[English] README.TXT MATROX GRAPHICS INC. 2000.01.31 Matrox Video Tools for Windows NT 4.0 Version 1.52.048 Contents ======== - Description of this release - New features for this release - Other features - Installation - Notes, problems and limitations Description of this release =========================== Matrox Video Tools for Windows NT 4.0 lets you use your Matrox video capture card. This software supports Matrox MMS (G100/G200 with a TV tuner), Marvel (G200/G400) and Rainbow Runner G-Series cards. This software includes Windows NT 4.0 drivers for your Matrox video capture card, and the Matrox PC-VCR Remote program for Windows NT 4.0, which lets you quickly access Matrox video features. New features for this release ============================= - Support for the Matrox MMS (G100/G200 with a TV tuner), Marvel (G200/G400) and Rainbow Runner G-Series cards (Matrox Rainbow Runner Studio is NOT supported) - Instantaneous RGB and MJPEG recording with Matrox PC-VCR Remote (Not all Matrox products include MJPEG hardware. If your system doesn't have MJPEG hardware, MJPEG controls are unavailable.) - Support for window resizing while recording - Support for dual-CPU computers (with Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4 or later installed) Other features ============== - Support for capturing RGB video to disk and video conferencing - Support for capturing MJPEG video to disk and hardware accelerated MJPEG video playback - Option for saving PC-VCR Remote video snapshots as JPEG files - Option for scaling PC-VCR Remote video snapshots up to 400% - Improved speed of snapshots with PC-VCR Remote - Support for channel ordering in PC-VCR Remote ("TV Setup" property sheet) - Matrox HD Benchmark program lets you select which drives to test - European TV tuner audio support, including: FM, NICAM support and language selection - PC-VCR Remote option to view full-screen "TV", "LINE" or MPEG video with more detail - With PC-VCR Remote, option to simultaneously preview up to 30 channels in a single window - With PC-VCR Remote, automatic TV channel fine-tuning to get the best reception - Separate cropping settings saved for "TV" and "LINE" input with PC-VCR Remote - Information dialog box for video files opened with PC-VCR Remote - PC-VCR Remote "Pause" button freezes "TV" or "LINE" video input - Controls for setting your audio recording levels in PC-VCR Remote - Option for automatic TV standard (NTSC, PAL, SECAM) detection with PC-VCR Remote - Interactive mode indicators on PC-VCR Remote (click them to toggle features) For more information on Matrox video software, see your Matrox video capture card manual. Installation ============ - For video software to work properly, Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4 or later must first be installed. To obtain a Microsoft Service Pack, contact your system vendor or see the Microsoft Web site (www.microsoft.com). - The Matrox Video Tools setup program stops if a Matrox video capture card supported by this video software isn't properly installed in your computer, or if a recent Matrox display driver isn't installed. - If you see a message indicating that DirectX Media can't be installed, it may be because DirectX Media is already installed on your computer. If you see this message, click "OK" and continue the software installation. - To remove Matrox Video Tools software, click "Start" -> "Settings" -> "Control Panel" -> "Add/Remove Programs" (double-click) -> "Matrox Video Tools" -> "Add/Remove". You should restart your computer immediately after you remove the software. Notes, problems, and limitations ================================ - Tip: If your computer has more than one hard disk, you may get better results if you play back or capture video files with a disk other than the one where the Windows swap file is stored. (The Windows swap file is usually stored on drive "C:".) - There are maximum video window sizes for viewing MJPEG video files or live video ("TV" or "LINE" input). These maximum video window sizes depend on your display settings and graphics card. For more information, see the "Display information" section of your Matrox video capture card manual. Note: Not all Matrox products include MJPEG hardware. If your system doesn't have MJPEG hardware, MJPEG controls are unavailable. - Suspend mode is not supported by Matrox video software. - When you drag-and-drop video files onto the PC-VCR Remote icon, long file names are converted to the old 8.3 DOS-naming style in the PC-VCR Remote menu window and on the video window title bar. - If Microsoft Media Player stops responding, try clicking on the Windows desktop background, then clicking on Media Player -- this may restore control. - Only one program at a time can use Matrox video editing hardware. Before starting a video program, close any other video program that may be running. - Because of a limitation in Microsoft Video for Windows, video files you capture are limited to a 2 GB size. (The Matrox PC-VCR Remote program lets you work around this limitation by creating consecutive video files.) - The Matrox VidCap driver is designed to work only with 32-bit programs (programs designed for Windows 95, 98 or NT). You can't use 16-bit programs (programs designed for Windows 3.1) with your Matrox video editing hardware. - Ensoniq Sound Cards: Certain models of Ensoniq sound cards (for example the SoundScape Vivo 90) will lose audio when seeking or stopping and restarting any video file. This happens when double-clicking on a file or using DirectShow through Media Player. To avoid this problem, use the Matrox PC-VCR Remote to view your video files. - ESS sound chips: Certain sound card models equipped with the ESS audio chip (for example the ESS 1878 found on laptops) may experience a loss of audio-video synchronization when playing back video files. Video will be late compared to audio whenever pausing and restarting the playback. To correct this problem, click on the PC-VCR Remote playback status bar to jump to a particular area in the file. - Because of a limitation in Microsoft Video for Windows NT 4.0, there's a maximum number of frames (cumulative) you can capture with an RGB capture setting. The number depends on the amount of main memory in your computer and the speed of your computer's CPU. If the maximum number of frames is exceeded, you may get an error message stating that video can't be captured because the data rate is too high or your disk is full. (You may get this error message even though your disk is not full.) If this happens, close the capture program you're using and then restart it. If your video capture program lets you allocate a video file size before capturing, you can use this feature to avoid this limitation. - You may experience problems with a video capture program if it's not closed before logging off a Windows session. - If you're using Matrox Video Tools with a dual-CPU computer, make sure that Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4 (or later) is installed. - On some systems you may experience problems with jerky video file playback. This can especially happen at larger video frame sizes (352 x 480/576 and 704 x 480/576). To help avoid this problem, make sure your hard disk is using DMA (Direct Memory Access). For most computers, a DMA driver is available for Windows NT 4.0 (for example, the "PIIX Bus Master IDE" driver supports many computers). For more information on how to get this driver, contact your system vendor. - When recording more than 2 GB of video with the Matrox PC-VCR Remote program, there may be a small gap between video files. The amount of video missing depends on the performance of your system. - Recording RGB video files, a data rate over 2 MB/sec may result in a high number of dropped frames. (The playback of the resulting video may be jerky.) To avoid jerky video with RGB video file recordings, use lower frame resolution and frame rate settings. - If your display is using a 32-bit color palette, you may notice lines in a video window while viewing TV tuner input or MJPEG video files. To avoid this problem, try reducing the video window size to a size that is smaller than the resolution of the original video (size "x1"). Also, you can try reducing the vertical refresh rate of your monitor to below 85 Hz. (For more information on changing monitor settings, see Matrox PowerDesk online documentation.) - Using a DOS window or changing display settings (resolution or color palette) may cause problems if, at the same time, you're playing back or recording a video file, or using the Closed Captioning feature. - Matrox PC-VCR Remote may stop responding or playing back files while playing back multiple video files using the looping option. To restore PC-VCR Remote, click "Stop" and then "Play", or close and then restart the program. - After you click the "Auto Scan" button on the "TV Setup" property sheet of Matrox PC-VCR Remote, live video may not be properly displayed in the current video window. To restore the video window, simply select "LINE" or "FILE" input, then reselect "TV" input. - If your Matrox video capture card has MJPEG hardware (for example, Marvel G200 or Rainbow Runner G-Series), Matrox video software can't be used with a 640 x 480 display resolution. This is because of a limitation in the version of Microsoft DirectDraw used with Windows NT 4.0. If you experience this problem, change your display resolution before using a video program. - If you use the Matrox Quick Connect program with a Matrox MMS card and a 640 x 480 display resolution, the navigation buttons may be cut off by the bottom of your display. Before using Quick Connect, make sure your display resolution is higher than 640 x 480. - With Matrox Video Tools software installed on your computer, you may experience problems using video editing software. To recover from these problems, save your work and then try restarting your video editing software. - MediaStudio updates are available at the Ulead Web site (www.ulead.com/tech). These updates may improve stability and performance. Also, to improve MediaStudio performance, the following entry can be added to your "ulead32.ini" file: [HardwareAcc] AlwaysKeepLastFrame=1 - With Matrox G200/G400 graphics cards and Matrox Video Tools for Windows NT 4.0, you can view video while previewing TV channels in the Matrox PC-VCR window. (Matrox Video Tools for Windows 95/98 doesn't support this feature.) - While playing back an MJPEG video file with Media Player, you may experience problems if you double-click on the title bar. To fix this, download an updated version of Media Player from the Microsoft Web site (www.microsoft.com). - With the Ulead MediaStudio Pro video capture program, make sure the number of video buffers is set to 30 or less. Otherwise, you may get an error message while capturing MJPEG video. To access the video buffer setting, click "Capture" -> "Video" -> "Advanced". - To record video with the Microsoft VidCap32 program, click "Capture" -> "Video", select your settings, then click "OK". - This version of Video Tools supports multi-display mode. However, if you have more than one graphics card in your computer (all of which must be supported by the Matrox display driver), video support may be restricted to certain graphics cards. (1) If more than one Matrox graphics card in your computer has video input support, video input is only supported with the first video-input- supporting graphics card detected by your computer. (The order that your computer detects each card is partly determined by the expansion slot each card is in.) (2) The viewing of Matrox hardware-supported video (for example, live video) only works among displays controlled by graphics cards using the same slot type (PCI or AGP). Also, if the graphics card with video input support is G100-based, video support only works with that graphics card. If all the graphics cards in your computer are using the same expansion slot type and none of the cards is G100-based, video playback is supported on all displays. Note: In multi-display mode, video quality is usually better on the display that has video input support associated with it. - With this version of Video Tools, a digital flat panel monitor is only supported with the Matrox G400 flat panel add-on. With a G400 flat panel add-on, Video Tools only supports the maximum display resolution of your flat panel monitor. Note: Without Video Tools support, no program can use Matrox video input. - If you have DualHead-supporting Matrox graphics card and you're using a TV for your secondary display, you may not be able to enable "DualHead Clone" mode while a video program is running. To avoid this problem, close all video programs before enabling "DualHead Clone" mode. - You may experience problems if you're capturing large video files (larger than 2 GB) and your computer doesn't have enough system memory. To capture large video files, we recommend that your computer have large amounts of system memory (128 MB or more).