15. 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.