ATI TV Wonder or Rainbow Runner

[RJ45]

I want to buy a TV card for my G400. I'm thinking about ATI's TV Wonder because of it's cheap price or Rainbow Runner because of it's compability. I'm wondering which one is better? and is TV Wonder compatible with my G400?

Anyone can help me?

[Jorden]

I even wonder if the ATI is compatible with the G400, and if ATI's drivers work together with a MAtrox card. Most of the times ATI's drivers don't even work with the ATI cards

So if you can get hold of an RR-G, you'd better grab it. Depending on your country you don't even need to order it at Matrox itself, but just search around at HW dealers in your neighbourhood, or country (on the internet for instance), to get it at a cheap price.

Jord.

[Haig]

Hi RJ,

even if the ATI card works with our cards, you should know that if you ever have any type of overlay problem, you'll be bounced back and forth between us and ATI.

FYI, the G400 does support ddraw overlay which is what most 3rd party tv/capture cards need.

Haig

[paulcs]

One attractive thing about the Rainbow Runner is that it doesn't require an IRQ. You can and should stick it in the first PCI slot, next to your AGP slot.

The G450 apparently doesn't support the Rainbow Runner. I'm concerned about the G800. Let's hope it does.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Jorden]

I must say I never knew that the RRG took up another PCI-slot, Paul, but thanks for teaching me that

I always thought you'd just plug it onto the graphics card, as a real daughter board would go.

About the G800 and RRG, since Haig's been here already and Ant's on vacation, why don't we ask him, here in this obscure thread?

Haig: Are the Fushion F450 and F800 Plus the new RRG's for the G450 and the G800, or is that something that's undiscussable?

Jord.

[paulcs]

C'mon Haig!! We promise not to tell anyone! We swear. Our lips are sealed.



Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Haig]

Why would you guys want to use mjpeg anyway?

Haig

[Bixler]

Why would you guys want to use mjpeg anyway?

Hmmmm.

Information here...let's parse this sentence boys, methinks our guy is dropping you a little pearl of knowledge.

Good work Jord & Paul.


[This message has been edited by Bixler (edited 09 September 2000).]

[rubank]

On the fringe of this topic:
anyone tried Miro PCTV USB?

Want to share your findings?

rubank

[Jutai]

I caught it.... nice HAIG we do appreciate it!! We all know what this means... the G800 posibly some form of G450 will have a way to support the DVD standard i forget but i think it's MPEG2 so nobody will want a RRG cause you'd want the MPEG2 format... also doesn't Mpeg2 take up like very little disk space i am pretty sure it's a good compression format...
anyways keep those silent rumors comin cause we love em
-chris k.

[DentyCracker]

ATI TV Wonder works with my G400. It does not work under win2k. Version 1.0 of the TV Tuner software will trash EzCD Creator 4.0 and you can't download version 2 off the net.
It is cheap though.

[Haig]

also doesn't Mpeg2 take up like very little disk space ...

Yes it does but depending on the codec, (software of hardware), you may need a powerfull system if you want to capture in full res.

Haig

[Jutai]

hey that's some good info thanks HAIG... man i bet any VIDEO CARD COMPANY that makes hardware to asist that offloading some of that taxing work load would have a REAL WINNER of A PRODUCT in that. Can't wait to see that day.
-chris k.

[Haig]

The mpeg2 chips are still too expensive to use on cards aimed at the mass market especially for an all in one type of card.

Using a software codec isn't that bad though. Even if you don't have a powerfull system, you can still capture at half res with a PIII 600.



------------------

[PaulS]

Last week I finally bought a DV500. I had been holding off for several months to see what was happening with W2k and the RT2000, but in the end it seemed too much money to risk.

Anyway, I'm pretty new to the desktop video game, but isn't the problem with using mpeg as a capture format for video editing that effects require a decompression / recompression which reduces the image quality (mpeg being a lossy codec)?

So won't most people still want to capture and edit in a non-lossy format, then output to mpeg only as the last step?

Hard-drive space is so cheap now - I just added 2 striped 45G HD's and a modified promise controller for under Australian $1000.

Paul

[This message has been edited by PaulS (edited 13 September 2000).]