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Matrox G550 Killer Video Conferencing Featureset?
Chick writes "Chick's Hardware have posted their thoughts and analysis of the specifications of Matrox's upcoming G550 chipset, just what Matrox are and have been up to?" Basically the article proposes that the features "GoIP" and "Headcasting" combine to be a technique for high speed transmission of wireframe heads for teleconferencing. It all seems reasonable, but it is all speculative. And even if that is the actual idea, would it look good?
Hollywood has been casting by head for years :)
There's more realistic-sounding information available on this site:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/#990980645
Aw hell, I'll just post it here:
Although Matrox does its best to keep all the details about the upcoming G550 top secret and doesn't provide any info even under NDAs, they still can't withstand very unpleasant leaks. Our reliable sources close to Matrox told us some credible details about G550, which will be officially announced on June 19, as we have told you before.
Judging by the set of features the upcoming G550 will have, we can conclude that this solution will not be targeted for gamers. Matrox will pay special attention to DualHead technology and 2D graphics, while 3D performance will remain mediocre. So, G550 seems to be just an enhanced version of the G450.
As for 2D, just as in the previous solution, G550 core will have 2 RAMDACs. Primary RAMDAC will work at 360MHz, while the secondary RAMDAC will work at 230MHz. So, the highest resolution on the primary monitor will make 2048x1536 and on the secondary monitor - 1600x1200, at 32bit color mode.
As for DualHead technology, it will work in the following modes: multi-display, DVDMax, zoom, clone, TV-Out, Snapshot, and will feature eDualHead browser enhancements. Also G550 will support dual-DVI.
Speaking about 3D, G550 architecture will undergo some slight changes. G550 will have 2 pixel pipelines with 2 texturing unit each. However, the performance will be greatly limited by 64bit DDR SDRAM, which Matrox considered to be the best choice for its G550 for some reason. So, 3D performance of G550 will be comparable with GeForce2 MX 200 or RADEON VE or even lower.
But G550 3D core will also have some nice things. It will be DirectX 8 compliant due to Matrox's brand HeadCasting engine. This engine is none other but a T&L unit supporting extended Vertex Shaders and matrix palette skinning. G550 will also support EMBM.
G550 will be made with 0.18micron technology and have dual integrated CRTCs, RAMDACs, TMDS and one integrated TV encoder. The cards based on G550 will be equipped with 16MB or 32MB DDR SDRAM with 64bit interface. G550 based cards with 32MB memory are expected to cost around $140.
Also our sources told us that 3D gamers shouldn't forget about Matrox, because the company also keeps working on a new gaming solution.
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When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
If GoIP and HeadCasting are real (there's no indication that he didn't made this stuff up too), a much more reasonable assumption is that GoIP indeed means Graphics over IP, and HeadCasting is transmitting framebuffer information to a remote display over IP.
:)
Not convinced?
Use your head (no pun intended)... VoIP, GoIP... multicasting, headcasting... and how is matrox calling their dual output feature? DualHead.
Actually, something like this would be quite useful if done in a generic hardware way. Something like VNC in hardware, so to say. Just stick this matrox with the GoIP module here, and stick that monitor on the other side of campus with an apropriate GoIP module, and let them talk over the existing ethernet. Or just fill the campus with monitors all tuned to one of those boards and use it as an announcement/news system that is significantly easier to expand than doing runs of coax to a bunch of IP-challenged display units.
I can certainly find applications for something like that.
Obviously, i just pulled this out of my arse just like the author of the original non-story, however I'd like to believe that at least I'm being more reasonable
Y'know, this is why Slashdot works. The editors toss stuff out, some good, some bad, and the community here tears it apart, researches, and comes back with good, useful information.
This is the useful aspect of /.; for all the bitching people here do about "editorial this and that" and "Taco can't spell", the *real* meat of /. is in the intelligent users.
You hit a "dumb" question about, say, "how do I carry my gadgets", and you wind up with 15 to 25 good suggestions, from the solid to the oddball concepts. For all that people bitch about the "editors" and "writers" here, it's us... maybe we don't edit (moderate) the root stories that spawn all the comments, but we write and edit 99% of the content on this site. If you're bitching about /., you're not reading solid posts like the one above - and you're sure as hell not posting them.
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Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
The entire article is (very self-admittedly) made up of grapevine and pure flights of fancy. This is web-journalism at its very worst, showing just *why* you can't trust things off the web without looking at their source: He admits he made all this up!!!
Even assuming the two buzzwords "GoIP" and "HeadCasting" are real, I'll buy the "Graphics over IP" concept (he dosen't even seem to know what the -oIP suffix stands for, just "it's some internet thing"), which leads to the next obvious idea, which is that HeadCasting is sending the graphics from one or more "Heads", i.e. displays, to a remote computer. Possibly involving hardware, possibly not.
But then, that's completely *my* extrapolation, and no better (okay, a little better) than his.
Besides... I can do that with my G400 right now. It's called X... or VNC, or any of a dozen different protocols. Maybe Matrox has a new Good Idea on the subject, though... assuming it has *anything* to do with remote graphics at all.
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Evan "Happy Matrox user, not a gamer, YMMV"
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I'm no regular reader of Chick's Hardware, so I don't have any "gut feel" about their reliability...
I was confused by the layout of the article. It starts out with saying that it's based on rumors, but follows that up with what looks like a real feature-set specification (complete with corporate-style disclaimers). What gives? Is the G550 an announced product? I zoomed over to Matrox' site of course, but couldn't find it. Not even on their press release page... Weird. Can anyone clear that up for me?
Anyway, the specs seem real enough (although I'm note sure what a "draw cell" is), and the speculation doesn't come off as too weird either... I guess we'll just have to wait and see what Matrox is planning.main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
Unless you and everyone you're talking to has lots and lots of bandwidth, any kind of "headcast" is a pipe dream. Either the picture of your correspondent is the size of a postage stamp, or there's a palpable delay that fouls up visual cues and leaves parties stumbling over themselves when they try to jump in to the perceived pause in the conversation.
None of this is a slam at Matrox. I use a Matrox G450 myself and am very pleased with it.
"This is CNN." "You must avenge my death, Kimba... I mean, Simba." "Luke, I am your father."
Well....at least I will be able to, twenty minutes into the future...
The 80's....won't they ever go away? :)
That hardly seems reasonable to me. In fact, it's just about the stupidest idea I've ever heard. What in the bloody hell would be the point in accellerating wireframe heads for videoconferencing? Matrox ain't dumb ... hence the reason they've stayed out of the R&D expensive power gamer market and instead concentrated on the much more lucrative business market. I'd be highly surprised if "Headcasting" had anything to do with videoconferencing wireframe heads.
What is it, then? One must look no farther than another one of Matrox's buzzwords: Dualhead, i.e. two displays off of one video card. When combined with GoIP, if it is indeed Graphics over IP, it seems much more "reasonable" that this instead means that you can broadcast one of your "heads" (read: displays) to another computer (or computers).
Certainly nothing we haven't seen before in standalone applications (i.e. VNC and whatnot) but if this was tightly integrated into the Matrox drivers and very intuitive it would be pretty cool. Think about it, your primary monitor is showing your desktop with whatever you're working on. Your secondary monitor is using Headcasting to broadcast someone else's, while yours is broadcast to their second monitor. Quick and easy collaboration through the magic of the Internet.
I can forsee all kinds of uses for such a thing, even just within an office, let alone worldwide.
There is more to a meeting than the words that are spoken. Gestures, body language, intonation, inflections, and even the timing of the spoken word all provide insight into the speaker's thoughts, emotions, and attitudes. While much of this can be conveyed by effective writing, often the speaker does not want to convey it. How often have you read "I am confident that we will be done on schedule -- but if I were to say this in person, I would be fidgeting and averting my vision."?
These sort of things tend to appeal to people who are inept with written communication.
If you are going to belittle the writing abilities of others, at least do so with a grammatically correct sentence. (Hint: "This sort of thing...")