G450 E-TV

[Michelle Cox]

Well, I took the plunge and ordered it today. Hopefully it will do everything I need. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Michelle

[AndrewDV]

Thank you

I am <font size='+3' color='red'>very</font> interested in reading your results.

Maybe Doc could explain something, but I was reading the G450 has less substrate layers than the G400. Is this true and what is the reason?

If the YUY2 quality/capabilities of the eTV are better than the G400 Marvel, I think I would upgrade to the eTV.

I do like the idea of a mini-TiVo like device.

Does anyone know of any retail stores carrying it directly or do I have to order online?

Thanks


[This message has been edited by AndrewDV (edited 30 March 2001).]

[This_Idiot]

I've just taken delivery of a surprise package from Matrox UK containing a 450eTV

The reviewers pack is immense, I've never seen them throw so much paper in ! It's gonna take me a week just to read it all. Anyhow, I'll be installing it into my test PC over the weekend (Asus A7V, Tbird 800, 256Mb, Fasttrak100 + 2* IBM GX75 30gb, W98SE etc). I should be in a position to test it all and do a write-up by early to mid next week.

Interestingly, Nvidia have also sent me a GEForce MX2 twinhead display board which I've just installed onto my workhorse PC alongside a Pinnacle DC30+ (Celeron300a @450Mhz, 256Mb, 4Gb boot drive, 20Gb capture drive). So I'll be able to tell you all about twin-head and TV out on a single machine as soon as I get it all together.

Keep yer eyes on the homesite for latest news www.desktopvideoworld.co.uk or www.desktopvideoworld.com

T_I

[Michelle Cox]

Andrew - I hope Doc answers your question, because I don't know what a substrate layer is.

I won't be able to tell you if it's better than the G400, since this is my first capture card and first Matrox card. I'll post my impressions of it, though.

As to ordering it... Since it just went on sale yesterday, and since it's limited to one per customer due to "high demand", my guess is www.shopmatrox.com is the only place to buy it.

T_I - Must be nice having companies throwing hardware at you! LOL! I'm interested in reading your review and seeing how your experince as an experienced DV person compares to my newbee experience.

Michelle

[windigo]

me too me too im also interested in this card because i want to back up my vhs videos to cdr a friend of mine says the ATi has new drivers that improve the quality but every hardware site i see says matrox has the quality that most interests me

------------------
MSI K7TPro2 Duron 750@900
256Ram G400DH32mb
Pioneer SCSI 16xDVD

[windigo]

darn I gots so excited someone got this that i forgot to ask my question Does come with that cinemaster se dvd player or the old matrox g400 one.

------------------
MSI K7TPro2 Duron 750@900
256Ram G400DH32mb
Pioneer SCSI 16xDVD

[alabbasi]

Fellow Matrox Users.

I've been looking at reviews of the eTV 450 and despite being a massive and faithful Matrox fan, I've cooled off interest on purchasing this card...

Its often compared with ATI Radeon TV and the Wonder version, and its always scoring poorly... Perhaps the reviewers are very negative... but so far in 3 mags, its not been rated highly... I hope they are wrong...

I want this card for simple reasons, use the TV functions, and, to put existing recorded VHS material on CD (as mpeg1, avi or div X even) - then trashing the tapes! - I don't know if this card can handle this.... If it can, then the hell with any magazine review!!!

Thanks people.

[Dr Mordrid]

The critical comments I've seen were based on the 3D engine, which performs about as the G400 has.

The reviews I've read were pleased with the video quality, if not the 1ghz needed to do full frame.

Fewer substrates means fewer layers of traces on the circuit board. This because the design has been simplified by moving more functions onto a smaller and more integrated chipset. A good thing.

The eTV is actually very small when you compare it to a Marvel G400. It has most of the functions of the G400 (minus MJPeg) plus the TV tuner that was previously housed in the BOB on a single board with a quite small footprint. I was quite suprised by how small it is.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 03 April 2001).]

[skass]

I just got my g450 eTV yesterday, and I'm underwhelmed. I hope there's something I can do to realize the great Matrox 2D performance I hear about, but here's my story:

I got one as soon as it came out, thinking it would be a good replacement for my 2-year old nVidia TNT card and separate 3dfx TV tuner. While I'm disappointed with the tv tuner in it (but I am waiting to hear from Matrox tech support in case I can do something), it did do a good job of capture from the tuner, despite the picture quality, which is worse than my cheap 3dfx. My sense is that in part, Matrox's tuner (Philips, I think) tries to be too clever about minimizing the effects of interlaced video, resulting in a fuzzy picture. With the old tuner, the interlacing was more evident, but I could then do something about it on my own.

The video card itself does seem to take some load off my system and respond more smoothly, but I can't adjust the screen image to be as crisp as it was with the nVidia. There is some ghosting that I can't adjust away with the monitor's gun alignment settings.

The picture I can get through the tuner is flat and fuzzy. Just to be sure it wasn't a result of the degraded picture the video card provided, I compared screen captures from the 3dfx card with eTV both viewed with the eTV installed. No amount of fiddling with settings for the tuner video or the display got me images that were close to what I could get with the 3dfx. I managed to go from "pretty flat and fuzzy" to "kinda flat and fuzzy."

I may be returning the card, but then again, it may work well for you.

Any ideas what I can do to get a better picture?

Here are some capture details:
I lost only about 1 frame in 5000 with this:

Dell XPSR-400 PII upgraded to PIII 1000MHz
256 Meg RAM
Windows 98
Western Digital 7200rpm Ultra ATA 66 DMA-enabled drive for the programs and capture file
capturing to MPEG-2 at highest resolution (about 700 x 420, I think) at 30fps
Dell UltraScan 20" monitor (D-2026T)

[Michel Carleer]

One more to be disappointed by the bad picture quality resulting from the Matrox deinterlacing. And this time it is a NTSC user, not a PAL. Apparently, no improvement on the Marvel and RR-G.
Matrox, why don't you let us choose if *WE USERS* want deinterlacing, and how much? Why do you have to impose on us such a bad algorithm?
Michka

[Michelle Cox]

Well, I got mine yesterday, but it won't get installed until this weekend. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Michelle

[skass]

Well, a faint ray of hope, but no luck. After talking with a techie at Matrox, I discovered an old video driver that might have been in conflict with the new one. I wiped all traces of both old and new off, did all the usual rebooting and switching to VGA display etc., then reinstalled the card and drivers. Guess what. I still have ghosting/ringing, and the tv is worse than the 3dfx card still.

Like I said before, it may work better for you, but it's not worth any more of my time - I'm sending it back. Now I have to look forward to reinstalling the old card.

I will say that the technical support guy
at Matrox was really decent - he actually reads this forum and seems to know his stuff
well.

-Steve

[Prospero]

Just a bump realy, and am looking for more personal experiences with the card. My main concern is the TV tuner quality. Also, are you happy with the bundled editing software? Can it capture in svcd compliant mpeg? I could signifigantly decrease my capture storage requirements and eliminate render times if this will satisfactoraly replace my Marvel. Please post your experiences.

Prospero

[Prospero]

Anyone?

[Michelle Cox]

I will be posting my "Newbee Review" this weekend, hopefully. I've been busy and was gone last weekend so haven't had enough time to play with the card so far.

I like what I see so far, though. A few problems, but mostly it works great. More details this weekend.

Michelle