Little did we know that Canopus had even bigger things in store for the gaming audience, and that the Witchdoctor technique would be integral to their upcoming product line.

Here's a question for you:

What do you get if you take a powerful Riva TNT 2D/3D core, pair it with 16MB of SDRAM, add TV-Out support, throw in the full Voodoo2 utilizing Witchdoctor hardware, and THEN add the option to later connect a daughtercard that allows virtually professional-level video capturing?

You guessed it, you get the new Canopus Spectra 2500.

An amazing testament to the engineering supremacy of Canopus, the Spectra 2500 incorporates the major items we listed above, in addition to these specs:

• nVIDIA RIVA TNT
• 128-bit graphics engine and memory interface
• 250 MHz integrated RAMDAC
• 32-bit hardware VGA core
• Bus Mastering DMA
• 16 MB SDRAM
• 128-bit memory interface
• AGP 2X compliant with Sideband addressing mode
• S-Video and composite TV-out connectors
• Programmable Flash BIOS
• VESA DDC2B compliant
• 9-pin mini-DIN for external "Reverse" passthrough connection
• Internal 14-pin row header for internal "Reverse" passthrough connection
• Internal 26-pin row header for VideoPORT 600 or RIVA Video Port connection

The 14-pin Internal connector listed in the specs is for use solely with the Canopus Pure3D II and Pure3D II LX Voodoo2 cards, which have an identical port on them already. The benefit of this setup is two-fold, first there are no external cables connecting any of the vid-cards together, even in an SLI configuration. Second, and most important, the proprietary ports on the Canopus cards allow the video signal to remain in its purest digital form, instead of having to be converted to analog as with both the external 3Dfx-In port, or any other Voodoo2 and 2D card setup currently.

The 26-pin connector in the specs above is intended for what we mentioned previously, the optional video-capture daughter card. Expected to retail for $99.99, the video-capture daughter-card will allow users to capture video from any source: video cameras, VCRs, DVD players, or any other device that's equipped with a standard RCA or S-Video Out port. Also, similarly to most current high-end TVs and VCRs, Canopus has wisely designed the video-capture ports for the daughter-card to be able to be mounted in the user's nearest 5 1/4" drive bay. This means that no one will have to get down on all fours (hey, this is a family program no innuendo off that ok?) and have to fumble around in the back of the machine to plug in the damn video camera cable when capturing movies. (Something we grew to hate when testing the Canopus Total3D 128V six months ago.)