DVD and Matrox, What do YOU have?

[Luna-77]

Help!
Decoder MPEG2 Ct7160 does not work (TV-out) with Matrox Millenium G200!

Computer:
Motherboard VIA MVP3
K6-2-350
64 Mb
Quantum EX3.2
Yamaha 724 PCI
Matrox Millenium G200 AGP

Help!

[ChickenSoup]

Well I don't know what the ct7160 is but I can tell you what the best decoder card out there is, hands down. The RealMagic Hollywood plus is by far the best decoder to date. It uses an external Passthrough overlay cable so It would connect kind of like a voodoo2. The Dxr3 from creative is a Hollywood Plus with creative's own software so you would get the same product. Also because of the External overlay is Is compatible with almost any video card.

A note on software decoding:
The software decoding does look great for picture qualitiy but my one problem is that I need a Digital output for my Cambridge Soundworks DTT2500 Digital 5.1 sound system. I mean, come on, what is good DVD without digital sound???

[SiRiO_KD]

Here:

Matrox G400 DH 16Mb connected with RGB cable
Toshiba DVD SD-M1302 8X/40X
SBLive!

All works perfectly.

Either with DVDMAX (Cinemaster engine upgraded to 1.032.xxx version) i record DVDs to VHS TAPE without MACROVISION signal.
Maybe my VCR (Thomson VPH 6751) is MACROVISION disabled?


cya.

[adamhamilton]

G400Max
Hitachi GD-2500BX (6x) works great - very nice quiet drive.
Sony PAL/NTSC TV, great picture except for the damn overscan!

[SteveC]

ct7160 sounds creative-ey to me - Luna-77, what's the brand name of the DVD decoder you're using?
Also, have you tried the latest drivers, and if so, tried going back a few revisions?

Backing up Chickensoup - the Hollywood is a great card if your PC is lacking in processing power/graphics a bit. I stuck one in my dad's Cyrix (noo!!) 233MX which has an original Mystique-170 (with RR-studio) and it works absolutely perfectly!

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Cheers,
Steve

"The chances of anything coming from Mars, are a million-to-one", he said.

[Luna-77]

I have only CT7160 (Creative). Me interests, works with it G200 whether or not. It may a general problem...

[Justin]

I have a 10x/40x Pioneer 104 slot loading, it's a dream. I use PowerDVD 2.5 for decoding and the results are about as good as a mid-range Sony (since I have one to compare it to). With the SB Live Platinum! you can get great digital output as well. I have a P3-500, which is more than enough for software decoding. I live in a dorm room and use the G400 TV out to go to a large TV in another room (I use old BNC cable with attached RCA converters for this purpose).

I had bad experiences with the Dxr3...It refused to work at all for me. And the worst of all is that the digital overlay won't work, meaning you have to use a passthrough, but the passthrough only supports up to 85hz at 1024x768 which left me SOL.

A question that I have...has anyone used the S-Video out on the G400? Does it result in a noticeable difference from the vanilla RCA out?

[rylan]

Pioneer 103s (6xDVD) and the cinemaster 2.035 enving with the Matrox software front end. I also use PowerDVD 2.5, as that has 4 speaker decoding for almost AC3 quality through a SBLive card.

[Laristan]

I've got a Creative 5x with DxR3 with a Matrox G400MAX ... to put it bluntly ... I Tossed The DxR3.

Lots of reasons, but mainly it does nothing "special" that I can see. I run my matrox in dual-head mode (under w98 - I wish DVD worked properly under NT) to my TV and its incredible. No jerkiness, even during Blade which has some of the most chock full action scenes around.

Perhaps its my hardware but who cares. I like it the way it is.

==========================================
Dual P3-600, 512Megs, Asus P2B-DS Motherboard, Matrox G400MAX, plus stuff

[Masayver]

I've got a RealMagic Hollywood Plus and G400 32MB DH, and a 2X DVD-ROM, and my G400 DVD decoding blows (on the Matrox dvd player). I haven't tried Cinemaster yet, though I'm pretty sure I would get much better software decoding with it (I used to use it for my STB Velocity 128 and got near perfect playback on a PII 350). I prefer using my Realmagic cuz it uses almost no CPU power (as opposed to half with software) and I don't really watch DVD on my monitor (pass thru sux), but would much rather watch it on my TV. And I do.

(1) Celeron 366 @ 605
Abit BP6
96MB RAM

------------------
You have been Donimated

[mj12]

DirtFarmer: Can't help you with the DVD but, I can help you with the good recipe for beer!

Weizen - (makes 5 gallons)
7 lbs Wheat Malt Syrup
1 lb Wheat Dry Malt Extract
Hops
1 oz Saaz (60 min)
1/2 oz Hallertauer (10 min)
2 pkgs Windsor Ale Yeast

[PS]

I have a G400Max, an aopen DVD 1040 PRO and an Athlon 600@800. I live in Denmark, but I mostly watch Reg1 (NTSC) movies. I couldn't understand why things were jittery and - not up to expectations. But looking through this forum I learned that this was because of the PAL/NTSC conversion. And quite correctly, when i switched my TV to automatic signal detection, and set the TV-output to NTSC, things were smooth as a babys behind
G400Max and DVDmax rocks completely, and my girlfriend can watch DVD's while I surf the net. Matrox rules!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[waxling]

Pioneer 103s and Matrox g400 16mb DH, connected to an 80cm 4:3 tv via RGB (custom made cable, made with the help of Haig and Daniel at tech. support, sorry Haig but the cable you sent me was 3m too short .)

The matrox DVD player (ravisent) is very good in win98. bugger all pauses, the only problem is that it has problems with certain titles. Hopefully this will be fixed. (Haig,... anyone.....waiting for someone to jump in with a status update on the DVD software update info...)

For win2000 I'm tending to lean towards powerdvd 2.5 v1208, there are no pauses when I up the priority to high, I think it's mainly due to my processor (only a 300a @450)

One interesting thing is, the g400 via rgb has the BEST picture quality possible - by definition. There is absolutely no way to refute this. It is the only product on the market to provide a progressive scan RGB image - so far. Those who know what I'm talking about, nuff said..

Tips to matrox regarding DVD-

1)update the cinemaster engine to support newer titles (in Matrox's hands)

2)update the cinemaster engine to support windows2000 (not in Matrox's hands)

3) promote the crap out of this video card - after doing the above, even if only for the DVD quality. One big thing is - keep RGB in future versions (g450 / g800) You'll attract more audio/video-philes.




[This message has been edited by waxling (edited 20 January 2000).]

[Frankfurt]

well, my Matrox G400 Max is paired with the Toshiba 6X DVD-ROM drive

[jswcpm]

Pioneer 10x 104S (hey, what happened to my beer holder), Matrox G400 max 4a, G-RR, Creative dxr3 (ditched the Creative 2x and dxr2 to use in my udder computer), AMD6 III-450 oc to 500, and Cyberlink DVD (love the ability to get screen shots for use as wallpaper - used the Ten Commandments) also the matrox software Divicore.////the color is best using divicore but a bit jerky at times, cyberlink good as well, but the creative is best for motion and is clearer than the dxr2....no problems installing the dxr3 uninstalled software for dxr2 and used latest drivers from www.soundblaster.com - with an awe 64 value....