G400TV driver rant time (again)

[DrP]

OK, as some of us have noticed, there are new G450eTV display and vidcap drivers for XP. It being Saturday, I having nothing else better to do, I downloaded the display driver and the vidcap driver. A short bit of tinkering with an .inf file had the G450eTV display driver running on my G400TV quite nicely. There are even more options in the display properties for TV out to allow the picture on the TV to be moved around. The driver reports me as having G400 display hardware, so clearly it knows how to run the stuff.

Next I installed the latest vidcap app. Supprisingly it installed without a blink. No inf edits required. Now the crunch, it crashes XP with a BSOD when ever a capture app is opened. The module that dies is the g400dhm.sys. OK, revert to older G400MAX XP display driver (inf edit required to do this). Ding! Now have vidcap using the latest vidcap package working nicely. Of course, no hardware MJPEG support - no supprise there.

My whinge is - clearly Matrox are still updating drivers and software capable of supporting the G400TV under XP. There is a little work to go (the BSOD problem), but I suspect that is a minor thing. They support the G200MMS + capture, why not the G400TV. There really appears to be no good reason (aside from the hardware MJPEG problem).

[MeanGene]

I have a similar setup with XP and the Matrox Marvel. I have been playing around with the different drivers and Video Tools. My Vidcap still won't capture. If you get the time could you list the versions of the stuff that does and dosen't work. I think it would be helpful to everyone in the same situation.

[Damascus]

Matrox, lazy with their drivers?

Not exactly state secrets...

I'm looking to unload my RRG too... I'm not willing to put up with this.

[Sciascia]

I believe that it is a vfw issue. The Zoran chip that is built into the G400 only uses vfw for capture. I have a feeling that XP prefers WDM capture. I Matrox could develop a solution for it to capture in WDM then we would all be happy. Are there any other cards out there that use the Zoran chip and have working WInXP drivers? If so, then I bet that some really smart fellers out there could write some drivers for it. I know that I would be willing to pay for it.

What other functions are disabled in WinXP, i.e. Dualhead, DVD Max...etc?

[DrP]

Personally, I wouldnt mind if they didnt provide support for the Zoran chippie at all, but simply write WDM drivers to support the nifty Samsung vid cap chip (its one of the few that can do YUV 4:4:4 - not that you would know if from the capture drivers). But they probably wont.

MeanGene, all I've done is download the latest vidcaps (2.10a) and installed them. Works for me without any funny business. MJPEG is listed as a capture format, but it seems to be nobbled in rr2mjpeg.sys. Quite amazingly after several rants, posts, pointers to correct info on www sites and even a complete registry export, Matrox are _still_ unable to get the TV frequencies for UHF TV in Australia right. If you want to be adventurous, install display driver 5.72.021 (requires inf edit, you can find the info in my other posts).

[MeanGene]

I am using the 02.10.10 Video Tools and 5.39 video drivers for W2K. I used a VT beta version and could use all the features but When I closed the TV app, it would disappear like it was closing but it was still running and you could still hear it. If you closed down the process, it would blue screen on you and require a warm boot.

The Video card driver I am using has a couple of problems one being an inability to disable the dual-head feature, stuff like that.

The VT driver I am using now is working better, but some of the features don't work like channel scanning.

With regard to video capture, I can see the video from my CamCorder but there is no sound. I haven't even tried to capture anything yet. Is there a solution for these problems? Thinking about an ATI all in wonder fix.

[Bios]

But considering al above is it recomended to upgrade the Mavel G400 with the new G450 video tools or drivers?? I am now running XP with the latest G-series XP drivers (tanx for the inf trick found in this forum !!) and I am able to use all functions of the card (exsept mjpeg) the only thing is and it's really nothing i am glad i can run XP whit full advantedge of my Marvel (not thax to Martox ) that when caturing in Vdub in YUV my preview screen flickers green screens but captures ok. I now that isn't mutch but ho now maybe the new drivers offer more, so is it whise to try to upgrade to the new G450 drivers or tools, 16bit support maybe?

[MeanGene]

Is this the proper hack for the Marvel G400 via G450 XP driver inf?

It did not work at first so I added my own section for the G400, I haven't tried this yet, so use at your own risk. If you have any ideas let me know as soon as possible.

What I have so far:
[Mfg.Matrox]
;---------------
;G400 - English
;---------------
%Str11%%ENG%=IN10.ENG,PCI\VEN_102B&DEV_0525&SUBSYS _04001458
%Str11%%ENG%=IN10.ENG,PCI\VEN_102B&DEV_0525&SUBSYS _3693102B
;---------------

;==============================
;G400 Section(s)
;==============================
[IN10.ENG]
AddReg = AddReg.Setup.G400, AddReg.Web, AddReg.Web.ENG
CopyFiles = Driver.G400, Files.PDesk, Driver.Icd.G400, MGABG.EXE, Miniport.G400

[IN10.ENG.Services]
AddService = G400,0x00000002,Service.G400
AddService = MGABGEXE,,Service.MGABG

[IN10.ENG.SoftwareSettings]
AddReg = AddReg.G400, AddReg.Icd.G400, AddReg.PackageVer, AddReg.PDesk, AddReg.Settings.ENG, AddReg.VidParms, AddReg.Modes, AddReg.MGABG, AddReg.DH, AddReg.NoDHWizard, AddReg.Languages, AddReg.DefModes
DelReg = DelReg.DriverSettings, DelReg.Icd.G400, DelReg.PDesk


;removed AddReg.Uninst.ENG, MGABG.DRV, ReadMe.ENG, Files.ENG,
;added AddReg.Settings.ENG, AddReg.NoDHWizard, AddReg.Languages, AddReg.DefModes, AddReg.Web, AddReg.Web.ENG, DelReg.PDesk
;from std W2k install inf to this inf

;---------------
; Global Shared
;---------------
[Strings]
Str00= "Matrox Marvel G450 eTV"
Str11 = "Matrox Marvel G400 TV" (Added)

Any thing else that needs to be edited, removed, uninstalled, etc.?