not work for me ... he apllies the changes, but when reopening the Matrox-DVD control-panel, nothing has been changed there.

Oh, and my H+ and G400 Max don't work together at all. As soon as I connect the loop-through, the picture gets distoreted and everything crashes.

[Thorn]

It runs fine and beautiful on my system (C567 & G400MAX). I'm very pleased with the monitor and TV-out quality. Lets me put off buying a stand-alone DVD player for a few more months.

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[Pelle]

But with the Hollywood +, region check and copyprotection can be disabled. I haven't seen anything like this for the G400, which is pretty anoying, since I have to connect the DVD-Out to my VCR - which means that everthing is scrambled.

[Gurm]

Just download the DVD Region Selector. In the Cinemaster section, they have region code changes as well as a whole host of other shtuff...

- Gurm

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G. U. R. M. It's not hard to spell, is it? Then don't screw it up!
The word "Gurm" is in no way Copyright 1999 Jorden van der Elst.