A bit of new info about RT2000 on Matrox site

[DaddyBay]

There is a "More about... Realtime DV and MPEG-2 Editing on Matrox RT2000" link at the bottom of page http://www.matrox.com/videoweb/enduser/rt2000.htm

It seems aimed at clearing up some confusion about the RT2000 that has come up in forums on the net.

Some key points:
"You can record your program to analog tape in realtime over the composite or Y/C output."

"RT2000 can output to DV tape, directly from the Adobe Premiere timeline, in realtime in certain cases and in near realtime in other cases." They go on to explain what "near" realtime means in some detail.

"RT2000 creates an MPEG-2 AVI file (with an IBP GOP structure as required for DVD authoring and distribution application) from MPEG-2 I-frame or DV projects in two to three times realtime regardless of the number of effects they contain."

"Finally, Matrox does not plan to sit idle after the first release of this product. We are currently evaluating ways to improve output speed in subsequent software releases."

I presume that the "subsequent software releases" will be free driver upgrades. It would be nice to verify this as otherwise one may wish to put off buying the product until they improve it.

[stevenscott]

Wow, it looks great, but $1,200 or $1,300 is a bit too much for me. it looks like a good buy in print. The Marvel G400 looks pretty good at $300, so far.

------------------
Home:
Server:
I run a Matrox Mystique G200 AGP with an:
Abit BE6
Win98
Adaptec CD Creator 4
Pentium III 450
128 MB Ram
SB Live
Maxtor 13 GIG HD
2 3com Nic cards
Wingate 3.05
1 Symbios SCSI for my HP Photo Scanner
Boca 56K Int. Modem
Mitsumi 4801-TE CD-R
MS Precision Pro Joystick
Surfboard SB1200 cable modem
Shamrock 17" Monitor
HP OfficeJet Pro 1175Cse 4/1 printer/Scanner/Fax/copier
-------------------
Client1:
AbitBX6 MB
Win98
Celeron 300a
Maxtor 6.4 GIG HD
128 MB Ram
Netsurf NIC
SB Live sound card
Teac CDRom
Hercules Thriller AGP Video Card
Boca 56K Int. Modem
MS Precision Pro Joystick
Shamrock 15" monitor
----------------

[Grigory]

Hi,

A good addition to previous press realease. Now we have clear understanding about product features.

Several points:
1. 3x realtime DV compression sounds realistic, and fits what is already possible with Canopus codec. I have exactly the same timing with Raptor. Even digits look like taken from my measurements and typical video projects.
Good performance, I must say.

2. 2x realtime speed of full functional MPEG2 encoding is the most interesting feature. I suppose C-cube hardware codec is working for this.

It will be nice to see the examples of MPEG2 frames on the site. I found that many mpeg2 software encoders that are very fast have problems with motion estimation and produce artifacts on some scenes.

The card has good price for the features.

Grigory

[Mark F]

stevenscott- Yes the Marvel doesn't look bad at $300. As long as you only plan to use analog sorces and output. To add simillar DV capabilities will run around another $800. Now we're talking about $1,100, and you still don't have the "near real-time' effects capabilities. Not to mention multiple products, from multiple vendors, a posible problem of compatiblity, and aharder time isolating problems. Also should you need tech support, I'm sure you will get lots of "It's not our falt, is the other guys hardware/software/drivers/etc".
I see the RT2000 less of a glorified Marvel, and more as slightly scaled back DVRex( or similar hardware (codec) board) at half the price.
The Marvel (Gx00s and RRs) is an exellent product for it's intended use. The RT2000, has many more uses, and we'll have to pay for it's greater versatility. If the Marvel products serves your needs it's the right product for you. Hey, that's why Matrox makes (or "soon" will) two different boards, serving two different markets. To compare them solely on price is unfair.
I don't think the two divisions of Matrox put out products to compete haed to head with each other.

Mark F.

[This_Idiot]

Mark,

I think that your summary is right. There is no doubt that the G400 Marvel and RT2000 are not aimed at the same market. Matrox decided to bring video capture to the mass market a little over 2 years ago in the guise of the Rainbow Runner, and have been refining that product ever since.

Concurrently, the Matrox video division had the Digisuite, which is a professional quality capture/editing system used in the broadcast industry (circa $10,000).

The advent of the C-Cube MPG capture chip back in the spring has made it possible for various video capture manufacturers to offer an intermediate product at a significantly lower than intermediate price. Matrox are possibly the most high-profile company to be doing this at the moment, but they certainly aren't the only ones.

However, what it currently means is that for the price of a DC30+ and a top quality video overlay board, you can have a one-company solution that gives DV and analog input and output with inbuilt facilities for preserving quality during editing in "near" realtime.

For sure the price tag is going to deter a sizeable proportion of the current G200/400 users from upgrading. But since that was never the idea, I don't think it will dismay Matrox Vid too much. In fact, I get the impression that they have been rocked on their heels by the volume of interest so far and would not be surprised if they tried to capitalise by producing something even more pocket-friendly

[DaddyBay]

My guess is that they will offer an affordable MPEG2-only card with features similar to the RR.

At this point, I plan on getting the RT2000. It is pricey for a consumer, but you do get what you pay for in this case.

[This_Idiot]

Hi Daddy,

I think that what it comes down to is commercial need (for instance a wedding videographer) or a rich amateur that already has a 450 and bags of RAM/HD and is looking for an outlet for the next tranche of PC budget

[Rob Morris]

Our company recently bought one of those ATI All in wonder Rage 128 cards with the C-Cube MPEG-2 Codec on it. This was an exercise in evaluate the capabilities of the card, specifically the bit rate required to achieve full frame 30 fps video.

I was impressed. The C-Cube chip is quite remarkable. The video is excellent, but you need a powerful machine for IPB compression. ATI recommends nothing short of a 450 MHz Pentium III. We are using a Dell 550 Mhz PIII and it is 80% utilized when encoding. The bit rate is around 4 Mbits/sec when encoding with no audio. Initially we had this card in a PII 450 MHz, but could only do I-frame MPEG 2 encoding.

Unfortunately the ATI software is crap. We are running this on Dell Machine, with 256 MB of ram and 27 Gb drive. We have nothing but the ATI software installed, with Win 98 Release 2. Crashes are frequent.

A quick look at the 'Video Editing' software shows that it is what I guess is the same as the All in wonder pro was using. The MPEG 2 files cannot be edited with this software, so basically we have a rather expensive VCR on our hands. I gather this product was rushed to market big time.

The point here is (are you listening Matrox) hardware is great, but unless you have decent software your product is a useless as the next guy's.

[Grigory]

Rob,

What I did not understand from your post is:
Does ATI card have hardware assisted MPeg2 encoder onboard?

I thought before that ATI ises their own software MPEG2 codec that relies on CPU only. MPEG2 playback is assisted by ATI RAGE series cards hardware motion compensation acceleration.

Are you absolutely sure that ATI uses c-cube chips in current AIW board?

If the answer is YES, does it mean that Matrox RT2000 will also be extremely CPU demanding? There are no specific words about CPU requirements on Matrox site, except for DV rendering.

C-cube specifications say that full IBP mpeg2 encoding may be slower than realtime with thier chip. However, encoding itself does not take a lot of CPU power.

And one more question: I am thinking about video card upgrade. What is your opinion of ATI card 2D video quality?
Is the image crisp at 1280x1024@85 Hz, or more demanding modes?
Is it possible to use mpeg2 compressor standalone - to make Mpeg2 movie from avi file, for example from DV or MJPEG avi? How fast is encoding?

Thanks,

Grigory

[wizz]

The ATI All-in-Wonder uses software MPEG-2 compression which is why you need a PIII500 to get the best out of it, i've never used it myself. Sometime soon, they will be using CC-Cubes MPEG-2 chip for hardware MPEG-2 capture and editing in their new Video wonder card which is a PCI card that will work with any graphics card which has overlay price at about $200 i think, you'll find more infor on their site.

Tony

[Grigory]

Thanks for reply.

There is no information on ATI site if I can use ATI software compressor for off-line compression to MPEG2. In this case I do not need very fast machine.

Grigory

[DaddyBay]

Grigory,

If you want MPEG-2, then you may want the hardware compression of the Video Wonder. The ATI press release on it is at http://www.atitech.com/ca_us/corpora...1999/4224.html

[Rob Morris]

Sorry guys, my mistake
You are right - my hardware guys told me
the card can do MPEG-2 compression and I assumed it was the one with the hardware Codec - i.e. C-Cube. I knew ATI had an MPEG-2 Card (in the works still I guess) called the Video wonder.

I just got a little excited when the new box appeared on my desk

Nevertheless, the MPEG-2 software compression is pretty good and it is real-time, but does require gobs of CPU. But once you have MPEG-2, there is very little that can be done with the bundled software.

When the Video-Wonder is released to the general public, I'll have to requistion for it. Stay tuned.

Thanks for setting me straight.

[Grigory]

Rob,

The last question I have:
If I buy all-in-wonder card, is it possible to compress ANY avi video into MPEG2? Or, video can be compressed only when the card capture it by itself.

I don't need realtime, but only reasonably (5x realtime is excellent) fast MPEG2 compression from DV video.

Please, answer me if you can.
Thank you,

Grigory

[andrewh]

Yet again, ATI Video Wonder and RT2000 DO NOT USE THE SAME MPEG HARDWARE CODEC!!!

ATI uses C-Cube DVexplore, a MP@ML (4:2:0) MPEG2 chip capable of 10 Mbits/s (Close to but not as good as DVD if using IP or I frame encoding). It soes not encode audio into MPEG1 Level 2 or any other format. If you want "DVD" program streams, you need to encode ausio, multiplex and write the PS on your PC (Which should be no problem for a new PIII).

RT2000 (and Pinnacle DC1000) use the C-Cube DVexpress codec, a 422P@ML (4:2:2) MPEG2 at bit rates up to 25 Mbits/s. This is starting to get into serious quality and is equivalent to DV or perhaps a little better in theory (which we will not go into here).

Just for completeness, there is a really good chip available the DVexpress50 that does DV in 4:2:2 (DVCPRO50, Digital-S, D-9) at 50 Mbits/s. Boards based on this would likely be rather dear!!!

BTW, I do not work for, like :-) or know C-Cube but have crossed paths with a few of their chips over the years.

Andrew