Best Tv-out Card To Purchase?

[bronco]

Ok having thought long and hard about this ive decided to buy my
1st Tv-out card, but which one question.gif

The thing is my modo does NOT have a AGP slot :( only PCI.

I want i top quality output to my 32in tv screen for watching my .avi's/dvd's etc, so your advive is very much needed :)

Ive spent the last hr or so browsing the net and came up with these,please
let me know if there any good:

1.Nvidia TNT2 M64 32MB PCI Video Card with TV-OUT.

2.Gainward Nvidia Geforce 4 MX420 64MB PCI *

3.ATI Radeon 7000 64MB DDR PCI Video Card

Also i considered buying a PC-to-TV scan converter but someone
said the pic quality is rubbish!

* This ones favourite at the mo due to some good reviews ive seen.

Any others i should consider?

Thanks all :)

[CornerPocket]

Of the 3 choices you have, I'd go with #3 - ATI Radeon 7000 64MB DDR PCI Video Card

[bronco]

Originally posted by CornerPocket@18 June 2003 - 19:12
Of the 3 choices you have, I'd go with #3 - ATI Radeon 7000 64MB DDR PCI Video Card
Thanks CornerPocket, i'll jot that one down :)

I'll have a look on the net to see if i can get some user reviews on this baby :)

Dont want to throw my money away!

[Spindulik]

Originally posted by CornerPocket@18 June 2003 - 12:12
Of the 3 choices you have, I'd go with #3 - ATI Radeon 7000 64MB DDR PCI Video Card
I agree...

[bronco]

Originally posted by Spindulik+18 June 2003 - 20:35--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Spindulik @ 18 June 2003 - 20:35)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-CornerPocket@18 June 2003 - 12:12
Of the 3 choices you have, I&#39;d go with #3 - ATI Radeon 7000 64MB DDR PCI Video Card
I agree... [/b][/quote]
Ohhh... thats two for the ATI Radeon 7000 64MB DDR PCI Video Card :)

It&#39;s looking like the big winner here (pitty it doesnt have a remote)

Also ive seen a few user reviews from Amazon
and it seems to get the thumbs up, although they mention possible problems
occuring with onboard gfx and winXP, which i have.

Doesnt look a big problem tho.

[3RA1N1AC]

Originally posted by bronco@18 June 2003 - 13:05
Also ive seen a few user reviews from Amazon
and it seems to get the thumbs up, although they mention possible problems
occuring with onboard gfx and winXP, which i have.

Doesnt look a big problem tho.
onboard graphics is a problem anytime you&#39;re trying to use an upgrade graphics card. if you&#39;re able to access the motherboard&#39;s BIOS and disable the onboard graphics or select the PCI card as the main graphics chip, that&#39;s the ideal situation.

if you can&#39;t access that option in the BIOS, you may be able to get it to work by simply installing the card and disabling the onboard graphics in Windows&#39; device manager. the drawback is that the PCI card may not be able to display anything until Windows finishes booting up and sorting the drivers and settings to figure out which graphics chip is going to be used.

i would also recommend using an ATI Radeon card. people can debate the merits of Nvidia vs ATI cards for video game purposes (i.e. which one is faster with 3D games), but ATI cards win hands-down in 2D desktop and TV picture quality. Nvidia cards are very hit-or-miss as far as picture quality goes, depending on which company assembled the cards.

[neevakee]

Al though it isn&#39;t on your list the ati all in wonder 128 pro comes in pci. I would recomend that over the other cards because the all in wonders are designed for video out and video in.

[bronco]

Originally posted by neevakee@19 June 2003 - 02:51
Al though it isn&#39;t on your list the ati all in wonder 128 pro comes in pci. I would recomend that over the other cards because the all in wonders are designed for video out and video in.

3RA1N1AC, yeah i read about this and apparently if you do it correctly you can get it to work fine.

The info i seen was to disable the on onboard gfx via the device manager, like you mention.It went on to say everything works fine
if you do this

Hmm missed this one.

I&#39;ll check it out, i really dont want to get a cr@p one.

@3RA1N1AC, yeah i read about this and apparently if you do it correctly you can get it to work fine.

The info i seen was to disable the on onboard gfx via the device manager, like you mention.It went on to say everything works fine
if you do this :)

[leevirg]

I am tired of burning my movie files onto cds and having a/v sync problems when i play them on my dvd/vcd/mp3 player. So I want to go the route of pc to tv. which in any ones opinion would be the best, a video card with tv out or a wireless pc to tv converter?

[Some_Geezer]

Originally posted by leevirg@20 June 2003 - 12:16
I am tired of burning my movie files onto cds and having a/v sync problems when i play them on my dvd/vcd/mp3 player. So I want to go the route of pc to tv. which in any ones opinion would be the best, a video card with tv out or a wireless pc to tv converter?

Not saying its the best but I use Tornado GeForce 4 MX440 SE (64mb) SDR-
Paid about 30Quid for it and it works just great :D

[accat13]

LOL I also was getting sick of converting but didn&#39;t have the money to buy a new video card with tv out .So i bought a used Ati rage 2 dvd 8mb of ram for &#036;10.I have the onboard video disabled ,my nvidia tnt 32 as the video card i use all the time , and when i want to watch a movie i just select the ati as the display and i watch my movie on the TV..If an ATI card plays well at 8mb a 64mb should play great... celeron 667 512 ram XP pro :P

[bronco]

Ive just ordered my Tv-out card :)

Although it wasnt on my list ive gone for a RealMagic Xcard due to some excellent
reviews and feedack.

If anyone cares to have a look at THIS (http://www.sigmadesigns.com/products/xcard.htm) link, i&#39;d appreciate what you think.


Cheers :D

[Spindulik]

Originally posted by bronco@18 June 2003 - 14:05

Ohhh... thats two for the ATI Radeon 7000 64MB DDR PCI Video Card :)

I said ATI is good for TV out, since you are limited due to the PCI. Many other brands for PCI don&#39;t exist anymore.

Now if you had AGP, I&#39;d recommend atleast a GeFORCE4 MMX MX 440. It costs the same as that ATI. You get 128MB of DDR instead of the 64MB. It is sooooo much better for anything. Watching movies, playing 3D games. The TV out is good as long as you tweak it. Which is easy to do, if you know how to adjust color, contrast, brightness, etc...

[gumbydancin]

I imagine the ones you listed are between &#036;60-80, but you can just go the whole nine yards (tv wise) and get an ati all-in-wonder ve (pci) foraround &#036;100. Try newegg.com or try pcworld.com&#39;s product finder to find the best price. You get tv out with s-video and composite and you get tv tuner and dvd or vhs to pc recording options. It performs pretty darn well for the price and features.

[Spindulik]

Originally posted by bronco@18 June 2003 - 14:05
...although they mention possible problems
occuring with onboard gfx and winXP, which i have.
Yeah. There is a slight problem&#33; I have the ATI TV wonder capture card and I had the ATI Radeon 7000 TV-Out. In XP, they don&#39;t work together&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33; Those stupid asses&#33; Couldn&#39;t get a clear picture in XP. I now use a GeForce4 card. Perfect reception&#33;

[3RA1N1AC]

Originally posted by Spindulik@20 June 2003 - 10:49
Yeah. There is a slight problem&#33; I have the ATI TV wonder capture card and I had the ATI Radeon 7000 TV-Out. In XP, they don&#39;t work together&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33; Those stupid asses&#33; Couldn&#39;t get a clear picture in XP. I now use a GeForce4 card. Perfect reception&#33;
not sure what problem you experienced... my TV Wonder works just fine with my Radeon 9000. in fact, most All-In-Wonder cards are essentially Radeons with a TV Wonder attached to them.

[bronco]

Originally posted by gumbydancin@20 June 2003 - 18:48
I imagine the ones you listed are between &#036;60-80, but you can just go the whole nine yards (tv wise) and get an ati all-in-wonder ve (pci) foraround &#036;100.&nbsp; Try newegg.com or try pcworld.com&#39;s product finder to find the best price.&nbsp; You get tv out with s-video and composite and you get tv tuner and dvd or vhs to pc recording options.&nbsp; It performs pretty darn well for the price and features.
Thats nice, all them features are very good to have.

I may cancel my order&#33; and get a ati all-in-wonder now.

Is this the exact name for the one your talking about>ALL-IN-WONDER® 128 PRO (pci version for me)

Bit confused about the exact one &#39;cause theres a few if im not mistaken.

Im in the UK as well so newegg&#39;s no good for me :(
Cheap UK dealers anyone?

Also would the TV-out quality be equal to the Xcard which is designed for only this purpose.

Apoligies for all these questions (gumbydancin you got alot to answer for&#33; :D )


Thanks for the help, i do appreciate it :)

[3RA1N1AC]

what are the details of your computer? i.e. CPU model + speed, how much RAM, etc. if you have a slower computer (pentium 2, lower range pentium 3 or celeron...) you would benefit from the Xcard because it has hardware decoding of mpeg 4 (AVI files).

if your computer is more recent (one or two years old, i&#39;d guess), a Radeon All-In-Wonder would prolly be the better choice because ATI should have more reliable driver support and easier configuration.

i haven&#39;t seen any comparisons of Xcard&#39;s tv-out quality to other cards, but i doubt there is much of a difference at all. its main selling point is hardware decoding of mpeg 4, which shouldn&#39;t be a concern for people who own recent model computers.

hardware world really should have a pinned topic about tv-out cards, because this seems to be a popular subject that&#39;s asked about at least every week.

[bronco]

Originally posted by 3RA1N1AC@21 June 2003 - 20:58
what are the details of your computer? i.e. CPU model + speed, how much RAM, etc. if you have a slower computer (pentium 2, lower range pentium 3 or celeron...) you would benefit from the Xcard because it has hardware decoding of mpeg 4 (AVI files).

if your computer is more recent (one or two years old, i&#39;d guess), a Radeon All-In-Wonder would prolly be the better choice because ATI should have more reliable driver support and easier configuration.

i haven&#39;t seen any comparisons of Xcard&#39;s tv-out quality to other cards, but i doubt there is much of a difference at all. its main selling point is hardware decoding of mpeg 4, which shouldn&#39;t be a concern for people who own recent model computers.

hardware world really should have a pinned topic about tv-out cards, because this seems to be a popular subject that&#39;s asked about at least every week.
I agree with you about having a &#39;pinned topic about tv-out cards&#39; seen a lot
of questions myself on this, but it didnt help me ( thats probably because everyone has
a AGP slot)

Anyway heres a few spec details of my comp:

Athlon xp2000+ 1668 MHz

512 sdram

Wn xp home

Should i go with the ATi Rad now??

[3RA1N1AC]

Originally posted by bronco@22 June 2003 - 04:58
Should i go with the ATi Rad now??
most definitely.

this one should do very well--
http://mirror.ati.com/products/pc/aiwve/index.html

if you can do without the video capture & tv tuning, this card (radeon 7000, also known as the "original" radeon before they renamed it) has the same picture quality for tv-out and monitor. just make sure the merchant specifies that it has tv-out because there&#39;s prolly a low-budget version floating around without all of the connections on it--
http://mirror.ati.com/products/pc/radeon70...7000/index.html (http://mirror.ati.com/products/pc/radeon7000/index.html)


one caveat, tho-- the latest drivers for the all-in-wonder work very well with windows XP for video capturing, but the capture/television programs they bundle with it are crap. so if you want to record television shows, it&#39;s best to use a third-party program like WinDVR or PowerVCR.

[gumbydancin]

Originally posted by bronco+21 June 2003 - 04:58--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (bronco @ 21 June 2003 - 04:58)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-gumbydancin@20 June 2003 - 18:48
I imagine the ones you listed are between &#036;60-80, but you can just go the whole nine yards (tv wise) and get an ati all-in-wonder ve (pci) foraround &#036;100. Try newegg.com or try pcworld.com&#39;s product finder to find the best price. You get tv out with s-video and composite and you get tv tuner and dvd or vhs to pc recording options. It performs pretty darn well for the price and features.
Thats nice, all them features are very good to have.

I may cancel my order&#33; and get a ati all-in-wonder now.

Is this the exact name for the one your talking about>ALL-IN-WONDER® 128 PRO (pci version for me)

Bit confused about the exact one &#39;cause theres a few if im not mistaken.

Im in the UK as well so newegg&#39;s no good for me :(
Cheap UK dealers anyone?

Also would the TV-out quality be equal to the Xcard which is designed for only this purpose.

Apoligies for all these questions (gumbydancin you got alot to answer for&#33; :D )


Thanks for the help, i do appreciate it :) [/b][/quote]
No the exact name of the one I have is the ALL-IN-WOnder VE. It is pci and supports every function I listed. You asked about the TV-out quality. I really don&#39;t see how it could be ANY better. It is excellent, and I&#39;ve have yet to see higher qualityon anyone else&#39;s pc. I think it depends on what tv you use though and what language style you are using in windows. I don&#39;t know any good Uk dealers but I&#39;m sure you can find one online farily easily that sells the VE. ;)

[bronco]

Wow&#33;, cheers guys you have helped us alot :)

Im going to go for the Ati All-In-Wonder® ve, it looks to suit me.

Also theres one on eBay so i may try and get that one at a knock down fee :D

Again, thanks for the input fellas :D

[bronco]

Ok i didnt want to post on this again...but im having a lttle trouble
tracking this card down in theuk

Ebay was a no go :( and ive just checked all the links out in the &#39;resources&#39; thread
and not 1 sells it :angry:

So, if anyone could think of some more uk based sites, that may sell this i&#39;d appreciate it.

If not, no worries.

[vivitron 15]

dont know about TV cards and such, but http://www.scan.co.uk is a good uk PC shop....check out today only, which changes every day and has some real bargains on it

edit: fixed link