Multitalented All-in-One Graphic Boards – THG.RU

Introduction

Something previously restricted to professionals has now become available to the average home user. The first mainstream graphic board manufacturers are adding functionality to their 3D boards with a series of additional features which make it possible to record and process videos. In this report, we will compare the functionality and video performance of the Voodoo3 3500TV, the Marvel G400TV, ATI’s All-in-Wonder 128, Elsa’s Erazor III Video and Asus’ AGP-V3800 Ultra Deluxe – all boards that cost less than 300 dollars. We will compare the products’ video quality, their memory requirements and their ease-of-use. Those readers who are only interested in the 3D game performance should read the report 32 Graphic Card Meltdown – Part Two. As far as 3D performance is concerned, the five graphic boards that we tested are equal to their standard counterparts. For example, the 3D performance values for the Marvel G400TV are the same as for the Millennium G400. The same applies to the other boards. This shouldn’t surprise you as the graphics chip, clock speeds and memory fitted are the same as for the standard versions.

This report concentrates exclusively on the video performance of the five test candidates. Tom’s Hardware Guide is the first organization to test this new application field using new benchmarks. At the end of the report you will find important tips concerning copy protection. Last but not least, the table at the end of the report gives you a clear overview with which you can directly compare the functionality of the devices.

Requirements for Recording Videos

When digitizing videos, the most important component besides the graphics board is the hard disk. We recommend a minimum capacity of 10 GBytes or more. The sky’s the limit here: the more you can afford, the better. Hard disks starting at 10 GByte up to 20 GBytes currently cost between 100 and 220 dollars.

Before you start with the installation of the graphics board and the supplied software, make sure that your system fulfills the following requirement: DMA (Direct Memory Access) must be enabled for EIDE hard disks. This option is enabled in the Control Panel, as shown in the following figure.

Without DMA it is not possible to handle the massive data streams generated by digital videos. SCSI hard disk owners can ignore this point. The data transfer rates for SCSI systems are high enough and the PC’s CPU is relieved of this workload too.

At this point we would like to point out a few general things with respect to the television standards. If your board uses PAL or SECAM (the standards in Europe) by default, then don’t be surprised if you can’t see anything when running TV mode in northern America. In the United States or Canada NTSC is used. Check the settings of your board to make sure that the correct format is set.

3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV

The board incorporates a combination connector (Vesa PnD) to which the external docking module (blue) is connected. This can also be used to select between S-video, Composite (cinch) and the audio connectors. The VGA monitor is connected to the extended connection (lower left in the figure).

3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV – Hardware

This figure shows you the American version of the Voodoo3 3500TV. This has two separate coax inputs for television and FM radio. The European version excludes the FM radio tuner, so you can only watch cable television. Your internal CD-ROM or DVD drive is connected to the internal audio IN/OUT connectors. The silver box is the Philips TV tuner. The Voodoo3 chip with an internal 350 MHz RAMDAC is clocked at 183 MHz and is located under the black heatsink.

At the back of the PCB, you’ll see the Conexant Brooktree BT869. This handles video output encoding. The BT869 has a completely different role compared with Brooktree’s VideoCrypt system decoder/capture chips (video in). The BT869 can therefore not be compared with the more common BT829, 848/9 or 878/9 chips.

Voodoo3 3500TV – Supplied Software

The software TV control has a very futuristic design. However, all the important functions for television playback are easy to understand. In the middle, you can select the input signal (TV, S-video or composite-cinch). If you click on VCR a new recording menu is opened. A classical infrared remote control for the sofa is not included in this package. You can only operate the Voodoo3 3500TV using the computer’s mouse.

The video capture options are unsatisfactory. Only half the television resolution is possible. The figure shows the NTSC settings (30 frames/second and 320 x 240 pixels). To use the European PAL standard, you must set the option to 25 frames/second.

Voodoo3 3500TV – Picture Quality

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The Voodoo3 3500TV can only handle half TV resolution. That’s why this picture is so small.

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On the other hand, the 3dfx card can save screen shots with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels.

Asus AGP-V3800 Ultra Deluxe

The two video outputs (S-video and composite) are located directly on the Asus AGP-V3800 Ultra Deluxe. Audio recordings have to be made with additional effort using a separate sound card. The configuration is therefore more difficult than that of other boards. The connection for the 3D eyewear is located on the side of the board.

A TV box can be obtained at additional cost. This even has an infrared remote control that allows you to operate the PC from your sofa.

Asus AGP-V3800 Ultra Deluxe – Hardware

Asus utilizes the Philips SAA7113 video capture chip. Chrontel’s CH7005 chip handles video out (encoding). Due to a lack of space on the board, Asus has had to do without the Composite (cinch) video input connector for the sake of the 3D stereo eyewear (VR out). The TNT-2 Ultra chip is clocked at 150 MHz, the memory modules at 183 MHz – which is why a fan is required on the board.

Asus AGP-V3800 Ultra Deluxe – Supplied Software

Compared with 3dfx, Asus has designed its front end software as a video recorder and not as a remote control. At first glance, the symbols seem a little misleading, but after a short time the user learns the meaning of the various buttons.

The choice of video formats isn’t exactly overwhelming. The only format that offers real-time compression is the proprietary ASV1. This proprietary Asus format restricts the possible fields of use because videos saved in ASV1 format can’t be played back on any PC. To do this you need a commonplace standard format such as MPEG.

Asus AGP-V3800 Ultra Deluxe – Picture Quality

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At full TV resolution, the V3800 Ultra Deluxe falls back heavily. Distorted areas such as those shown in the figure often occur when a slow CPU is in use. In this case, the only thing you can do is to reduce the resolution.

ATI All in Wonder 128

ATI has implemented separate combination input and output connectors. The adapters included in delivery make it possible to use audio, S-video and composite video.

ATI All in Wonder 128 – Hardware

The lower area of the figure shows the capture chip, Brooktree/Conexant’s BT829. This is only available on the 16 MB version of the AiW 128. The 32 MB variant incorporates a Rage Theater chip (an in-house ATI development) instead. ATI uses its ImpacTV2 as the TV out chip (on both versions of the AiW 128). The silver TV tuner can either be from Temic or Philips.

ATI All in Wonder 128 – Supplied Software

ATI supplies its total solution software “ATI Multimedia Center”, which is currently available in version 6.2, with the board. All the components such as the TV tuner, video editor, DVD player and other software have a consistent design. This means that not only is the operation of the software intuitive, it’s also easy to use. The figure shows the standard video editor. However, it is unfortunate that the functions are restricted to the basic essentials. The supplied Videowave II program from MGI (16 MB version only) is actually better, but still not satisfactory. The only good editing program is the one from Ulead. VideoStudio Version 3 is only supplied with the 32 MB board. This even has a plug-in that enables the direct editing of MPEG-2 videos without recalculating them (recompression).

Newcomers have it easy with ATI. The settings don’t include any cryptic resolutions, instead one sees the TV standard, such as NTSC for America or PAL for Europe. The frame rate (25 or 30 fps) is optimized for the correct region when first set up and ATI deserves a real compliment for that!

ATI All in Wonder 128 – Picture Quality

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The picture quality attained using the All in Wonder 128 16 MB is satisfactory. The user can adjust the color saturation, contrast and brightness.

Elsa Erazor III Video

Elsa’s Erazor III Video only has two connectors. One is for the VGA monitor, the other is for video (IN and OUT) and for the 3D eyewear. As with the Asus board, the extra overhead of requiring a sound card is necessary.

Elsa Erazor III Video – Hardware

Elsa uses the same video capture chip as 3dfx; the Micronas VPX 3225. Whereas 3dfx doesn’t have a suitable software algorithm to enable recording in full TV resolution, Elsa does – so it’s not a chip problem! The outputs are also the same for Elsa and 3dfx. The TV out chip is, once again, the Conexant BT 869.

Elsa Erazor III Video – Supplied Software

As far as the video controls are concerned, it would seem that Star Trek truely inspired the software developers. The videotext mode doesn’t appear to be very purposeful. What do you need this for if the board doesn’t even have a TV tuner? The settings for color and brilliance were unsatisfactory and once you’ve changed them, there is no possibility to return to the standard settings. The functions are simply too rudimentary.

An absolute driver botch-job: the ‘Elsa Compressed’ mode is instable, only MJPEG works fine. And what for heaven’s sake, are the resolutions 1024 x 768 and higher doing here? European PAL television stops at 768 x 576, HDTV doesn’t exist yet and couldn’t be processed by the video capture chip anyway. If you click on the 1024 x 768 resolution, or a higher one, then the system simply crashes.

The sequencer in the MainActor package makes a professional impression, but only at first glance. “Va”, “Fx” or “Aa” aren’t exactly self-explanatory terms, something which left a particularly bad taste in our mouths in view of the fact that a manual wasn’t in the product box either. And you have to download the MainActor software from the Internet too …

Users who were led to believe that they could use the Video Editor to directly record videos are mistaken. The integrated function only leads to fatal system crashes. After re-installing the operating system three times and after playing with various driver versions, we finally gave up. The board is good for playing with, but not for videos 🙁

Elsa Erazor III Video – Picture Quality

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Elsa’s color and contrast settings are well configured with respect to each other. If only the drivers were more stable…

Matrox Marvel G400 TV

The Marvel G400TV’s external connection box is almost as large as the graphics board itself. It incorporates not only the audio and video connectors, but also the TV tuner and the sound chip. The Dualhead function of the G400 chip is subject to one restriction: as soon as the external Marvel box is connected to the board, a second output (TV) can’t be connected anymore. It’s an ‘either-or’ situation.

Matrox Marvel G400 TV – Hardware

Correction Jan 12, 2000: The secondary output is TV OUT only

The printed circuit board of the Marvel G400TV isn’t very different to that of the Millenium G400. Only the Zoran chip (top right) has been added. This makes it possible to compress videos in hardware (this is the only capture chip in the entire test range that can do this). However, the MJPEG format isn’t very common and requires more memory space than MPEG 1 and MPEG 2.

The television image is generated in the external box. Matrox uses a Philips tuner to do this. The Marvel circuit board has a sound processor integrated. Unfortunately, the S/PDIF for spatial audio systems you see in this picture doesn’t exist on the shipping product.

Matrox Marvel G400 TV – Supplied Software

Matrox has chosen the same approach as 3dfx and has implemented a software control unit. We believe that this model is the best implementation in the entire test range.

The video editing software “Avid Cinema” makes a very well organized impression. Users can get started straight away without referring to a manual. Even special effects such as transitions or displaying running texts (banners) are simple to use.

If you want to make videos available to others then you will have to convert from the proprietary MJPEG format into the standard MPEG 1 or MPEG 2 format. This conversion can be done using Ligos LSX Transcoder. The space required for a video can then be reduced (at most) to a fifth of the original size. The time requirement for conversion using a Pentium III 500 is about the same as the playtime of the source video, i.e. for a 15-minute video, you’ll need about 15 minutes for the conversion (transcoding).

Matrox Marvel G400 TV – Picture Quality

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Particularly good results can be achieved with a color depth of 24 bits. The Marvel G400TV really only shows its capability at this level.

Benchmarks – Test Configuration

Benchmarks – Generated Video Streams and Space Requirements

MPEG 2 requires the least storage space. Asus’ proprietary format is a strong competitor, but only has half the TV resolution. MJPEG needs the most space. Elsa board users can’t change the quality of the MJPEG results. Matrox has a High Quality setting (HQ) and a Low Quality setting (LQ) for its MJPEG format results.

At full TV resolution, the space requirement for videos is higher. MPEG 2 is again the best, MJPEG from Matrox (High Quality) requires a lot of hard disk space. 3dfx doesn’t offer an editing function for videos at full TV resolution.

So what do these Video Streams mean in Practice?

We have translated the measured video streams into more understandable values. For one, we wanted to find out, how many Gigabytes of data were generated in an hour of recording. On the other hand, you can see the maximum length of a video (in minutes) that can be attained if you want to save your video onto a CD-R.

If you only intend to leave the videos on the hard disk, then full TV resolution is your best choice. This offers the best quality, however, you don’t want to try this with a hard disk that has less than 10 GB space. If you want to make videos available to others later, then you can save these onto a CD-R. The suitable format should then have half the resolution. 3dfx’s MPEG 2 solution seems to be best here. For ATI users, the preset for MPEG 2 (IBP frames) could be improved. Users who can afford to take the time to experiment with the settings can extract up to 45 minutes more.

Benchmarks – CPU Workload during Capture

When recording videos (capture), Asus’ proprietary format incurs the least CPU workload. MPEG 2 saves the most space, but places the heaviest demands on the system processor. 3dfx’ algorithm pushes a Celeron 333 to the brink even though it only uses half TV resolution, so it’s not surprising that 3dfx doesn’t offer full TV resolution.

Matrox makes a positive impression. The Zoran capture chip on the Marvel G400TV reduces the CPU workload in an effective way as it compresses MJPEG in hardware. Doubling the resolution therefore doesn’t affect the board much. All the other products for compression use a software codec. The Asus algorithm, which is so effective at half TV resolution, is really pushed at full resolution. The same applies to the ATI board with its MPEG 2 algorithm. However, this format saves a lot of space. At full resolution, 3dfx is simply left behind.

Benchmarks – CPU Workload during Playback

At half TV resolution, all the chips hold their own during full size video playback. The figure only shows the standard formats of the boards.

At full TV resolution (High Quality), the ATI AiW128 shows its true colors. Thanks to Motion Compensation (MC) and iDCT, the system CPU is relieved of a lot of work. MPEG 2 videos can then be played back on systems with a slow processor. All the other chips are pushed to the limit with MPEG 2 (e.g. for DVD). Neither the TNT2 (on the Asus and Elsa boards) nor the G400 (Matrox) reduce the CPU workload for MPEG. This relationship is shown in the figure. Thanks to the Zoran chip, Matrox’s proprietary, but space-intensive MJPEG format yields a lower CPU workload. By changing to the MPEG 2 format (DVD standard), the G400 is pushed to the limits of its performance range. The same applies to the TNT2. Only two other chips support Motion Compensation: Trident’s Blade3D and S3’s Savage4. At the time this test report was compiled, suitable graphic boards with video capture functionality based on the Blade3D or Savage4 were not available. 3dfx is not listed in the figure because capture is not possible at this resolution with the Voodoo3 3500TV.

Benchmarks – Requirements for jitter-free Pictures

Some chips show their strengths when recording, others during video playback. The following table shows the relationship between these two aspects. Taking the CPU into consideration, we recorded a video and then played it back. We then evaluated the subjective impression of the video quality. We always used the standard format of the board. This means that formats were excluded that would have been generated after post-conversion. For example, the LSX Transcoder is included with the Matrox product and is used to convert the proprietary MJPEG standard into the MPEG 2 format. During this test we placed the emphasis on the investigation of the hardware and drivers.

The 3dfx product is not included in the high resolutions, as it does not support these. The Matrox board handled the tasks at hand with virtually no problems. The MJPEG videos are virtually jitter-free on all three CPUs. Unfortunately, this positive result is achieved at the price of disk space. MJPEG videos are sometimes up to five times larger than MPEG 2 videos.

This table shows the limitations of ATI’s All in Wonder 128: although the Rage 128 is an expert when it comes to MPEG 2 video playback, the recording process is not supported in hardware; instead a software codec has to hold the fort. Summarizing, the All in Wonder 128 can deal with a slow CPU if you are only playing back MPEG 2/DVD videos. For recording (at least for qualitatively high resolutions – full TV resolution), you’ll need a powerful CPU such as a Pentium III 550/ Athlon 500 or more. At least the ATI codec is more effective than that of the Voodoo3 3500TV.

Copy Protection

Both users and manufacturers display an avid interest in the topic of copy protection. The manufacturers have constantly emphasized the need to copy protect videos to the film industry. Users on the other hand, are constantly trying to crack the protection mechanisms. In this report, we don’t intend to supply help for those trying to make illegal copies. Instead, we only intend to examine the products for their conformity. Before we show you the results, let use briefly point out the legal and technical aspects. According to copyright legislation, it is forbidden to copy and distribute protected material, i.e. to sell it. There is an exception for home users. A backup copy is permitted for private use, as long as this is not made available to third parties. For example, you are permitted to make a copy of your favorite CD onto cassette. The practical aspect is however somewhat different for videos. The film industry has applied a copy protection to VHS videos and DVDs right from the start.

You’ll be familiar with this system from good old VHS videos. If you try to make a copy from one tape to the next, you’ll only get garbage when using copy-protected films. The same effect can be seen when copying from a DVD player onto a VHS video recorder. Let’s move on to the test products. We want to find out, whether copy protected material can be saved onto hard disk. To do this, we insert a corresponding film into the DVD player and try to record individual sequences using our All-in-One multitalented boards.

Copy Protection, Continued

The Matrox Marvel G400TV has first shot.

Immediately after the video has started, Matrox disables the recording button. If you try to start the recording anyway, a corresponding message is displayed on the screen, telling you that a copy is not possible.

All the other products surprised us. Copy protection or not, recording was possible with all the other test candidates. In this figure, generated using the All in Wonder 128 (ATI), you can see a red smearing effect in some areas of the picture.

Copy Protection, Continued

By comparison, material that is not copy protected doesn’t seem to have any problems with quality when recording Hollywood films with 3dfx, Elsa and Asus products.

These results were something of a surprise to us – we hadn’t imagined that we would have been able to make a copy at all. However, we don’t want to get excited about the matter because this method of creating a copy is still linked to a loss in quality. Remember, the clips that we created were generated using an analog input signal. We’re therefore not talking about a direct digital copy (loss-free copy). However, the loss in quality using a video board is still less than when creating a copy from VHS to VHS or DVD to VHS. Finally, you have a data format that allows any number of copies, provided you have the corresponding storage media. These are currently still too expensive; what would you do with an exchangeable hard disk or an MO disk. The film industry can therefore rest assured that for now, the mass production of illegal copies by means of such boards is not a realistic threat.

A note about MP3 at this stage: if you convert the tracks of an audio CD to the MP3 format, you’re actually dealing with a lossy copying method. The loss in quality between a normal CD and MPEG 3 music is however, hardly audible. Only trained ears can hear the very fine differences. The boards that we had at our disposal didn’t bring up any big differences as far as copying was concerned. For MP3 audio, the data can be read in digital form from a CD and then immediately saved in the space-saving MP3 format (digital-digital conversion). However, DVD videos can’t be read out in digital form. A chip in the DVD drive makes sure that this can’t be done. The only workaround is the intermediate analog step. This can also be used to get around the copy protection mechanism too. We are therefore dealing with a digital-analog-digital conversion.

Summary

The first step has been made. Although none of the boards could be said to offer professional quality, their price-to-performance ratio has reached an acceptable level. ATI has developed the best graphics chip for MPEG playback. Using Motion Compensation (MC) and iDCT, the system CPU’s workload is effectively reduced. All the other graphic chips in this test didn’t have this feature and needed powerful processors to play back MPEG video jitter-free, whether from a DVD or using self-generated ones.

Two aspects should be taken into consideration with regard to quality: optimal quality is attained at full TV resolution. This means 704×512 in America’s NTSC or 720×576 pixels for the PAL standard in Europe. Higher formats such as HDTV generate extremely high data stream volumes that can even bring professional equipment to its knees. If you only want to show your videos to others, or if you want to free your hard disk from some of the data load, only the good old CD-Rs are realistic as a storage medium as DVD writers aren’t affordable for normal users. The only purposeful resolution that can be considered in this case is half TV resolution. Then at least, you can split a 90 minute video onto two CD-Rs. One shouldn’t place too high demands on the playback quality of such videos (half or standard resolution). The lower quality can be easily seen on a high quality computer monitor. By comparison, the loss in quality isn’t quite so apparent on a television.

If you select full TV resolution, then the video will almost always have to remain on the hard disk of the computer. The advantage is that the quality is then quite acceptable for all boards (with the exception of the Voodoo3 3500TV). However, you’ll need a big hard disk in your system – you won’t get far with less than 10 GB – as the charts of the videos produced show.

Recommendations?

No single board stood out as the absolute leader in this test! However, the 16 MB version of ATI’s All in Wonder 128 is in first position. It offers space-saving MPEG recordings at maximum television resolution. A particularly positive aspect of the board is its low price at only 200 dollars. The Philips TV tuner delivers pictures in very good quality. However, two things stopped the board from obtaining the recommendation of the test team. Firstly, you need a powerful CPU (at least a Pentium III 550) in order to record space-saving MPEG 2 videos at full TV resolution in real-time. However, lower resolutions or other formats can be achieved with less powerful processors. Secondly, the software bundle doesn’t contain Ulead’s VideoStudio 3.0. This is only included in the 32 MB version. VideoStudio 3.0 implements a special plug-in that can be used to edit MPEG 2 videos without converting (recompressing) to other formats first.

We hesitated to recommend the 32 MB board because the ATI drivers aren’t mature yet. It’s hard for us to understand why, in comparison to the 16 MB version, the TV playback requires so much of the CPU’s resources. Switching between the channels can take up to 1 second. If a transmission changes from mono to stereo transmission, then strong tone fluctuations are apparent. The filtering of TV pictures is also not optimal. The All in Wonder 128 32 MB is still relatively new and has a different tuner (Temic) and a new capture chip, the Rage Theater. If ATI improves the quality of its drivers for this board to that of the 16 MB version, then the manufacturer can expect to receive our recommendation shortly afterwards. So let’s wait for a while.

Second place goes to Matrox’s Marvel G400TV. Despite the high price of almost 280 dollars, the board books gets plus points for a particular feature: video recording is virtually independent of the CPU in the system. This is due to the Zoran chip that records videos in MJPEG format without time delays. The ‘Avid Cinema’ software is particularly well suited for beginners, first attempts can be made without having to consult the manual first. However, the MJPEG format requires up to five times more storage space compared to the MPEG 2 format. This situation is somewhat relieved by the supplied LSX transcoder software from Ligos. Once a user has finished editing a video, it can be converted to the MPEG 2 format, however, this procedure is very time-consuming. If hard disk space is no object for you then the Marvel is the best choice.

Recommendations? Continued

The third board with a TV tuner is the Voodoo3 3500TV which also costs around 250 dollars. Recordings in MPEG 2 format in real-time are possible, however, only at half TV resolution. The board is definitely too expensive for this level of performance. The first impression made by the supplied software is good, but when you look again, a number of details are missing. Overall, one has the impression that 3dfx is somewhat new to the video field. The VisualReality software makes it clear that 3dfx bought the package from a separate company.

Elsa and Asus only have boards without a TV tuner on offer. The 3D performance of the board is very good thanks to the TNT2 graphics chip, however the video functionality is lacking sadly. Neither of the boards can directly record videos in MPEG format (that is, without sporadic system crashes). Elsa’s Erazor III Video ($200) at least offers the ‘MainActor’ video editing software for download from the home page of the manufacturer (note: the software can only be installed if an Elsa board is in the system). The use of the MainActor software is – to put it mildly – ‘difficult to handle’. It took us more than four hours to attain results that were halfway acceptable. Asus doesn’t offer any editing software. The AGP-V3800 Ultra Deluxe ($ 200) is a good board for games, but it’s impossible to praise the video functionality. It was our impression that the manufacturer wanted to earn a few points for its marketing pamphlets because the ease-of-use of the video functionality is blatantly insufficient.

Features Table