Why is ATI preferred over Matrox MX02?

[mr-jolly]

I have been researching building a capture setup. Thanks for this forum - it is exactly what I have been looking for.

I am looking to build the best quality capture workflow system that I can. Right now I am looking to digitize some family movies recorded on Hi-8 and MiniDV. I have the cameras these tapes were recorded on so I think the best place to start is a capture device and over time acquire playback devices.

I like the look of the Matrox MX02 HD with the ExpressCard connector - the I/O options are excellent and I will be able to connect this unit to both laptops and desktop machines (with a PCIe adapter).

What I have not been able to determine (my apologies if my searches have missed something obvious) is why the ATI All In Wonder card is recommended over what appears to me to be an obviously more professional and compatible capture solution.

When I read the pinned post:

Quote:

Quick History on Why ATI AIW Cards are Preferred

The ATI All In Wonder card -- or more specifically, the ATI Theatre Rage and Theatre 200 chipsets on the cards, coupled with the ATI Multimedia Center (ATI MMC) software -- were an unexpected force on the video capturing market. Prior to the ATI AIW cards, you could choose from really crappy $50-100 consumer capture cards based on Bt chipsets, or high quality professional specialty cards in the $1000+ range (DV only, MPEG only, etc). ATI managed to create a card that had most of the capture abilities of higher end cards (MPEG-2, DV, etc), as well as the advantages of lossless and uncompressed AVI capturing. As an added features, it threw in some PVR type functions. These cards really ate into the business of the higher end card makers like Matrox, and pushed down the prices of inferior cards based on Bt/Conexant. For several years there, if you were capturing video (and doing a good job at it!), you were using something from ATI, Hauppauge, Canopus or Matrox.

Fast forward to about 2009, and most video capture cards and DVD recorders had died off, replaced by TiVo-like clones meant to only record from TV. Advanced features created for analog conversion had largely been dumped, making new cards useless for all but recording ATSC "digital" TV (including HDTV). Therein lies the reason many people still use, keep and look for these "old" ATI All In Wonder cards.

The suggested ATI All In Wonder cards are here: ATI All In Wonder Hacks, Drivers, Codecs and MMC

This does not really state why the ATI AIO is preferred over other devices. It states what the AIO cards do and what the historical progression was but nothing about why it is superior.

I am not concerned about what PC platform the capture device runs on - obviously something that runs on more modern equipment is nice, but in the long run it makes little difference to me.

Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance,
-mal

[cbehr91]

Couple things:

The MX02 is an excellent I/O box. However, depending on what operating system you're using it may not work. Its software was designed for Windows 7 and whatever Mac OS was going at the time of release (early 2010s). Eventually Matrox did release Windows 8 drivers, but said they would not do so for Windows 10 as the Mojito line of I/O box was already out. I don't know about Mac.

I know others have gotten this to work, but I have not been able to capture lossless AVI using VirtualDub with the MX02 like you can with AIW cards. I have only been able to capture with the proprietary Matrox codecs using the Matrox A/V Tools capture software (which is good, don't get me wrong). Included with the Matrox codecs is 8-bit and 10-bit uncompressed, but that's way overkill most of the time.

[Eric-Jan]

That's not the PCMCIA ExpressCard connector your talking about i guess ? my (old) HP laptop has such a connector, for a tv tuner :0 but you said you could connect this to a Thunderbold 2 connection you said ? MacbookPro's from 2013 -2015 still have this interface , try to get a 2ndhand MBP from that generation, if... MAC OS or software supports that, these could be i7 MBP's.
The MX02 looks like a good device, but legacy hardware is always hard to setup, speed will become a problem in many ways that way, a capture device that will work on a recent OS will give less problems, but having a clean analog video signal is also important, in any situation.

[jwillis84]

I have the MX02 Desktop, MX02 Light and MX02 HD (and their max variants).. mostly because people were throwing them in the trash.

By todays standards they are large heavy aluminum boxes. Even the little desktop model.

They were prosumer to professional under some circumstances, so they often came with XLR and un-amplified balanced connectors.. so you need special cables and extra pre-amps to use their sound capture side. The video was okay, but had the popular options for Uncompressed (and) a proprietary Intermediate Compressed codec.. so you could capture a lot of detail by sacrificing storage space.. a Lot of storage space.

From what I could tell they were used on TV productions like the original CSI while on location in Vegas (Las Vegas, Nevada) ect..

The MX02 HD was "Luggable" in the Compaq Pro (1979) way.. it about the size and heft of a Sewing machine (a full sized Sewing machine).

The device drivers for Mac or Windows are very OS release and version specific.

external PCIe cables and firewire cables aren't as familar to many people today.. I don't think any of the MX02 worked on any USB interface because of the bandwidth requirements.. and USB3.0 hadn't been invented when they were around.

[NJRoadfan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwillis84

There are a very few Mac options for USB video capture devices, but they rely on Third Party drivers which are strictly for specific version of OSX, each update broke them and thinned everyone's hair.

Apples official stance became.. do your video capture in a camera or dedicated device.. we only support file system copy for Importing your video.

Part of the problem is that Apple never bothered to document how to write a Quicktime capture driver. They later killed off "classic" Quicktime in favor of Quicktime X and CoreMediaIO APIs.... the latter of which has poor documentation for capture devices. Windows never had this problem, there was always a well documented video capture driver framework and API (Video For Windows and later DirectShow).

Quote:

Apple today and Windows 10 have settled on the UVC "webcam" device as the way of performing video capture today, and most $500+ devices masquerade as a UVC device to connect with capture software.

Thankfully most UVC compatible cards also have native DirectShow drivers thanks to the popularity of streaming using programs like OBS (UVC is limited in control vs DirectShow drivers). Things were pretty grim years ago when just about every card had non-standard dedicated capture applications and only spit out compressed video streams. The rise of online streaming revived the DirectShow compatible capture card market.

[jwillis84]

NJRoadfan .. I agree but your being (very) kind to both Apple and Microsoft.

I always thought their SDKs were down right hostile to Third Party developers. they just didn't make it easy.

As for why?

AIW go inside the PC that they have, and "disappears" when your not using them.

Also the AIW user interface for capture provides more feedback and is more familiar, it also works with VirtualDub.

If your on a Mac where your video capture options are more limited, it might be more attractive than.. nothing at all.. but if your equally comfortable on a Mac or PC.. the All in Wonder options are less troublesome to learn and use.

Today I think most people are looking for a USB option they can swap back and forth from a Mac to a PC that doesn't require installing a device driver or downgrading their Mac or PC.

And regardless of people saying they want the absolute "best" video capture.. I bet they would trade it for a compressed video file in a heart beat, once they see how large an hour of Uncompressed video actually is.

I'm waffling these days.. but see DVD recorders with hard drives.. as standalone video capture devices as "superior" to all the more complicated and "better in theory" video capture options.

[Eric-Jan]

With the coming of digital video came component video .... never used on any professional analog tape format, the very first DVD players did not come yet with HDMI, it came with composite, RGB, later also component video came in play, some (H)DV recorders came also with component video connections, my experience is that an component video connection delivers a rock-steady analog video signal from any device, you can capture with a capture device that has component video input, i think it's a solution, if you can't get a stable analog video signal from composite or s-video, or a TBC is just not obtainable or is too expensive, which is often the case, on top of using legacy capture devices,,,, using any legacy hardware, OS, doesn't help also.

[jwillis84]

Component video (Y'UV or YPbPr "yipper") is complicated.. it could carry 1080i or 1080p.. so very flexible, but the capture device was either in the SD or HD camps. Mostly those wars are long gone and we either remember the SD before or the HD aftermath, straddling both is a devils bargain.

I think most people would rather down convert a Component video to SD than go in the other direction and UP convert.

The practical limit I've seen some people mention is if your display is larger than 32 inches.. don't even attempt an UP convert.. but then SD would look fine up to 32 inch as well.. and be a lot smaller to store.

I guess it depends on when you were raised.. if your a "DVD lifer" or "DVD never" type of person. Some people were raised in a household that always had Blu ray and never a DVD. For me, with memories of lots of DVD content from the movie theater that can't be found on Blu ray.. DVD (also known as SD) is fine.

My opinion, with online streaming, the Netflix generation values convenience over resolution.. and the pendulum is about the swing the other way. But who knows.. Apple keeps upgrading the Retina display to obscene resolutions.. which no human can actually see.. its mostly hype.

[NJRoadfan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwillis84

NJRoadfan .. I agree but your being (very) kind to both Apple and Microsoft.

I always thought their SDKs were down right hostile to Third Party developers. they just didn't make it easy.

Microsoft provides detailed driver development kits for their OSes which also include full source code for a sample driver for each device class. Driver programming was never easy, but having a template really speeds things up. Its also likely why so much hardware only has Windows drivers. When I researched what it would take to write an OS X capture driver many years ago, I found......nothing. All of Apple's examples regarding video capture involved accessing Firewire drivers and handling DV streams......yikes.

The reason for the research was to look into writing a capture driver for my ATI XclaimVR 128 card. This is basically a Mac version of the AIW complete with a Rage Theater capture chip on board!

Quote:

Today I think most people are looking for a USB option they can swap back and forth from a Mac to a PC that doesn't require installing a device driver or downgrading their Mac or PC.

The other reason is laptops and desktops with hardly any PCIe slots are popular these days.

Quote:

And regardless of people saying they want the absolute "best" video capture.. I bet they would trade it for a compressed video file in a heart beat, once they see how large an hour of Uncompressed video actually is.

Given that HuffYUV compressed video at SD resolutions is roughly 74GB/hour, its not THAT big anymore. Regardless, most people aren't actually capturing the uncompressed footage. They are mixing real time in streaming/broadcasting applications. It takes less CPU/GPU horsepower to mix in uncompressed feeds vs. having to decompress it first plus less quality loss.

[hodgey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric-Jan

With the coming of digital video came component video .... never used on any professional analog tape format.

Betacam used component video, which resulted in it having very good color resolution compared to other formats.

The reason you've been getting stable signals from component outputs is that the VHS Combo decks that output it send the video through the internal digital circuitry and then converted back in to analog output, essentially acting like a VCR permanently hooked up to a dvd-recorder. The output signal will be freshly generated from the digital image data so it will be stable, but whatever issues the internal video decoder chip had with decoding the analog signal will be baked in. I believe the the broadcast decks that included component out work similarly e.g http://pro.jvc.com/pro/ntsccatalog/N...BR-S522DXU.pdf. I think most of the betacam decks featured built-in TBCs too.

There isn't anything inherently more stable about component video than S-Video or composite. It can have a slight advantage for capturing over s-video from e.g DVD-recorder pass-through, as it may avoid some macrovision types and in case of PAL, avoiding chroma generation. Decoding PAL color typically involves averaging chroma out over multiple lines of video, so going through multiple A/D -> D/A conversions can result in chroma being shifted down a bit. Going via component instead of s-video from dvdr to capture device will avoid the chroma averaging in that step.

The increased color bandwidth and higher resolution support doesn't come into play with formats like VHS and 8mm, you are just avoiding some steps when going from digital to analog and back to digital. The effect in practice will of course come down to the device turning the video to component, and how well the final capture device decodes the signal you are capturing.

[Eric-Jan]

Sofar i have not talked about up converting or upscaling, because that's useless, VHS is just what it is...
there are no new devices being made to capture the analog tape formats, both Apple and Microsoft have their quircks/faults, these are both commercial platforms, i guess everyone has their own experiences with that, both platforms inovate for more speed, which brings also changes to OS and interfacing, also computers become more practical, if there is only one interface, like USB-C also, in general, smartphones have taken over some tasks that where 1st only done by laptops or computers. My viewpoint is, it should be easy to get things done, using a device that has component video out, means for me i don't need any TBC, or TBC "like" function, i can use up to date capture hardware, and a very recent OS which has also power to do other things, It's true the time period component video isn't used for a long period like composite, RGB, VGA,HDMI or SDI, it's because of that it is not commonly known, but in case for capturing analog video tape formats, it's just great, is my experience, especially because the signal is cleaner in terms of synchronity, using it with the Intensity Shuttle it is very noticeable, one should really try this before judgement.

[jjdd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbehr91

Couple things:

The MX02 is an excellent I/O box. However, depending on what operating system you're using it may not work. Its software was designed for Windows 7 and whatever Mac OS was going at the time of release (early 2010s). Eventually Matrox did release Windows 8 drivers, but said they would not do so for Windows 10 as the Mojito line of I/O box was already out. I don't know about Mac.

I know others have gotten this to work, but I have not been able to capture lossless AVI using VirtualDub with the MX02 like you can with AIW cards. I have only been able to capture with the proprietary Matrox codecs using the Matrox A/V Tools capture software (which is good, don't get me wrong). Included with the Matrox codecs is 8-bit and 10-bit uncompressed, but that's way overkill most of the time.

Hi i have MXO2 Le Max you have to install FFDSHOW and then in FFDSHOW codecs setting the last codec down is RAW you have to select All supported like in the picture

i do not know if this is the right way but it works

i have to do the same for Blackmagic intensity shuttle USB 3.0 i have to get it to work with Virtualdub

[Eric-Jan]

Googled for it, that's indeed some model ! comes at a price though... and there should be nothing wrong with it, or going to be... because of short supply of replacement parts... would be a dream device though.... with optional module..
did not know of these vcr's, must be some of the last few of the analog age...

USED:JVC BR-S822DXU
SKU# EQ457699U
Full-Featured S-VHS Editing Recorder. •Optional TBC/DNR with component video signal output with operation Manual
Price:$1,722.50