Marvel G400-TV still valid today?

[Valnar]

I want to buy a video capture and TV tuner card. I know the ATI All-in-Wonders have lots of problems, so I thought I'd ask about this card.

My PC is a PIII-700. I want to watch TV on my computer, and capture TV video to save later. I also want to be able to capture video from my VHS tapes and convert it to VCD format. I don't care if the Matrox software can do that, but I need to make sure the HARDWARE can with good quality. If its a matter of different software, I'm sure vcdhelp.com can lead me into the right direction!

One last question. Speaking of VCDHELP.COM, it seems strange to me that they never mention Matrox cards. Only ATI, Dazzle, WinTV, etc. Any reason for that?

Thanks!
Robert

[Dr Mordrid]

The G400-TV is out of production, but if you can find one they are very capable of doing a decent job. Its major limitation is a lack of working Win2K drivers, but Matrox has promised this for sometime in May.

The followup product, the G450-eTV, doesn't have hardware MJPeg, but it does have a YUY2 capability within programs like AVI_IO. You can use this to capture to PICVideo or Morgan MJPeg, HuffYUV or even MPEG using Uleads Video Studio or MediaStudio editing software.

The eTV's native format is MPEG-2 in software, so you need a 933 or better system to do that at full frame in its bundled capture utility. I don't find that a limitation since I use HuffYUV for captures and encode with a separate encoder.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 02 May 2001).]

[This_Idiot]

I hadn't heard that the G400 Marvel was out of production. Of course that isn't exactly a huge surprise, but I AM surprised that Matrox haven't continued with an overlap for a while. Specially since the RR=G seems to have been out of production for ages. What the hell are they doing with those production facilities?

RT2Kx certainly isn't soaking up the production quota.

[FM]

Valnar, if you use search on VCDHELP.COM forums you will find a lot of topic about Marvel G400 :-)