Best Motherboard--- for video

[vcdforme]

what do you think would be a good motherboard for capturing video, and be under $1oo.
I prefer AMD.

thanks in advance.

[hwoodwar]

I wasn't aware AMD was still making motherboards. Are you talking motherboard or CPU? If you are actually talking "motherboard" then it is first is dependent on wether you are getting an Intel or AMD CPU and then what flavor? I prefer ASUS motherboards, the specific model cannot be determined without knowing for what CPU, memory, etc. If you are talking CPU, because you are limiting us to $100 IMO it has to go to the fastest AMD Athlon you can get. To me it looks like an XP 2100+ Tbred.

[gf]

Hi hwoodwar,
Here is some info I got from this site and from Canopus, the only capture board company that wants to help it's customers.
Does anyone else agree with this listing?

Steve :P



Athlon motherboards

Info From VCD Helper

Microstar K7T Turbo2 Via KT133A good ATI AIW 128 pro 32meg
Pc Chips 810LMR SIS 730S sync problems ATI AIW Radeon 32DDR
ECS K7S5A SIS 735 good ATI Radeon 64mb DDR ViVo
ECS K7S5A SIS 735 good ATI-Rage Fury Pro
MSI K7T Turbo2 Via KT133A good ATI TV Wonder
Gigabyte GA-7VAX Via KT400 drops frames Compro AV/tuner box
Asus A7S333 SiS 745 good? Pinnacle DC-10+
Epox EP-8K3A+ Via KT333 good? Hercules AIW 7500 64Mb
Pc Chips M817 ALI M1647 drops frames ATI AIW Radeon 32DDR




From Canopus
---------------------------------------------------------
Motherboards using Canopus-unfriendly chipsets
----------------------------------------------------------
Abit

Model Chipset
AT7-MAX VIA KT333
KT7 VIA Apollo KT133
NF7-S Nvidia nForce2
NV7-133R Nvidia nForce
NV7m Nvidia nForce


AOpen

Model Chipset
AK73 Pro VIA Apollo KT133
AK76 Acer Labs Inc (ALi) MAGiK-1


Asus

Model Chipset
A7A266 Acer Labs Inc (ALi) MAGiK-1
A7M266-D AMD 761
A7N266 Nvidia nForce
A7N266-C Nvidia nForce
A7N266-E Nvidia nForce
A7N266-VM Nvidia nForce
A7N8X Nvidia nForce2
A7S333 SiS 745
A7V VIA Apollo KT133
A7V133 VIA KT133A


BioStar

Model Chipset
M7VIB VIA KT266
M7VKB VIA Apollo KT133


ChainTech

Model Chipset
7AJA VIA Apollo KT133
7NJS Nvidia nForce2


Epox

Model Chipset
8KTA2 VIA Apollo KT133
8RDA+ Nvidia nForce2
EP-8KHA VIA KT266


Fic


Model Chipset
AZ-11 VIA Apollo KT133
AZ-11E VIA Apollo KT133

Gigabyte

Model Chipset
GA-7AM Acer Labs Inc (ALi) MAGiK-1


Iwill


Model Chipset
KA266-R Acer Labs Inc (ALi) MAGiK-1
KD266 Acer Labs Inc (ALi) MAGiK-1
MPX2 (Dual CPU) AMD MPX


MSI


Model Chipset
645E Max2 SiS 645
K7N2-L Nvidia nForce2
K7N420 Pro Nvidia nForce
K7T Pro2-A VIA Apollo KT133
MS-6330 VIA Apollo KT133
MS-6347 VIA Apollo KT133
MS-6380 VIA KT266


Tyan

Model Chipset
Thunder K7X Pro AMD MPX
Tiger MPX AMD MPX












----------------------------------------------------
Motherboards using Canopus-friendly chipsets
-----------------------------------------------------


Abit

Model Chipset
KG7-Raid AMD 761
KT7A VIA KT133A
KT7A-Raid VIA KT133A
SE6 Intel 815
TH7-Raid Intel 850
VP6 VIA Apollo Pro133A




Aopen


Model Chipset
AX3S Plus Intel 815
AX3S Pro Intel 815


Asus

Model Chipset
A7M266 AMD 761
CUSL2 Intel 815
CUSL2-C Black Pearl Intel 815
P4B Intel 845
P4B266 Intel 845
P4T Intel 850
P4T-E Intel 850
TUSL2-C Intel 815


BioStar

Model Chipset
M7MIA AMD 761
M7VKD VIA KT133A


ChainTech

Model Chipset
7AJA2 VIA KT133A
7KJD AMD 761
CT-60JV Intel 815


Epox

Model Chipset
4T2A Intel 850
8KTA3+ VIA KT133A
8KTA3L VIA KT133A
EP-3S1A Intel 815
EP-8K7A AMD 761
EP-8K7A+ AMD 761


Fic

Model Chipset
AD11 AMD 761
FS35 Intel 815



Gigabyte

Model Chipset
GA-60XM7E Intel 815
GA-7DX AMD 761




Iwill

Model Chipset
DVD266-R (Dual CPU) Intel 815
DX400-SN Intel 860
DX400-SN (Dual Xeon) Intel 850
KK266 VIA KT133A
KK266 Plus-R VIA KT133A
KK266-R VIA KT133A
P4R533N Intel 850e
W02-R Intel 815



MSI

Model Chipset
815E Pro / MS-6337 Pro Intel 815
K7T Turbo-R VIA KT133A
MS-6341 AMD 761


Tyan

Model Chipset
Thunder K7 AMD 760MP

[vcdforme]

Thanks "GF" you rule!

And to "Inwoodwar", I meant that
I would prefer MB's that use
AMD processors. thank you.

as far as the list of MB's.
any favorites out there, from
personal experience?
myself,
I have the MSI 6380/ with via chipset, I don't think its that great.

[Will Hay]

Does anyone else agree with this listing?

Everything except the Via recommendations
Stay away frm Via if you wish to capture video, the PCI latency problems are well documented.
SiS have been superb, for me at least, after dropping my Via KT133
HTH,
Will

[gf]

Your welcome vcdforme,
I just copied some info that I could put together from this website and from Canopus. I had a hard time gathering info from this website because people do not always list their hardware fully, and what was the outcome of there problems. ex: bios setting, software problem, ect... I would agree with Silky31, and stay away from Via. I had 2 different Via motherboards, and both problems with video capture. I just got a Epox EP-8K7A+, but I still have to install it. Some motherboards even use "GOOD" chipsets, but screw something up in their motherboards, and then we still have problems, like "Asus A7M266 AMD 761" a good motherboard---and a "Asus A7M266-D AMD 761 " a board with problems. I will post the results with my new motherboard soon.

Also I would like to add some info from Canopus, please nobody take this personal, I am just copying this from my personal emails, thanks
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other processors are definitely fine but again we prefer AMD chipsets on motherboards the use AMD processors. SIS, Ali Magic, and VIA generally don't seem to work very well.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In general both the Via KT133 chipset and the NVidia motherboard have poor resourcing capabilities. You will want to make sure that you have downloaded the latest drivers for either of those motherboards.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Boards that have little/no on board devices (sound card/ video card) on them will help as well (or disable them). This should lead to a well resource managed system.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIA chipsets for Intel and AMD processors are not recommended for use with a Matrox RT.X system because they do not work well when performing realtime DV output, or when editing or playing back Timelines that contain complex effects, such as particle and blur effects. These chipsets have all demonstrated a PCI bandwidth limitation when reading from host memory (RAM). This is seen when heavy PCI bandwidth (such as for video, graphics, and effects) is required by several PCI devices at the same time.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Fozzee]

Does anyone else agree with this listing?

Everything except the Via recommendations
Stay away frm Via if you wish to capture video, the PCI latency problems are well documented.

Where is it well documented???

I have just got a MSI KT3 VIA Motherboard.
The video is fine. I'm just having a problem recording the line-in.
After recording the sound is crackley.
I only get this problem recording line-in.
Not when I record sounds from my hard drive.

Any help appreciated.

Cheers

Fozzee

[Mr. Twister]

I too am looking to upgrade for video editing and encoding. I've always stuck with AMD and Ali/ Via chipsets in the past, but am sick and tired of all the hassels and conflicts. I'm going to make a change to Intel chipsets this time and get the new Epox 4pea+ with all the bells and whistles. Maybe then I can capture at 720 x 480 and encode in less than 6 hours.

[paulgab]

I have an MSI KT3 Ultra mobo(KT333) and never had problem related to video. Can capture 720x480 using MJPEG codec w/o dropping frames. CPU is only Athlon XP 1700+ mildly O/C as 1800+

Perhaps those older Via chipsets like KLE133, KT133, KT266 has some problems but KT266A and above are just fine.

[Will Hay]

Hello Fozzee

Does anyone else agree with this listing?

Everything except the Via recommendations
Stay away frm Via if you wish to capture video, the PCI latency problems are well documented.

Where is it well documented???
I have just got a MSI KT3 VIA Motherboard.
The video is fine. I'm just having a problem recording the line-in.
After recording the sound is crackley.
I only get this problem recording line-in.
Not when I record sounds from my hard drive.

There is a patch created by a chap called George Breez(s)e which I understand works for some and not for others but I'll dig out the link and post it (I'm at work now).
Regards,
Will

[Will Hay]

Long live google: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=pci+latency+via&meta=
...
http://www.georgebreese.com/net/software/readmes/faqvl019.htm

[Will Hay]

I have an MSI KT3 Ultra mobo(KT333) and never had problem related to video. Can capture 720x480 using MJPEG codec w/o dropping frames. CPU is only Athlon XP 1700+ mildly O/C as 1800+

Perhaps those older Via chipsets like KLE133, KT133, KT266 has some problems but KT266A and above are just fine.

Yep, very true.
On reflection, I've read the KT266 has no such problems but having the experience I have prefer not to risk them anymore
Will

[vcdfreak]

It depends on whether you want stability, feature or speed.

If you need stability, Asus and MSI (not KT266, only later models are good) boards are OK. As one should have noticed that DELL will subcon some of its mainboard business to MSI. That should be a good indication of its production quality. Motherboard design wise, Asus should be a good choice and it's the first company that make use of the thermal diodes in Athlon XP processors. It has a leading motherboard design team. Although sometime I feel that the BIOS programmers are a bit too paranoid.

If yours is using the VIA chipset and you have PCI-based capture cards, make sure you installed the latest VIA PCI latenty patch or it will freeze all the time. If you can live with a patch, VIA chipset usually have better memory controller deisgn. That's why it runs faster than SIS, Intel and AMD chipsets.

For stability, buy branded memory to avoid occasion hang-ups. Don't overclock memory and processor bus though. Don't set your memory to run faster than it's designed for. Ex, if it's a CL3 don't run at CL2 or CL2.5.

512M of RAM or above is recommended if you are using TMPGEnc. You can tell from the Task Manager once you run TMPGEnc. 1 bar of 512MB RAM is better than 2 bars of 256M of RAM modules. For those who knows how to tune the PC for maximum stability, this is a basic trick. However, chipset and motherboard design nowadays should not have much problem with the timing difference between memory slots.


As for feature wise, and you are not concern about speed and stability. You can pay more attention to features such as USB 2.0, Firewire(IEEE 1394) interfaces, card reader slots and RAID. Built-in network interface, sound and video chip can be found in many boards nowadays. Usually they run slower but offers good value with good compatibility with the board.


If you care about speed, the VIA and NVidia Chipset runs fastest for AMD platform but just by a small margin. Processor speed is still the prominent factor in performance when it comes to encoding. If you do not concern about noise from Heat Sink Fans, overclocking the processor can give you speed at smaller cost. But your processor will die sooner.


For me, I would pick ASUS A7V333 with RAID, USB2.0 and Firewire running XP 2000+ or 2200+ (Thoroughbred. Make sure the BIOS is updated to support.) It's a VIA but it's cheap with a lots of features I will use. The board reads the thermal diodes data in Athlon XPs.


Intel products are not bad either. The only bad side is the price.

Abit motherboards tend to have problematic BIOS. Not sure whether this is still a problem.

Gigabytes motherboards come with Dual-BIOS system. Not sure this will help preventing common BIOS problems during installations and low battery scenario.


Hope this helps.

[Will Hay]

If yours is using the VIA chipset and you have PCI-based capture cards, make sure you installed the latest VIA PCI latenty patch or it will freeze all the time.

For those interested in this good point, the link is shown two posts up
(Freeze all the time?, I wasn't aware this was a result of the latency timer probs).
Will

[gf]

Greetings All
All I did was answer a person post on motherboards, I did not create it to start a major debate, only to give 1 person some info that I found. If your motherboards are on the list and are working fine, then great! I have a Asus A7V333 with Raid for about 1 year, XP1700+ oc to 1900+, ATI All in Wonder Radeon. The raid performance is junk! And @ 720*480 all I get is dropping frames and erratic movement!

Now for the " Where is it well documented???" here are the links!!!!!!!!!!
http://206.111.152.200/ProductIssues/Motherboards/compat_motherboard_issues_index.php


http://www.canopus.com/US/canopus/tp_technology4.asp

I hope that my post could help someone, instead of being a start of a mud slinging contest.

[vcdfreak]

If yours is using the VIA chipset and you have PCI-based capture cards, make sure you installed the latest VIA PCI latenty patch or it will freeze all the time.

For those interested in this good point, the link is shown two posts up
(Freeze all the time?, I wasn't aware this was a result of the latency timer probs).
Will

Sorry for not ellaborating it. This applies to those who are using Matrox realtime capture system as mentioned in one of the posts on this subject such as RT2500 and RT.x, or any activity involves intensive use of PCI bandwidth. It will hang up your system most of the time.



I personally do not recommend RAID to boost IDE bandwidth. Systems with RAID configurations are never consistent in the IDE HDD bandwidth. Such inconsistency is a killer for video capturing. Basically RAID systems steal the CPU+PCI bandwidth to relieve some of the IDE HDD bandwidth. The down side is that applications that is PCI-bandwidth-consuming will cause the IDE bandwidth to be unpredictable and thus results in inconsistent IDE bandwidth (transfer rate).

RAID systems also produce a lots of windows problems that are beyond imagination.

With IDE of such a high transfer rate nowadays, RAID will not help much. IDE HDD with 8M cache are getting close to the performance of a 10k RPM SCSI HDD. Do you still need RAID?

IDE HDD of 5400 RPM is well enough for capturing if you assign the IDE bus to HDD correctly. RAID will only make it worse as it makes the capturing applications hard to predict the data transfer rate as it is so erratic. In some cases, a simple 5400 RPM Harddisk works better than a RAID storage system in video capturing depending on the capture device/method you use.

[Will Hay]

I hope that my post could help someone, instead of being a start of a mud slinging contest.

What on EARTH are you drivelling about?
This post has turned into a very useful peice on motherbaord recommendations, with specific user contributions on specific chipsets.
If you think this has turned into anything other than a great help to others you should go back into your broom cupboard and turn out the lights.
Will

[Will Hay]

I personally do not recommend RAID to boost IDE bandwidth.

Are you referring to systems with RAID on board?
I have a couple of 80gb maxtor d740x's on a RAID 0 and whilst can't pretend to know as such as you do I have noticed a massive increase in capture rate, compared with my previous set up of capturing to my one and only hdd. I know this wasn't ideal for capturing but financies dictated this setup at the time.
I'd like to think my x 2 80gb maxtor's are better than a single slave 160gb, at least I hope so
Kind regards,
Will

[gf]

Thanks Will for the positive answer that it helped, but the negative comments do bother some people, me included, enough said. Yes on my Asus board the Western Digital drives 30 Gb/7200 rpm drives benchmarked worse connected to the Promise controller than the standard ide cables. They are 80 pin cables, I installed George's & Via's latenty patch. It did bring up the score, but not as high as some Raid benchmarks. One thing I noticed about the Promise "lite" software, there is no selection for DMA. My other board has a Highpoint controller with a "full" package, and it does benchmark alot higher, and has DMA selection.

[gf]

Motherboard Compatibility Issues with Canopus Products
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


By Hiro Yamada, President and CEO of Canopus Corporation

Canopus has several PCI video editing boards that use the Philips 7146 PCI bus connection controller chip, which is based on the PCI 2.1 specification. Canopus video editing boards don't require any special instructions for the motherboard. As long as the motherboard meets the PCI spec, the boards will work. However, there are several issues we have discovered so far:

1. Some motherboards have bugs in the chipset that make the system unstable when the PCI card sends the video data to an AGP graphic card via DMA. These motherboards can't transfer the data properly while the PCI bus is being simultaneously used for hard disk data transfer. This issue is also related to the AGP graphic card in the system. Some graphic cards consume a lot of power from the AGP connector, which makes for serious noise problems on the AGP signal. The relationship between the motherboard and AGP graphic cards is one of the key factors that make systems unstable in graphics-intensive applications, such as video editing.


2. Some PCI RAID hard drive interface cards hold the PCI bus too long. They don't release the bus even when the drive is retrying to read the data after a read error. In this situation, the video capture card can't send the video data to the AGP graphic card. This generates horizontal line noise on the overlay video monitor or CRT. At worst, the system starts dropping frames during capture or playback. Slowing down the RAID board by specifying that option or replacing it with a SCSI RAID makes the noise disappear. Some network interface boards also face similar issues.

3. Some over-clocked motherboards have higher clock speeds on the PCI bus and memory interface. This makes the system very unstable. We don't recommend using our hardware on over-clocked systems.

4. We found many of the unstable systems have occasional memory errors. It is very difficult to isolate this issue.

5. Some systems had other applications running in background, which uses up system resources and may prevent it from accurately processing the video signal. Close all other programs to ensure that system resources are dedicated to capturing video.

We recommend testing your boards on a clean system with a minimum of add-on cards and installed applications. You can add other boards back into the machine one at a time, and check the system after each installation.

[Fozzee]

Does anyone else agree with this listing?

Everything except the Via recommendations
Stay away frm Via if you wish to capture video, the PCI latency problems are well documented.

Where is it well documented???

Fozzee

Hi
My point was really meant to be ......
"Oh really I was unaware of this"

So thanks for the links guys.

Unfortunately I don't think it solved my problem.

Moving the soundcard to PCI Slot 3 may of done tho.
Still testing.

Cheers

Fozzee

[Will Hay]

We recommend testing your boards on a clean system with a minimum of add-on cards and installed applications. You can add other boards back into the machine one at a time, and check the system after each installation.

Absolutely vital, and the best advice to date.
The number of people I come across who format their system then install video, sound, modem, network etc all at once and wonder why they're no better off.
Will

[Will Hay]

Hello again,

After recording the sound is crackley...I only get this problem recording line-in....not when I record sounds from my hard drive.

So, when you're recording it *isn't* crackling, it's only when you play it back that the interference starts?
I have a small file I added to my startup folder a long time ago (when I was getting the same problem as you), it wasn't created by George Breese (I haven't a clue who the hell created it) but it worked for me.
I'm happy to mail it to you, let me know (pm me if you want it)
Will

[Fozzee]

Hi
After vigorous testing it seems there is a conflict.

My SB Live 5.1 Card and AverTV Studio Card don't get on with each other in the MSI KT3 Ultra Mobo.

I tried every combination of PCI slots some interferred with video capture others with audio.
It must be the board because they were bumchums in my ECS K75SA

I have now got the AverTV Studio Card in Slot 3 and am using the onboard 6 channel sound.
Which to be fair doesn't sound too bad.

At least I've lost the crackle.

Anyone know any simple sound recording programs??

Fozzee

[vcdforme]

Whoa! Mr Hiro Yamada! cool info.
I really don't see any mud-slinging guys.
All good useful info, IMHO. Thanks all!

Mr Fozzeee?
I've experienced the same crackling
on my MSI KT3. At first I thought
that perhaps the input might have
been non-standard line level.
Lowering volume did not help.
Nor did the VIA update.
Playback was fine, but for audio recording- the board is noisy, crackles, and misses audio samples.

Stick with the SB live.
I've heard there are some issues
with the SB live, but I've got 3
and have not had problems.
Drivers only, stay away from the bloated software.

I have an Asus AV7S333 which also
has on-board audio, which seems
to work better. But IMHO, I think
one is always better off with a
dedicated sound card.

An audio recording program?
If you have Nero, or Easy CD, they
come with a very basic audio WAV recorder. Works, in a pinch.
If you need more elaborate- an inexpensive version of Soundforge
will do the job. (I still have a 3 year old version called XP that is
quite good.)
Cool Edit, if you want alot of bang for the buck, and are a pro.
But there's many others that I'm
sure are also good.

Thanks,
Vcdforme

[shred]

I have a Tyan Trinity 400 (S1854) which has the VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset.

I was dropping lots of frames (> 25%) at 640x480 and I could only capture at strange rates (33.66, 20.08, but not 29.97)

I applied the pci latency patch from
http://www.georgebreese.com/net/software/
and it fixed my problem.

Now I drop 0 frames at 29.97

[vcdfreak]

I personally do not recommend RAID to boost IDE bandwidth.

Are you referring to systems with RAID on board?
I have a couple of 80gb maxtor d740x's on a RAID 0 and whilst can't pretend to know as such as you do I have noticed a massive increase in capture rate, compared with my previous set up of capturing to my one and only hdd. I know this wasn't ideal for capturing but financies dictated this setup at the time.
I'd like to think my x 2 80gb maxtor's are better than a single slave 160gb, at least I hope so
Kind regards,
Will

RAID will definitely boost the transfer rate bandwidth but will also cause inconsistency in bandwidth which results in higher chance of getting dropped frames. (There are usually 3 ways to configure your RAID chunks. Make sure you optimized for video editing to avoid this problem. Configure for server setup might worsen the dropped frame rate.)


Anyway, anyone consider this board before?

Gigabyte 7VAXP Socket A Motherboard
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?sku=G451-2010

[Will Hay]

...make sure you optimized for video editing to avoid this problem. Configure for server setup might worsen the dropped frame rate.)

Hi.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not sure I understand how to go about configuring a RAID setup for optimal video capturing.
Do you know of a guide perhaps?
Thanks,
Will

[The Maynard]

Everything except the Via recommendations
Stay away frm Via if you wish to capture video, the PCI latency problems are well documented.
SiS have been superb, for me at least, after dropping my Via KT133
HTH,
Will

I agree. VIA is horrible! I had the KT133 in a previous board and I had nothing but problems. The SIS chipset rocks! I have that in my ECS k7s5a board and I've used that board in 7 other systems and no one has ever had a problem with it. I would recomend that board as it is very stable and only around $50 at www.newegg.com.

[Will Hay]

I agree. VIA is horrible! I had the KT133 in a previous board and I had nothing but problems. The SIS chipset rocks! I have that in my ECS k7s5a board and I've used that board in 7 other systems and no one has ever had a problem with it. I would recomend that board as it is very stable and only around $50 at www.newegg.com.

I'm with you on the K7S5A, although I've heard (and it hasn't happened to me) if you have PC133 SDRam stick one big 'un in, not two.
www.ezboard.com have a forum *just* for the K7S5A, and there's a guy there called Oken who's been a big help.
Will