Matrox MX02 capture Thunderbolt for Windows?

[Cyclone82]

For now i think i ahve to rule this out as i dont have a Mac, donthave PC with PCIe slot or express card slot and in one of the posts above, it said that there is no driver for Thunderbolt through USB type port on Windows. Matrox say Thunderbolt only works for Macs.

I think i will be stuck with a hauppauge USB live-2 or a ATI TV Wonder HD 600 USB (if i can find one)

[Eric-Jan]

Most capture cards are tv cards, for use with build-in tuner, a tuner will always give a better signal then a VCR,
USB should be minimal USB 3.0, USB was never designed for video uses, Universal Serial Bus, even some of the better sound interfaces use Firewire, but, again not frequently used on windows pc's, UB40 used even Atari ST's for MIDI and effects in the early days, the advantage was with those systems and Apple, that they had all the same hardware, which is good for the software in turn...a pc can have many different hardware configurations.
BlackMagic Design's soft and Hardware performs better on the Mac, but you still have to watch out for which generation Mac hardware you choose, the new generation is Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C (3.0-3.1)
I'm very happy now with a MacBook Pro (early2015) and the Intensity Shuttle (Thunderbolt2),
So if you could buy a Mac second hand, ( my MacBook Pro was about 1700 euro new)
Advantage is, you will have good hardware, screen, and good performance , while cpu and gpu run at an easy speed, and have no hick-up's.
It's more of a art-form to get good results, with a minimal hardware setup pc.
Otherwise you should use a compressing codec to capture, the low data rate to your storage will give better capture results also smaller files, for capturing VHS you will notice no difference, also an other advantage will be that your rendering and filtering, will go faster in post, i notice rendering times, over 100fps for some of the easy edits, or slightly less than realtime which i think is fast for the hardware i have,
A good VCR or DVR helps also, (i don't use a external TBC at all) a TBC is a whole other story, and you should really know what it means, that's not easy, even when you can get hold of one in the 1st place......
After i've done some tests, i noticed also that composite or s-video is not a good way to capture from, s-video looks smeared, this is not the case with component video out put signal, component you can capture in progressive mode, which saves you de-interlacing, and the capture is free from artifacts you would have had, only a very faint "ghosting" next to sharp lines, which is a small "price" to pay, for the overall better(&sharp) picture you have.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric-Jan

Most capture cards are tv cards, for use with build-in tuner,

No.
In fact, very few have tuners.
- pre-2005, you have some hit-or-miss quality analog tuners (mostly miss), coax only
- around 2005-2009, you had quite a few "PVR cards", but those had awful non-tuner capture quality
- since 2010, you mostly have capture again, tuners have fallen out of favor

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a tuner will always give a better signal then a VCR,

You can't say that. There's too many variables. It can be as easily untrue as true.

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USB should be minimal USB 3.0, USB was never designed for video uses

Nonsense. USB was always intended to transfer video data. That was one of the earliest of uses, specifically for webcams.

The bandwidth of USB 1.1 was max 6mbps (MPEG), and I saw some nice discs around 1999-2000, when paired with JVC 9600 and DataVideo TBC. It was getting really close to viable, but I wasn't satisfied yet by the hardware and software constraints at the time. It wasn't until 2001 that those were lifted with ATI hardware/software.

USB2 is fully capable of streaming lossless data, adequate bandwidth. Only with uncompressed does it start to drop frames.

USB3 is not needed for SD video, nor is ever used for such.

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better sound interfaces use Firewire,

WTF? Firewire/IEEE1394 has nothing to do with sound/audio.

It's been years since I hear something so ridiculous. (This scenario especially brings to mind a store employee at Fry's telling a customs that DVD+R had better audio than DVD-R. I could not stand for such idiotic BS, and told the clerk he was spouting nonsense, and proceeded to explain the actual differences between the discs. Which, for the record, is/was essentially nothing of importance, aside from making sure your drive supported it. The customer thanked me, the employee was unconvinced.)

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After i've done some tests, i noticed also that composite or s-video is not a good way to capture from, s-video looks smeared, this is not the case with component video out put signal,

No. Nonsense. You must have a bad players or something. There's no difference between component and s-video in terms of details. s-video is luma (Y) plus chroma (CrCb), while component is just separating the CrCb as well. All of the detail is carried on the luma/Y, and the separation of chroma is unneeded because VHS had CrCb carried together.

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component you can capture in progressive mode, which saves you de-interlacing, and the capture is free from artifacts you would have had, only a very faint "ghosting" next to sharp lines, which is a small "price" to pay, for the overall better(&sharp) picture you have.

No, no true. The deinterlace must happen somewhere. It doesn't just magically transform into progressive. And as I've stated multiple times, your sample captures are showing blended deinterlace. That's not good. My captures are about as perfect as you can get, there's no degree of sacrifice required. Anybody can get excellent captures, and the "secret" (not secret) is simply having good hardware (capture card, VCR, TBC).

[Eric-Jan]

You can't spot "blended intrerlace" if you have not seen the source material first, this could have been already in the VHS recording itself, that's what i call BS ! and the difference is really a fact between component out and s-video ! i did some blind tests between the different recordings, and i was spot on with my tests, did you ever capture from a VHS VCR from the component video outputs ? with which equipment & capture device ?
you also twist around my words with your answers, i don't say it the way you explain it.
USB was made universal for in and output devices in general, Mouses, Keybords, it was there to replace the RS232 interface and also the paralel (printer) interface, it also replaced the scsi interface what was used mainly for the early optical scanners (hand & flatbed) scsi was still used by some optical and hard drives in servers.
For video cameras > SDI is used.
USB cams had a too low frame rate for good use, alsways used as minor gimick.
WTF? USB has nothing to do with video

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric-Jan

You can't spot "blended intrerlace" if you have not seen the source material first, this could have been already in the VHS recording itself,

That's why more sample clips are needed.

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USB was made universal for in and output devices in general, Mouses, Keybords, it was there to replace the RS232 interface and also the paralel (printer) interface, it also replaced the scsi interface what was used mainly for the early optical scanners (hand & flatbed) scsi was still used by some optical and hard drives in servers.

Yes, all that plus new peripherals like webcams, and larger-than-allowed-internally external hard drives (ie, GB in size). None of this is new to me, I was there.

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USB cams had a too low frame rate for good use, alsways used as minor gimick.

Never. USB 1.1 could stream 29.97 at lower CIF and Half D1 resolutions, and then USB 2.0 can do full lossless at Full D1 max SD resolutions without a hiccup. It was never a gimmick. Cheap 90s webcams did have plastic lenses, 15fps frame rates, and low sub-CIF 320x240 type resolutions, but that was just a crappy camera. Not the spec, not what was available.

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WTF? USB has nothing to do with video

Video has been a planned usage for USB since the beginning. The "0Eh" and "10h" class is reserved for video devices.

[Eric-Jan]

I can switch the component output also to progressive, this output was meant for flatscreen that had that option only, so some form of de-interlacing is done in this VCR/DVD, my guess is also that trough the years technology has progressed, i am satisfied with it, there is allways room for improvement, even in the near future, you make it sound like USB is designed special for video,
it is a feature, as a part of it, same is also valid for every other computer interface, it will be allways improved to suit as many devices possible, not just one device special, if such a interface has reached it's limits, it will end just like for RS232, allthough RS232 is used sometimes in industrial use because of it's universal use and known protocol.
Yes, you now realize you can't judge from one clip, which you first asumed straightaway, this i have seen in more posts, sometimes even contradicting ones...to suit your purpose, i think that is even more confusing for the newbees with no experience at all, it comes down to: to do lots of tests and see the results, and to learn from that, The (external)TBC subject is even more confusing, first it will be painted as a "must have" that capturing can't be done without it, and then it comes down to: there isn't really a good one, or it's out of production, and hard to come by, that's not helping very much, my experiences,
are quiet good, with two vcr's i have, the 3rd an older one, is indeed not good as standalone, but there are still some good ones to find on the internet when i look out of curiosity. Still i find some users think too lightly about the hardware they think they can use, and will cause discouragement, when it "does not happen" for them.

[hodgey]

@Eric-Jan

I presume your combo machine (the Panasonic DMR ES35V) has some sort of internal buffering similar to what standalone DVD-Recorders have, and thus it would already output a stable signal, and an external TBC may not do much on the output other than optionally strip macrovision when used with that machine in particular. The component input on the DVD-players were mostly for progressive-scan output which won't work over S-Video, and it may have been helpful with the increased resolution of DVDs. Don't see how it would make any difference in picture quality on VHS though, as as LS stated, the colour channels are mixed on the tape, like with the S-Video signal. (As opposed to Betacam tapes, where the colour channels are stored separately and as such component outputs make sense.)
Maybe it would be due to the internal processing adding enough detail or sharper lines for it to be noticeable.

As for TBCs not being available, my experience so far has been that using a capable DVD-Recorder as a frame sync/TBC can suffice most of the time. It's going to come down to how bad the tapes and recording are. You can certainly capture without one too, though you are going to lose more frames, and possibly get audio desync and varying amounts of jitter, depending on the VCR and the capture card.

If you are wondering about the quality of the deinterlacing, maybe it would be best to post a clip captured without progressive mode to run QTGMC on and see how it compares. I am a bit curious about how the raw output from it is compared to say the JVC you got.

This is getting a bit off-topic for this thread though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by U-max

ADV7181C maybe?

Hm, interesting, the AJA Kona also seems to use a Analog Devices chip, though I haven't managed to find out which. The Blackmagic do as well, but they've done something strange with their driver setup or something it seems that cause issues with unstable signals.

The manual states the Matrox Mini can be genlocked, so maybe it even has some sort of frame sync capability.

[Eric-Jan]

The Matrox Mini looks indeed a good choice, it some weird interface options though but it is a better choice than the usual tv capture setup.
The ES35V has 2MB buffer, and Macrovision is canceled in the VCR when Progressive mode is on.
interlaced over s-video of the same recorder looks bad compaired to component progressive.
The Matrox Mini will give same result like i have, maybe even better, i don't know the chips used in the Intensity Shuttle,
I can adjust video capture levels in the "driver" seperately for composite and component, the Matrox should also have that option, only with the Intensity Shuttle you can monitor the outputs at the same time, The Matrox has "shared" connections, my guess the Matrox used with the PCI card would be best choice for data pass through.
The JVC Super VHS recorder shows some video artifacts over s-video which my Panasonic doesn't have, shame though that the Super-VHS has no component output.

[JPMedia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hodgey

This is getting a bit off-topic for this thread though.

This is the beauty of Eric-Jan. I have serious concerns about whether or not this user is a troll, or simply dense.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JPMedia

This is the beauty of Eric-Jan. I have serious concerns about whether or not this user is a troll, or simply dense.

No, be nice. He's very obviously new to video, and is a bit overenthusiastic about his gear.

There is some slight stubbornness there (the denseness you're picking up on), with regard to learning/admitting the defects of his method. By comparison, very often, I'll use non-optimal methods. For example, a DVD recorder, using Yadif, ES10/15, MPEG capture, etc. But I've always been upfront about the defects. When you use this stuff professionally, or even serious hobby, you can't lie to yourself or others. He has said many times, it's good enough for him, and that's great. But it comes attached to some disinformation that I must correct.

I've also been around Mac users since the 80s. For whatever reason, they're a bit too enamored with Apple. I'm not. Nobody should be. I'm platform agnostic, these are just tools for tasks.
- For video, Windows is the best tool, often the required tool.
- For photo, I find my Mac to be best, personal preference.
- For web development, or even general desktop use, Linux is nice,
- For tablets, Windows again.
I equally like and dislike all the mainstream OS (Windows, OS X, CentOS/RHEL and Ubuntu/Debian)

[Eric-Jan]

I am not too serious ? Windows, or any system can't be the best "tool" for video, for Photo a MAC the best ? i see no valid statement in that for video, web development is also not valid for video, and yes, i am happy with my setup, because it works for me , but i've also seen responses, where something is just assumed, without prior knowledge of the source material, which i, in turn, think is BS, and not well thought over before giving a good answer. i had hoped to learn something here, but now it only confuses me, I have some good experiences with Davinci Resolve too, it's fully functional for my needs and free too, changes made, are also visible before rendering, and can be done by the GUI by mouse.
MAC and MacBooks or Linux are often used for a lot of video, stream, or broadcast purposes, because these systems have often a more steady "effect" in general, becase of the hardware or OS, which can be anything good or bad in a windows PC,
with all sorts of hardware combinations, and is where a "MAC" shines due to known hardware with optimal tuned OS to that.
I've used Windows for many years, where it started with Windows 3.10, 3.11, and always upgraded for better and worse where worse is Windows 10, which is where i stopped using Windows.
The results i have now with capturing, and the easy workflow to get there, i'm satisfied with, also "it" being VHS recordings from more than 33 years ago, i still got lots of tapes to go....

[sanlyn]

I can see Eric-lan's point, because he just records, does some simple cut-and-join, and outputs an unrefined final delivery. Except for a little color work he's not into restoration or repair, has never done so, and basically just outputs what looks like unvanished VHS played directly to a TV. That's not good enough for many users who just don't want to watch VHS defects and debris and who don't see multiple stages of compression loss, artifacts, second-rate deinterlacing, and sloppy retail tape mastering as pleasant experiences, not to mention tape noise, rough gradients, macroblocks, fuzzy edges, dropouts, color bleed, chroma shift, and the usual analog tape detritus.

Fortunately for many capture gear manufacturers, a large percentage of the population is of the "good-enough" school and have a high threshold of visual tolerance that allows them to watch anything on a display panel. Anyone can capture a piece of tape to a computer. All they need are the user guides that came with their hardware and software. It also helps to have a level of somewhat blind faith in an OEM's advertising. But users with a lower tolerance for errors and defects generally use forums to learn how to bring up video to match higher expectations. The two groups of users live in different worlds: one group has little use for the restoration information in video tech forums, the other group looks for more information and uses different software. I don't see that anything is to be gained by one group preaching to the other. They're both looking for different results.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric-Jan

I am not too serious ?

Never said that. You seem serious about video to me, simply that your skill level and expectations are more towards the novice spectrum. And there's nothing wrong with that.

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i am happy with my setup, because it works for me ,

Nothing wrong with that, either.

But you also must be aware of the limitations of your method (as I am with some of mine), especially when conversations skew in those directions where the person expects better.

Heck, there are times where sanlyn goes super in-depth for color correction, and the OP likes what he did. By contrast, my method often errs on the side of less restoration, specifically for color. I may mention that once, but I certainly never repeat myself over and over, trying to convince them to use/do something else. I still try to still participate in the thread, as well as read it.

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but i've also seen responses, where something is just assumed, without prior knowledge of the source material, which i, in turn, think is BS, and not well thought over before giving a good answer.

We always want sample clips and stills. When those are lacking, I generally state outright that "assuming for now" or some such, until a requested sample is posted. (Noting that samples are just for video topics, not really others.)

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i had hoped to learn something here, but now it only confuses me,

I learn stuff here.
And I sometimes get confused here as well.

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I have some good experiences with Davinci Resolve too, it's fully functional for my needs and free too, changes made, are also visible before rendering, and can be done by the GUI by mouse.

I want to learn DaVinci. Perhaps start a new thread, maybe even create a guide, to share your tips with it.

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MAC and MacBooks or Linux are often used for a lot of video, stream, or broadcast purposes, because these systems have often a more steady "effect" in general, becase of the hardware or OS, which can be anything good or bad in a windows PC,

No. Video systems, especially closed proprietary ones, were usually Amiga based in the 90s, Windows in the 00s, and Linux in the 10s. There's still many Windows holdovers, but Linux networking and the leaner OS is pushing it out hard. Mac has never had anything of mention/note in the video broadcaster or streaming space. It has great NLEs, mostly a DV-only SD workflow, formerly awesome DVD authoring, and a streaming HD workflow (biased against discs), but that's it.

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with all sorts of hardware combinations, and is where a "MAC" shines due to known hardware with optimal tuned OS to that.

Not really. Drivers are the real problem for Mac. What sucks, what's stupid, is that the Darwin-nased OS (aka Unix, Linux-like) overall has worse support that even Linux does for a great many things. The primary problem is a lack of developers. That hardware is expensive, proprietary, usually impossible to upgrade, and that just contradicts the core value of many devs. Even the simple task of reading a media IDs was never easy, and rudimentary compared to Windows/Linux.

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I've used Windows for many years, where it started with Windows 3.10, 3.11, and always upgraded for better and worse where worse is Windows 10, which is where i stopped using Windows.

I still have our Windows 1.0 install discs, 5.25" floppies, and I think those were 360k single-density discs. Back then, Windows was really just DOSShell. 3.1 and 3.11 WfW (pre-NT4) were neat. I did a lot of graphics and early video rendering (not encoding) back then, mostly just playing around. I was more into digital audio in those days.

Windows 10 is a nice tablet OS that really sucks for desktops/video.
8/8.1 was even worse, lousy for tablets and video both.
No disagreements here.

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i still got lots of tapes to go....

Same here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanlyn

a large percentage of the population is of the "good-enough" school and have a high threshold of visual tolerance that allows them to watch anything on a display panel..

Mostly people that watch video on a phone, or small TV. When you main display is 55"+, you take notice of flaws. It's hard not to.


.... but again, this thread is way, way off-topic now.

[Eric-Jan]

Yes, okay, but it's just when i post, i get such agressive responses, also from other posters when i just answer an other poster. Davinci Resolve is mainly a pro color correcting/grading prog. (vector scope etc..) what has become a good and easy to use, with many detailed settings to set.
but i will start some other threads..
I must say i watch a lot of Youtube, where i find a lot of info, first you must also use some common sense with that
Sorry, OP ! for all this, The Matrox device looks like a good one, if you can setup a good system around it, you can have good use of it, the frame rates it can handle are also enough for you ?

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric-Jan

Yes, okay, but it's just when i post, i get such agressive responses, also from other posters when i just answer an other poster.

Oh, I don't know. We try to keep this a friendly and professional environment around here. Misinformation is quashed quickly, as it should be, and I think you're run into that a few times, but I'd not look at it negatively or take it personally. The underlying intent is always knowledge and facts, not simply to be disagreeable.

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Davinci Resolve is mainly a pro color correcting/grading prog. (vector scope etc..) what has become a good and easy to use, with many detailed settings to set.
but i will start some other threads..

Looking forward to it.

[NJRoadfan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

No. Video systems, especially closed proprietary ones, were usually Amiga based in the 90s, Windows in the 00s, and Linux in the 10s. There's still many Windows holdovers, but Linux networking and the leaner OS is pushing it out hard. Mac has never had anything of mention/note in the video broadcaster or streaming space. It has great NLEs, mostly a DV-only SD workflow, formerly awesome DVD authoring, and a streaming HD workflow (biased against discs), but that's it.

There was a point where Mac had some real time processing hardware, I think Avid made a few systems with custom enclosures and slots full of cards. Apple had a decent shot of ruling the NLE market in the early 00s. Final Cut Pro was a great product and managed to blow both Avid (still classic MacOS based) and Adobe (Premiere had a late/lousy OS X port) out of the water.... only to wholesale abandon the pro market with their FCP X release and killing off of other related products. Now everyone just has a Adobe Creative Cloud license.

Even the hardware is lagging now as the Mac Pro cylinder hasn't been updated in FOUR years. The most up to date machine they have is the iMac Pro. It also doesn't help that you have to rely on expensive Thunderbolt products to expand the machines. The PCIe card versions of the products are always cheaper and you can easily expand the RAM and storage on PCs.

For real time mixing/SEG (think NewTek TriCaster), Linux shines, mostly because the price is right and having the source available makes customizing the low level parts of the OS for your hardware easy. The vendor can control the entire software stack (OS, drivers, end-user software) similar to embedded systems.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NJRoadfan

There was a point where Mac had some real time processing hardware, I think Avid made a few systems with custom enclosures and slots full of cards.

This comment actually brings the thread back to topic. Because I'd probably credit Matrox with the G3/G4 era realtime NLE workflows. It was also DV based, and had the usual DV flaws, but the Matrox DV codecs were really nice.

But, even then, Matrox on Mac was weaker than the Windows counterpart.

In those early days, we didn't know who would rule to video roost. Thankfully, I went Windows, while a friend went Mac. I used his Matrox > Final Cut Pro > Cleaner 5 > DVD Studio Pro software workflow many times. He had a JVC S-VHS+TBC and DataVideo TBC for hardware, which I bought probably 10 years ago when he quit video/capturing. And part of the reason he quit was because the Mac went nowhere, not upgradable whatsoever. After his system crashed, it was either start over with Windows, or quit. He chose to just quit. He'd already finished the family home videos, and his favorite cartoons. (I also managed to inherit his undigitized stash of about 300 VHS tapes from Cartoon Network and Toon Disney recorded in the late 90s, a real treasure trove.)

Canopus, the other major player besides Matrox at the time, never really had anything for Mac, aside from the ADVC stuff.

I'd have to pull out some old catalogs to remember other NLEs, cards, and full systems of the era. I vaguely remember Henry, but not what OS was used.

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For real time mixing/SEG (think NewTek TriCaster), Linux shines

That's exactly what I was thinking of.