Use PC-VCR across a network?

[tsuwei]

Hi,

I am new to this forum. I just got a Marvel G200-TV installed in a P2-350 computer (OS -Win98SE) which is networked with a P200MMX computer (OS - Win95 OSR2.1). I tried to view TV programs from the P200 computer. However, I always got a message like -" PC-VCR can not use 4-bit pallete display ...". I did change both computers' display color depth to 16-bit or even 32-bit but with the same error message. Will the PC-VCR (I am using VT1.54) be able to do what I said?

Thanks!

Tsuwei

[Eric VanHeest]

It sounds like you can't do what you're mentioning, but it's hard to tell what you're asking. I know that with the Marvel G400 (which is similar to the G200), you can use the machine running PC-VCR as an actual VCR of sorts, by using the DualHead Clone (or whatever that is) to output what's on the screen to the S-Video or Composite output on the breakout box, which you can then view on a television, and if you are running the PC-VCR program, you will see its output on the TV (rather expensive VCR). However, I suspect that this bizarre use isn't exactly what you want.

You can capture from the machine with the G400 in it to a drive on another machine over a local network (if it is at least a 100 megabit network), but I don't think this is what you want either.

You can capture on the machine that has the Marvel card in it, to a streaming media server, and then connect to that server from the networked machine; this works, but you need a significantly powerful machine to do this at a good size and framerate.

You can use a virtual computer program such as VNC to connect to the computer that contains the Marvel card, from the machine without that card, and control its settings, channels, and even start captures from the remote machine. However, you will generally see a green square instead of the video output, so this is of limited use (but comes in handy sometimes).

You cannot, to my knowledge, use the PC-VCR program directly on any machine that does not physically contain a Matrox Marvel card, for anything at all. The program and drivers aren't meant to talk to each other over a network, only over a local PCI/AGI bus.

[tsuwei]

Thank you very much for your reply. They are very helpful in solving my other confusions.

Tsuwei

[Meek]

Well, there is a way... if you use a video broadcast program in your P2-350 you can share the video stream to the net. However, the results are usually far from perfect... as the broadcast programs do not support MJPEG, you either have a bad picture or need awful lot of CPU power both to encode and decode you video stream. And you still couldn't change the channel from the remote machine...

But in case you want to experiment, MS has a free Media encoder program that can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...m7/encoder.asp

M.

M.

[Pace]

How are you trying to view it on the other PC? Try NetMeeting and share the app on the other machine which is unlikely to work but you can give it a try. This option, if it works will also let you change channel.

Paul.

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