Hardware mjpeg capture worth it over software capture?

[CoCoNiPs]

Hardware mjpeg capture worth it over software capture?
I have a slowish k6-450 cpu 384 megs ram
is it worth bothering with hardware capture any advantages over software capture

[omoses]

Well, on your machine Hardware MJPEG (or Hardware MPEG-2) will probably be the only choice if you capture high resolution. Anything else will end in problems. Try to get a used board like Matrox Mystique with Rainbow-Runner Studio or a Marvel G200/400, they will probably do the best for you.

[bprothero]

I own a Matrox Mystique 220 + Rainbow Runner Studio capture card. The video captures are fantastic! I liked it so much that I upgraded to the Matrox Marvel G400-TV with dual head display (needed OpenGL support for my Quake3 engine games).

Not only did I use this card to make excellent quality VCD from our family home movies and DVD; but I could watch TV on my high resolution monitor using my VCR and remote. The card will output your edited video and PC display to a VCR or big screen TV.

I would be willing to sell the Mystique/RR card with original CDs (drivers, video tools and ULead Media Studio Pro 5VE). I originally paid $400; but I'll sell it for $40. I'd rather someone get good use of it rather than collect dust.


You can post a private message if you are interest.

Brian


Details:

http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/myst_220/home.cfm
http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/upgrades/rr_studio.cfm

- Matrox Mystique 220 PCI 4MB SGRAM and Rainbow Runner Studio daughter card.

- Uses one PCI slot. Use as a primary or secondary display adapter.

- S-Video and composite video inputs and outputs for PC to TV (breakout cable included).

- Hardware MJPEG video capture up to 704*480 resolution.

- Single or Dual field (60 frames interlaced) at a flicker free 30 FPS.

- Frame capture from TV, VCR, and video camera.

- Full motion hardware MPEG1 Video playback with full X and Y interpolation (ie. VideoCD, etc).

- Matrox 'PC-VCR Remote' transforms your PC into a digital VCR.

- Full resolution video capture and playback with hardware MJPEG compression.

- Special preview window eliminates the need for a separate TV monitor.

- Includes Ulead's MediaStudio Pro 5 video editing software.