graphics card or dvd player

[gunukhan]

which is better a good quality graphics card or hd dvd player?how much mb graphics card is good for exceptional video quality?also remember i m not a gamer.i have access to only nvidia's geforce graphics cards.i m thinking about a geforce 7600 or 8600.can you guys help?also remember i don't have a lot of hd content since they are yet to be launched in india.what will give a better display vga,dvi or hdmi output?

[Krispy Kritter]

You choice of a video card or hd dvd player, will depend on your source material. If you will be using HD DVD's (or BluRay), then your best bet is to get a HD DVD player and watch on your TV.

Using your pc to playback true HD video doesn't appear to be an option for you based on your computer specs. Check out the various Quicktime specifications for HD content: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/guide/hd/recommendations.html

[gunukhan]

how much mb graphics card will do a good job considering m not a gamer and through which port(it comes with dvi,vga and s-video to hdmi cable?)but tell me first whether graphics cards improve movie quality appreciably?for example nvidia has introduced pure video facility with its geforce cards?

[edDV]

The current NVidia video playback technology is "Pure Video". ATI has "Avivo"

Both can output 480p/720p/1080i over analog component YPbPr or DVI-D. Some HDMI cards exist but the computer display industry is moving in the future to a different connector (UDI or Display Port).
http://www.edn.com/article/CA6402885.html

Pure Video and AVIVO upconvert SD signals to HD and decode MPeg2 at HD resolutions fairly well but these cards lack full hardware MPeg4 decoding so they struggle with divx, xvid, wmv and h.264 at full HD resolution/bitrate and need significant CPU power to reach real time. Encoding tricks to limit bitrate can be used but this degrades the video.

So, best to wait until the cards offer full MPeg4 hardware decode or use HD/Bluray DVD players.

[gunukhan]

how much size do you recommend mate?my content is also non hd,and again which port should i use?(remember bout the non hd content)

[gunukhan]

have u heared about nvidia purevideo hd in its 8000 series?

[edDV]

For SD DVD, the best player is a quality standalone set top model. You opened the discussion with HD players so that is what I thought you wanted.

"Pure Video" and "AVIVO" cards are better than prior generations for 576i and 576p. They also offer acceleration assist for MPeg2 and MPeg4 h.264.

...
what will give a better display vga,dvi or hdmi output?

That depends on the TV display being fed and the types of video you want to display. Modern LCD-TV sets work well with VGA from a PC for computer, game or DVD display. They most often maximize at 1366x768 resolution over VGA.

Component, DVI/HDMI often have overscan problems that require the image to be rescaled.