I am looking for a new video card, looking for anyones comments on the 3dfx voodoo3 3500TV. How is the capture quality, is it comparable to the ATI All In Wonder 128? Any comments would be appreciated, Thanx.

-- matt (tyger@mediaone.net), April 02, 2000

Answers

Looking for a new video card a few months ago and came to the conclusion that the Matrox Marvel G400 TV was the way to go. At $289 on http://www.outpost.com it was a good deal. No tax and overnight shipping.

I wasn't able to check the quality of the Voodoo or the ATI, but "Those in the know" suggested I get the Matrox and I've been very happy with it. It plays Quake III great and the capture quality is stunning.

I capture AVIs at 704x480 and use the Panasonic encoder to encode to VCD 352x240. The quality of my VCDs are better than all the retail VCDs I've bought. I talked to a guy on the board that has a $1500 MPEGator card and he said the Matrox/Panasonic produces better quality.

I've been happy with this card. Check it out and see if it's for you.

Take care,

-- Michael S. Gilmore (mgilmore@san.rr.com), April 03, 2000.

I agree with Michael. I have used the Rainbow Runner card on which Michaels card is based and as I said a week or so back, so far only one system process has given better results - DV firewire source material. However the hassles associated with it are enormous. Dont go DV VCD authoring unless you have got a lot of time available or can wait another 12 months for the industry to catch up and support the DV firewire type 1 avi properly instead of in the half baked way it does just now.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), April 05, 2000.

You should buy another card. I have that card and only supports 320*240 resolution in AVI format.

-- Fernando Rodriguez (farh1973@hotmail.com), April 18, 2001.