DVDMax + PAL TV Problems

[Azzy]

Does G450 and G550 have the same problem as G400 when outputting to PAL TV and the video becommes croppy after 10-15 min? Has anyone tested this?
As far as I know the only way to produce a descent PAL TV output with G400 is to use drivers version 5.52 which are rather old and I am not shure wether they will even run on Win XP. If someone knows another solution please tell me.

[Hege]

Reading Matrox tech support forums, it appears that the pal tv-out problem affects both G550 and G450. I have a G450 myself, and DVD playback stutters annoyigly all the time. The 5.7x drivers have solved the problem for some people, but not for me.

One thing I noticed while troubleshooting was that when I remove the soundcard from machine, DVDs play OK. Tried several different sound cards, so it's not just another SB Live problem.

Yet another note: WinDVD seems to be a bit better than PowerDVD, stutters a little less.

Hopefully Parhelia will come out soon with working pal tv-out, so we can all stop worrying

Hege

[Azzy]

If removing the sound card changes the playback then in your case the problem may be a IRQ sharing.
I have had many problems bacause of IRQ sharing.

[Hege]

Yeah, that's what Matrox tech support (and me too) thought at first. But trust, I've removed and shuffled the cards a lot, with different sound cards and even different motherboard. It was easy to get G450 and sound card an unique IRQ, but it didn't help.

If anyone has any insight on what's causing this pal-tv-out problem, I'd be glad to hear it.

Hege

[dZeus]

try and disable 32-bit zbuffering in the PD Options tab.... see if that has any effect (it has on my pc, though results vary from time to time)

[Hege]

It seemed to be off already. Bah, I didn't like movies anyway.