[MPlayer-users] Capture: video buffer full - dropping frame

[Martin Collins]

On Sun, 10 Oct 2004 22:11:35 +0200
Ulrich Schweitzer <us- at gmx.de> wrote:

> > Sadly Matrox no longer make Marvels 
> 
> It is still available on ebay, though.
> I was actually thinking about getting one of those but I wasn't
> sure, if it was fully supported under linux. Which one do you have
> and do you have any problems with it?

I have the 16MB G400 TV. It is mostly supported in Linux 2.4 and there
is a driver for 2.6 in development by essentially one guy.
For watching TV it is great. For capturing mjpeg it works very well.
Playing video is also excellent.
However, you cannot play back or watch while recording. It will not
capture raw, only mjpeg. These are driver issues. Sound is captured
through your sound card and sound routing through the breakout box is
not a priority for the driver developer(s).
You must reserve some of the RAM from the X server which means there is
not enough left to support DGA. This and the fact that it has no 3D
accel means it's no good for recent games. I run a second X server with
DGA enabled for old games.
If you are thinking of buying one be sure it is the AGP version and it
has a tuner, not all do.

Martin