I take it you've trawled through that mess that is Driverguide?

Not sure why I never replied to this one, but yep....I checked.

Now enjoy a picture of this huge bastard:

Still looking for that software by the way...

Interesting challenge.

This looks like it in TH99:
http://museum.ttrk.ee/th99/v/M-O/51455.htm

I'd ask this guy on LinkedIn maybe:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/albert-lam/0/632/457

Can you nail down a manufacturing date?

My guess is that OPV9100 was actually part of a larger system/bundle, not sold separately, which is why you can't find any info. The larger system/bundle probably has a different name and sold for thousands of dollars. 😉

Perhaps, but from the press release it gave the impression the card could be purchased as stand alone. I'm sure it was offered in packages, but I have not been able to find any information that would help me so far. I'll give the linked in guy a shot.

I'll have another look at the card to see if I can get a date, but I expect around 1994.

What is the EISA ID of the card?

Never heard of Optivision, but I have a bunch of decoders and encoder cards from Optibase which still has a website I think.

NJRoadfan wrote:

What is the EISA ID of the card?

What exactly do you mean by EISA ID? Do you mean the name of the CFG file?

Yes, that is the card ID, you should be able to pull it off of the card with the EISA configuration tools (there is a stand alone program that just dumps card IDs). I've had luck pulling obscure drivers by searching for the card IDs.

Hmm...the back of the board says "OPTIVIDEO" OVP9100 MPEG2 DECODER (C) 1996

The chips dates are all 1994, 1995, 1996. A little later than I expected.

The EISA config file for this card is called !OVP0105.CFG. There is no trace of it anywhere on the web. archive.org shows that the EISA config and software used to be free for download on the optivision website. It went tits up sometime around 2000.

Perhaps a little info on it:
http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/95 … ecoder-for-1995
http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/95 … able-for-40-000
I'll see if I can dig them out, I forget how to use Ebscohost. I know I need to be logged in through my local American public library.

Interesting that they started as a NASA spinoff.
http://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff1996/55.html

So long as you don't actually have this board, there may not be DOS drivers in that case. 😉
http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi-bin/g … es/mbase_client

Maybe this is what you are looking for?

http://web.archive.org/web/19970415114156/htt … s/mpeg2dec.html

That appears to be the datasheet for it.
However, he's still looking for software/drivers.

I think that would be though to find..

But maybe theres some old reviews on it.. Maybe they discribed which files, or programs are needed to get the card working..

Robin4 wrote:

I think that would be though to find..

But maybe theres some old reviews on it.. Maybe they discribed which files, or programs are needed to get the card working..

Right, that's what I was getting at with my Ebscohost links. Seems to have been reviewed in "CD-ROM Magazine" 😀

The filenames are all available on the archived optivision websites from around 1997. The problem is all the files were on FTP. I didn't have any luck finding the files on other servers.

Could you give me that URL of archieved available filenames? All i can do is try to help.

File names are pretty generic sounding, so it's not really of much help.

https://web.archive.org/web/19990423180522/ht … oads/index.html

Did anyone find any information on that beast of a card? I have one of these in my collection of random cards, but I believe mine has three BNC connectors on the rear, got an EISA build with a spare slot free as well, might have to start trawling the internet if no one has.

Having a quick search while at work, again they use the most generic terms for products, also a lot of talk about it but no software, reference to a MpegStudio 2.0, but that was also mentioned in Anonymous Coward's link.

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Broadca … /BE-1985-11.pdf

Quick cut and past from the PDF:

MpegStudio 2.0: enhanced software designed to support Optivision's new OptiVideo MPEG -2 encoder and MPEG -2 decoders; the software optimizes compression and decompression decompression performance and the quality of Optivison's new MPEG -2 products; the software provides full compatibility with VideoCD and CD -i players, as well as high -end videotape recorders (VTRs); numerous features for precise control of video encoding and/or decoding with Optivision's MPEG -2 hardware are also included.

MPEG -2 gen-lock decoder Optivison MPEG -2 gen-lock decoder: an EISA -based playback card for PCs; the new MPEG -2 gen -lock decoder decompresses broadcast - quality NTSC and PAL video and CD- quality audio simultaneously; MPEG -2 video is decompressed at full CCIR -601 (704x480 resolution) and 601 variants (544x480 and 352x480 resolutions); MPEG -1 source ma- terial is decompressed at the full source image format (SIF) resolustion of 352x240 pixels for NTSC; the board also supports PAL from SIF resolution of 352x288 to CCIR -601 resolution at 704x576.