Parhelia PCI-e card cant remember!

epirb wrote on 6/28/2006, 3:52 PM

I cant remember and got lost in the search posts , but do I remember correctly that Vgeas cannot use the hdtv out portion if the card as a third monitor? ie the two DVI's for work space the assign the component out as the display for "preview on external monitor".

Comments

JJKizak wrote on 6/28/2006, 4:47 PM

If you are using the XP64 OS it will definitely not work as you want because Matrox does not supply a complete 64 XP driver. (labelled SE). I use it with XP Pro SP-2 with the overlay going to a 1366 x 768 monitor. If you are viewing an m2t file with Media Player or Nero it will work most of the time but a bit jumpy. The overlay will show at 480p if you are preview rendering 4 x 3 or stretched 480p if you have the Parhelia set to 720p. If you preview render the DV-avi proxy file it will show at 720p but it will be jumpy poo. My Media Player 10 is pretty jumpy with the m2t (forced play) and high-def mpg files and my not so current version of Nero is jumpy also. So I flip on the MY-HD 120 High-Def video card and change the m2t file ending to tp and it works just fine. So what I do is if there is a complex section of the project I burn it then watch it on the BATV (Big Ass HDTV) or burn it as an m2t file and play it on the Avelink player (JVC) I also network the m2t file to the Avelink player and save burning the disc. The only negative thing here is the Vegas preview can't handle full best at 29700. It almost can but not quite.
Remember that there is a trick way to select 720p for the overlay or it will default to 480p. Once set it is OK. I forgot how to do it for now.
JJK

Coursedesign wrote on 6/28/2006, 5:43 PM

Parhelia (and many other Matrox cards) also have poor drivers, with OpenGL problems (which is critically needed in many different programs today).

Sad to see a good company fade like this, they have really lost their ways.

epirb wrote on 6/28/2006, 6:15 PM

well im used to three screens on my old machine 1 PCI-e running two monitors and a std PCI running the third.
2- 19" and 1- 23" 1920x1200
New machinge I'm building, is SLI ready and has two PCI-E slots think ill just get two of those (Dual DVI)then and run that way.
I think a can also run the 4th monitor to a projector for big preview.
All HDV stuff BTW, right now with preview window set to auto and sized I get 29.97 on basic CFDI files new AMD should be slightly better.

Jay-Hancock wrote on 6/28/2006, 7:19 PM

JJKizak - so you're using an AvelLink player? Me too, but I've got the non-JVC version. What has been your experience with it? I've found it to be really temperamental and sometimes buggy. Finally figured out that to get it to play .m2t files across the network, I had to render them at 15 Mbps (instead of 25 like it comes out from the camera), and I also had to reduce the audio bitrate. (HDV is 384 kbps which will make the LinkPlayer go nuts, so I drop the audio bitrate in the encode to 128 or 160). What have you done that works?

JJKizak wrote on 6/29/2006, 5:33 AM

I have the JVC version which has one bug: If you open the tray while playing it gets confused and you have to cold start it again. I have viewed very large 2200 x 2200 jpg pictures through the network just fine. (they view as high def resolution, but not widescreen) It does take a few seconds for them to download though as the wmv and m2t files. I will try them again just to make sure everything works as it says. It does read the burned m2t , HD-WMV, jpeg, and DVD-R and DVD+R Dual Layer files flawlessly for sure. I burned about 10 discs to check this out. My network connection is 50 ft. The wmv files I used were the Microsoft HD-WMV test files.
JJK

Jay-Hancock wrote on 6/29/2006, 7:42 AM

So you're burning your .m2t files to disc? Must be short vids... I'm curious what bitrates (audio and video) are working for you (on disc and via network stream). In my own experiments with the LinkPlayer, I found that .m2t files handle motion a whole lot better than wmv files (probably due to bitrates). So I encode my important videos to .m2t. Also I am using a third party server called Wizd that is discussed on the IO Data forum.

(I know this is a Vegas forum, but the LinkPlayer is one of the few means we have to display our HDV projects on our HDTVs....)

JJKizak wrote on 6/29/2006, 8:45 AM

Jayster:
The m2t files were short tests. All of the burned files played just fine. The network jpgs at 3400 x 3400 worked fine. The network HD-WMV microsoft test files were stunning in video and audio. The 720p m2t file created by Vegas (13 gigs) worked fine through the network but some others had sound sync problems particularly the ones created by Cineform. None of the wmv files created by Vegas with defaults had a problem but the different setings like "advance pro" etc would not play. Mpeg 4's would not play. Things are kind of vague because there are so many settings. I used the wmv defaults on a standard 4 x 3 and it was fine through the network. The wmv high def created by Vegas has the 24p judder in all the files. The Microsoft wmv's are solid. I don't use the network very much as my final test must include burning.
JJK

Jay-Hancock wrote on 6/29/2006, 11:21 AM

JJKizak:
I saw on the IO Data website they don't support audio bitrates above 192 kbps. Native HDV, which is what you pull off the camera with Cineform, is at 384 kbps. That's probably why those files didn't work. My files are all 1080i, maybe that works a little differently than 720p, I don't know...

But it sure is great to have a means for viewing our HD work. And the player really isn't all that expensive ($249 for the non JVC version).

I am guessing that any wmv movies that you download from Microsoft will be expertly optimized and encoded. I found that burning wmvs from my HDV projects got mostly beautiful results but sometimes motion stutters. I'd be interested what your wmv settings are for the vids you encode to the LinkPlayer.

Thanks for the info and feedback.
Jay Hancock