Marvel G400 vs. All-In-Wonder

[Raskolnikov]

How does the capture quality of All-In-Wonder compare with your Marvel G400? I think I have the hardware to use the All-In-Wonder well, but some people seem to think that the Marvel produces better results.

Athlon 1GHz on a KT133 motherboard
384 MB PC133 RAM
60 GB IBM 60GXP (Can upgrade to RAID if needed)

I'm mainly concerned with capture quality, but I haven't been able to find many direct comparisons based on first-hand use of these two cards. I would like to be able to capture video from my Tivo, edit it and burn it as SVCD or DVD.

Also, I am willing to consider other options for this type of capture as long as they are less than $300.

TIA for any information.

[Sefy]

In capture Quality, NO other card currently in the market will beat the Marvel G400, as it is specificly designed for that objective alone, with it's HARDWARE MJPEG capture, you can even do captures at Full Resolution and Full Frame on a Pentium 133.

HOWEVER, the G400 is NOT for gamers, it's support has "basicly" been stopped as it's over 2 years old model, I know there are beta drivers for 2000, but if it will ever get out of beta, it will not be in any time soon.

If you are a gamer and/or using 2000/XP then I highly suggest you get a diffrent card to do this kind of job, although I doubt you will find another card with Hardware MJPEG Capturing.

[Raskolnikov]

Sefy, thanks for your reply.

I know that the DC10+ uses the Zoran chip like the Matrox Marvels, so does it produce the same high quality captures? I realize that this card does not work in Win2k, but that's not an issue.

Also, even though it is does provide hardware capture in MJPEG, the All-In-Wonder is able to in software. Is the quality of MJPEG captured by the All-In-Wonder as good as what a Matrox Marvel can produce?

Finally, I should mention that gaming performance does not matter to me, this is going to be a capture-only rig.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Raskolnikov on 2001-08-24 13:19:20 ]</font>

[Anonymous65]

I have used the All in Wonder, and as you say it does not have a hardware encoder. It comes with a mpeg1/2 software encoder. The problem is that real-time software mpeg encoders usually doesn't priovide the quality of AVI capture and then convert the file to mpeg. This is especially the case at low bit rates. However, if you capture at 8 Mbits/sec mpeg-2 or higher, the video look quite good! Now the problem is getting it to VCD without having problems encoding the mpeg file. If you want to use vdub and an encoder like Picvideo, you have to use older drivers and MMC6.3 for it to work. I have not gotten Vdub to work with the latest drivers and MMC7.3.
And a note about video quality, I find the video a little bit too soft. I like video to have crispness, even if it might have abit higher noise level. The AIW has a "built-in" noise reducer and makes clean and soft video.
I have not tried the G400.

[Sefy]

Hardware vs Software, don't forget that even hardware uses software, the G400 is just able to do Full Resolution at Full Frame even on slow PC's, and believe me NO other card can do that!
And Matrox are known for their extremly high quality captures, I have not seen a single person who has the G400 and used it for capturing that was disappointed from the capture, he may have had startup problems like you'd have with any card/software you just starting to use, but after they started using it, the G400 capture and ability to output aswell as input, is unbeatable.

[Riktar]

I have used Matrox products for over 4 years, starting with a Mystique 220/Rainbow Runner combo, upgrading to a Marvel G200, and now I am about to replace my Marvel G400 with a AIW Radeon.

Since my main focus is shifting away from tape and into SVCD or DVD-R creation I am not too concerned with tape output quality. And from what I have read the AIW Radeon still does a pretty good job at tape output.

I was going to go with the G450 product since that provides for Mpeg2 capture in software. After seeing the 2D display quality of the Radeon (Pretty impressive)I decided to give ATI a try.

One factor that tilted me towards the Radeon was reading some post's that show how to capture and go directly to Nero for SVCD creation. And believe me if I can eliminate the steps that are required in software to prep the file for CD-Burning, I am all for that! In using software I have found that TMPGEnc does a great job from a quality standpoint. However, it does blow giant chunks when it comes to measuring the length of time required. And I do have enough horsepower to move things along as much as can be expected.

Also, Matrox has had a less than stellar rating by alot of it's user base over the past few years due to driver support issues. Now I am sure their have been gripes with ATI as well, but at least they are trying by way of posting beta's to sample. My experience with Matrox was one of "We will post the drivers when "WE" feel they are ready". Not to mention the past broken promises and later the statements of "We will release new drivers soon, just don't ask us when soon is,,"

Anyway,(Jeez, do I ramble or what?) I am going to take ownership of a AIW Radeon this week. By this weekend (Hopefully) I will be able to get back to you about the quality of it's captures. SVCD creation as well as tape output will be noted.

If you can stand to wait until then I will post back here with my results.

No matter what you decide keep this in mind: All levels of Video capture that exist at the price level we are discussing have tradeoff's in speed vs. quality vs. etc., etc. You gain here, you lose their.

There is no one product you are going to buy at the $250 level that is going to give you "Hollywood" output. I mean there is a reason that the big boys shell out $$$$$ for their equipment.

Of course that doesn't mean us tightwads aren't going to keep looking for our "Video Holy Grail" anytime soon.

[Sefy]

I am looking forward to your experiences with the ATI AIW Radeon! give all experiences, good and bad!

[TIbrO]

Yes, the Marvel G400-TV is an excellent card for video editing and capture. However, I never had the onboard MJPEG acceleration because I've always been on Windows 2000 Professional, and now I am on XP Professional build 2600. The Zoran chip only works in Windows 98SE and uses the old VfW video handling methods, that's why it doesn't work in Windows 2000 with the hardware acceleration. The drivers for Windows 2000 are out of BETA now, but they disabled the MJPEG acceleration since it's unusable anyway. The card works great in XP since I have a 1.4Ghz to do PICVideo MJPEG captures with and AVI_IO.

I've never used an ATI card because I've always heard that they are horrible and buggy, and my friend's Compaq came with one before... If Compaq uses it, it must be crap is what I have always thought...

So, yeah, I recommend the Matrox board if you're not a gamer and you want the most quality throughout the entire process... input all the way to output. But, since paying $300 for the Marvel G400 without MJPEG for future OSes is stupid, just go with the Marvel G450 eTV which is the same exact card, except without the Zoran MJPEG chip on it, and better software suite, and they still support it.

[sherman]

I have decided that the Matrox 400 is the vid card that I want for a new system I'm building (I also am not interesting in a gaming machine) So Im interesting in aquiring one at a resonable price.

Could someone check this link to EBAY Canada it says it is for a card only. Would I have troble finding what else I would need to capture with this card.

http://cgi.ca.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1273181084

Riktar if you would like to sell your card give me an EMail.

Sherman

[Sefy]

Hi Sherman, the card in the link is a Matrox Millenium, what you need is the Matrox Marvel, the Millenium does not have any capturing abilities.