C-Cube DVxplore: Fate or Fiasco???

[Jerry Jones]

The folks at ATI rushed this news
release out the door:

http://www.ati.com/na/pages/corporate/press/1999/4224.html

Ulead Systems had already beaten ATI
to the punch with this news release:

http://www.ulead.com/vs/news0507.htm

But so far... *nothing*... has materialized
with the DVxplore chip. *Nothing.*

The only product utilizing a C-Cube
chip is the DV500... (gasp)... by
none other than the mixed-reputation-
at-best Pinnacle Systems.

The world is a funny place.

[DrMordrid]

Jerry,

You're forgetting the DC-1000. It uses the C-Cube chipset too.

There was a third product by STB but it got lost-in-spacetime when STB was acquired by 3DFx.

Dr. Mordrid

[harry]

Don't forget Dazzle trying to build the
same card as Video wonder.
check C-cube news....

harry

[Jerry Jones]

Doc,

The DC1000 uses "a" C-Cube chipset...
the DVxpress-M25... but not the
DVxplore chip.

So far, we've seen *no* DVxplore chip
products hit the shelves. At least
none that I know about.

[Jerry Jones]

Correction. The Pinnacle news
release calls the DC1000 chip the
DVxpress-MX codec.

Somebody on the rec.video.desktop is
citing a Gary Bettan article wherein
Gary called it the DVxplore chip.

So maybe the DC1000 *is* based on the
DVxplore chip, but that news release
tends to make me think they're not the
same:

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/dataview/pr/pr.asp?ID=112

[DrMordrid]

News releases don't matter. Most of the guys who write those things couldn't tell 'em apart with full specs and a magnifying glass. D**n word-weenies ;-)

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by DrMordrid (edited 06 January 2000).]

[Jerry Jones]

Ha!

[wkulecz]

Perhaps Charles Reis was correct when he panned the DVxplore back in Apr99.

Perhaps C-Cube sold the chip with admittedly impressive demos, but when Reis actually got the C-Cube people to try encoding his material, the results stunk. Perhaps the companies taken in then are realizing it now.

Looks like Fiasco to me.

Saw where C-Cube has cut a big MPEG encoder deal with China. Perhaps the commies are next on the sucker list :-)

I have no interest for or against C-Cube, I just stumbled upon a trade press article (not widely circulated apparently) that said the C-Cube DVxplore emperor had no clothes.

My concern here is how much in common the MPEG of the RT2000's DVexpress has with the DVxplore, now that its looking like Reis' might have been correct about DVxplore producing unacceptable MPEG quality.

I'd love to see a sample MPEG (action scene) from the DV500 which is said to also use the DVexpress.

--wally.

[Jerry Jones]

Do you have a pointer to the Charles
Reis critique?

[Elie]

The DV500 does not do Mpeg2.
Besides the DVexpress and the DVxplore are two different chips all together.
One is geared towards the semi to proffesional market (Express) and the other is targeted for amatures and beginners (xplore)

Regards,
Elie

[Jerry Jones]

Posted to the rec.video.desktop
newsgroup by Mike Paul:

mikepaul wrote:
>I wrote both ATI and Dazzle about
>this. Bob Thawer at ATI Sales
>Support tried to push the All-In-Wonder
>Pro instead, implying (but not *saying*)
>that the C-Cube based product wasn't
>going to be out anytime soon.
>However, Chris Allen at Dazzle gave a
>tentative schedule of February for a PCI
>card version of the Digital Video Recorder
>(DVR), and April for the USB version.

[wkulecz]

Charles Reis' article was in "Advanced Imaging" April 1999 issue, pages 16-22. This is a Cygnus Publication, "free to qualified readers" trade magazine.

Doc said he couldn't find the article on their website.

If you really want to read it and can't find it, send me your snail mail address and I'll xerox it for you.

Basically he liked the Phillips EMPIRE SAA6750H chipset but called it too little too late price/performance/quality wise, saying five years ago it would have been very good.

He was impressed by C-Cube DVexplore demo but panned it after encoding his own test tape at C-Cube's facility.

He liked the Matsushita MN85560 chip. Apparently this is to be used in an upcomming Canopus MPEG2 product(MVR-D2000).

He talked alot about Canopus which is why I've always pointed out that he might be a Canopus shill, but his comments about the DVexplore are starting to ring true with the sudden cancelation of DVexplore based products.

I've heard totally zero about the Canopus MVR-D2000 elsewhere.

--wally.

[jsb]

proffesional market use DVXpert for MPEG-1-2

Stefan

[andrewh]

Oh dear, oh dear!

There is more to the MPEG2 market than you guys playing at editing your video on a PC. The DVXplore was a first attempt at a DVD (MPEG2 4:2:0 4-10 Mbits/s) encoding chip. It is not bad but there are better ones out there (Certainly EMPIRE, Stream Machine, probably Matsushita). The new one, DVexcel (?) is the next generation of the same aimed at the MPEG2 consumer electronics encoding market. No idea of quality. The MPEG2 recording market is seen as a major growth market in CE (TiVO, ReplayTV use it as will all the future DVD-(insert your favourite recordable standard here) recorders. C-cube are very wise to be selling this to China. Study your markets before writing off China for such a high tech device.

DVExpress-MX25 and MX50 were aimed at the pro-sumer and professional video editing markets respectively. They use MPEG2 4:2:2 at 10-25 Mbits/s. MX50 also adds DV50 (4:2:2) but, as far as I know, no higher MPEG2 rates. I do not know of any direct competitors (Video editing is not my business, just hobby) in this tiny niche market.

Hope this clarifies a little bit.
Andrew