G400/450 TV-Out question

[dkazaz]

Hi folks,

I'm building a media pc and can't use my old G400 Max (its one of the few AGP2x/4x that are incompatible with ASUS 8x mobo's).

I found a good deal on eBay for a Marvel G400 TV. Does this card have the same TV-out quality as the G400Max (I know the G400 is meant to have the best TV chip etc).

Also, is the difference between the G400 and the G550 quality so big as people in thsse forums say? I must admit my instinct is to get a newer card. As much as I want to, I can't get the any of the P-Series cards because I live in Europe and can't use a card with no SCART support.

Any advice you can give me will be really appreciated.

Thanks!

[greinedo]

G400 has a specific external TV encoder chip that gives the very best TV output.

Later Matrox products G450-G550, P and Pxxx have cheaper TV-out solutions : on these cards the GPU itself is doing the TV-out job. Unfortunately, this is not as good as the G400 solution : jerky playback, blurry and unprecise picture, blocking in dark areas.

Even the SCART TV-out connection is quite problematic with the G450 and G550, because the output signals are not completly conform to TV standart : you have to solder resistors...

With the G400, no resistors, no problem at all, best TV quality.

Read this :

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?postid=449271#post449271

[Kruzin]

Your G400 can be made to work with a small mod to the card:

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36519&highlight=1.5V

[dkazaz]

Thanks to both of you for your advice.

I tried to the mod this morning by running a wire strand through the little holes a the R68 spot with no success. Maybe I did the wrong thing but my motherboard keeps saying "System Fail VGA card"! the damn thing talks (through the system speaker). I supose I could try soldering but I don't have such a fine tip soldering iron. Do you think it's worth the trouble? Can anyone tell me why it didn't work?

Of course the real falut is with the mobo (an ASUS P4P800-Deluxe) which seems to only supports AGP 8x! It doesn't even support PCI cards which is annoying beyond belief. I'd change it but can't be bothered to go through the RMA process which is a hassle - the retailer makes your life miserable to get you to drop it...

[Wombat]

A wire? Holes? Maybe I need to look at the board again. There are two solder pads where R68 would be. You should be able to get away with just using a pencil to connect those pads. Use a wood pencil, they have softer (more graphite) leads in them.

[dkazaz]

Thank you for trying to help me. As you can see I'm more than a little dumb when it comes to electronics!

I marked what I mean on these pictures:

The pic on the right shows what I mean by 'holes' - I tried threading a single strand of wire through them to 'close' the connection.

The pic on the right shows what I thought you meant by 'soldering pads' - I tried penciling over them altough my pencil is probably not what you recommended.

Any chance you culd tell me what I need to do in language for dummies like me?

I really appreciate all the help!

[Goc]

You got it right on the second picture. You should connect those two points using something thats electro-conductive (graphite from a pencil, electro conductive paint/glue, soldering a piece of wire etc.)

Wombat gave you the easiest way how to do it. Find a graphite pencil, preferably one that has a 2B, 4B or 8B mark. Those softer pencils have more graphite and their lead is more electro-conductive than usual HB, or harder H pencils.
Just connect those two points using the pencil. Make several passes until you get a nice black trail leading from one point to the other or that covers both of them.
That should be it.

If you're handy with a soldering iron, or know someone that can help you, I strongly suggest you solder a strand of wire connecting those two spots, although the pencil trick is perfectly fine for testing if your card works or not.

[dkazaz]

Nope that didn't work - and I think for a very good reason. The R68 spot on my board seems to be conected already. I couldn't tell the difference from that picture (which I borrowed from another thread) because the connection bridging them two points is dark color, but its there. And upon closer inspection I found that the board's chipset is not the the 906-01 Rev.A but a 906-04 Rev B.

So clearly the problem isn't the card, its my stupid motherboard!

A word of warning to those of you building systems - the ASUS P4P800 Deluxe (and probably all the ASUS i865 based mobo's) do not work with anything but AGP 8x cards! Not even PCI cards (I tried a Mystique 220 PCI just to see). I don't even know if it would accept a secondary card on a PCI slot. Clearly, what I need to do is change my motherboard or live with anon Matrox card. I have an ASUS Radeon 9600 SE, which is ok - clarity and sharpness are close to my G400Max (!) although it dosn't have the same picture quality (the G400 has a beautiful smoothness to it, while the ATI is a little too sharp - almost jagged).

I could get used to it, but the TV-Out is just awful! The picture flickers horribly as the card's singal completely fails to synchornise with my Panasonic PAL TV (at least, I think that's what happens) and though it has good DVD acceleration, I can't get any use from it due to the flickering. I have the same flicker probelm with the G400's DVD-Max, but it usually stops after 1-2 minutes and I can use the card for DVD.

Looks like my only real option is to sell the mobo on eBay while its still new and get another one, maybe a Gigabyte which have good reputation as solid reliable and stable...

Any other advice would be appreciated...

[Wombat]

I hope you didn't do permanent damage to your board. Putting a wire though those vias (holes) was a bad idea - I have no idea what kind of electrical connection you made there.

[dkazaz]

No it's working fine on my old system - I'm using it now to write this.

My dilema is should I scrap the mobo and get an extra G400 form eBay for my new PC, or stick to the Radeon with its bad TV-Out and try to find another solution...

[greinedo]

I made several system based on the P4P800, it's a pretty good motherboard.

The S-video out of the radeon is the worst tv-out I saw !

But you have an alternative with your Radeon. Take a look here. I tried it also.

http://www.idiots.org.uk/vga_rgb_scart/

The quality achieved with the Radeon SCART RGB Drive is better than the G400 SCART RGB when it comes to sharpness, but not as good when it comes to colors.

But you have to tweak with powerstrip and be sur not sending to your tv a fatal signal !!!

In your case, if you doon't want to change you components, it's the solution.

hope this helps

regards

[dkazaz]

Thanks, this is very helpful though it sounds like I'm letting myself in for more trouble than this is worth...

As an alternative I'm thinking about getting a SigmaDesigns X-Card Mpeg decoder which is said to have good TV-Out and a remote control.

Otherwise I'm swaping the ASUS for something else, maybe a Gigabyte or an Abit modo...

Originally posted by greinedo
I made several system based on the P4P800, it's a pretty good motherboard.

Did you use and Matrox Gxxx series cards with them? I'd liek to know which models (if any) work...

[greinedo]

Before buying my G400 on ebay I considered also buying an Xcard. But the Xcard has great issues :

- You can only have a video stream on TV, no desktop because no MPEG decode.
- It's not easy to see on TV and on monitor at the same time
- You have to stay with the provided player. No other alternative.
- You cannot use your sound card for software dolby digital or DTS decode because Xcard is not sharing the stream. You must use the onboard stereo decoder !!! A mod is known to do that, but then, you experience audio/video sync issues (the biggest issue).
- some DVDs are not playable with that card because of hardware bugs, not removable with driver updates
- poor tech support

I browsed quite a while the sigma designs forum some months ago. Have a look there.

For me the best solution is a completely software based audio-video decoder with Reclock and zoom player tools. Software can be upgraded, not hardware.

Unfortunately I don't know if the G400 works with the P4P800. At that time, the G400 was my main PC (now replaced by a P750). But then, while building those PC, I noticed the incredible 2D quality of the G400 compared to the ATI and NVIDIA cards.

[dkazaz]

Agreed software is way better and on my P4 2.8 it won't be a problem.

So it's either - swap the mobo and get an extra G400 or follow your advice about the ATI radeon fix - it looks like a fair bit of trouble.

You said you tried it - was it realtively straightforward, or did it take ages?

[greinedo]

I would say, have a try with the Radeon RGB Direct Drive, You'll get also more 3D power as with the G400.

Making a good cable takes some time.
The bad thing is if you tweak the timings of the radeon, you can loose sync on the pc monitor and see nothing on your tv !

Therefore, in my setup, i had the G400 AGP as main adaptor, and Radeon 9200SE PCI as second graphic card. I could tweak as I want the timings of the Radeon, while controlling with the G400 on the primary monitor.

In your case, you can perhaps use the second head of the Radeon, or configure the Media Center PC with another PC and VNC, like described in the link.

Here are the european PAL timings and the Radeon SCART RGB cable. You can see that Powerstrip supports both interlaced res and composite sync for the Radeon, wich is great !