Tv-out The good the bad and the erm not so good

[CoCoNiPs]

Does anyone know a good place to look to find reviews of video cards that focuses more on the quality of its tv-out ability?

I have a geforce mx card already and don't really want to replace it with just another geforce that has tv-out

3d games arnt very important to me so i need a card that can output to a tv and a monitor at the same time and hardware assited dvd decoding would be great too as im running a lowly AMD K62-450

RAdeon vivo looks great but at £140 is way above my budget
up to £60 is what i am prepared to pay
I don't care if its the latest and greatest if its a few years old and can be found on ebay would be great too
I just need TV-OUT! someone else must understand my desire!
Thanx ahead
Coco
p.s scan converters a better solution?

[rocknindy]

I have the Ati Radeon vivo, great card, unfortunately you get what you pay for

[CoCoNiPs]

Does that card display to tv and monitor at the same time?
I read somewhere about geforce cards with tv out not being able to display on both simultaneously
which is kinda naff
are the ati radeon ve any good?

[arnesr]

I have the ATI Rage Fury Pro. It has Hardware DVD playback and TV out(VIVO). Great card for the money. Of course it's not as good as a radeon or geforce. It just depends what you need. If you can find one at Best Buy they have a $30 rebate which brings your net cost to around $40.

[HillJack]

I have an ASUS V6800 Deluxe (GeForce 1) and am running Windows 2000 Pro with the latest ASUS drivers (21.81 or something), and using TV Control Center 2000 Version 1.21 (www.TVTool.de) I can display to TV-out AND on the monitor at the same time (but your monitor has to support 50Hz for PAL and/or 60Hz for NTSC). ASUS themselves are just too lazy to support the feature Picture quality is fine imo.

[CoCoNiPs]

hi
arnesr i just took a look at the ati site and it says that the ATI Rage Fury Pro is capable of capturing with hardware to mpeg 1 or 2 or something can u verify this for me please? bcos so many cards ive read about say they can capture to mpeg only to turn out they actually capture in software
if it is hardware OMG! thats great

[CoCoNiPs]

is there a card somewhere between an ATI Rage Fury Pro and the pricey radeon ddr vivo
that has the VIVO option with hardware mpeg encoding and hardware dvd decoding?

[SatStorm]

I have asus 7700 deluxe vivo geforce2 etc....
Quality is good, but way lower my dvd standalone

The best video out from pc, is Hollywood+

[tencentstomyname2]

i have an old ati all in one wonder 128 pro(150 bucks), and the tv output is crap for me, it looks ok, but the size of the screen is larger then the tv, so you have to scroll around to see different parts of the screen and you can never see the whole screen at once, its quite combersome and i dont recomend it. however it might be my tv, because i havent tested on any other tvs

[Jabx]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-11-13 09:19:57, tencentstomyname2 wrote:
i have an old ati all in one wonder 128 pro(150 bucks), and the tv output is crap for me, it looks ok, but the size of the screen is larger then the tv, so you have to scroll around to see different parts of the screen and you can never see the whole screen at once, its quite combersome and i dont recomend it. however it might be my tv, because i havent tested on any other tvs
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I've noticed this issue with my ATI AIW Radeon. I change my desktop size to 640x480 before activating the TV-out.

Output to TV is now the correct size, but you are stuck at 640x480 on the PC. When I output to tv I generally only watch fullscreen video so this is not an issue for me

[arnesr]

Ok, I don't work at Best Buy or anything but they have some decent rebates on their ATI cards right now, so here's another plug. If you have a store near you, you might want to check out the raedeon all-in-wonder http://www.bestbuy.com/detail.asp?e=11043242&m=488&cat=521&scat=522
It is on sale this week for $150 with a $30 rebate, and if you buy it in their store you get a $15 gift card for future purchases.....see their ad. Not a bad deal for a nice card.

About the Rage Fury Pro, I don't know about the capturing if it is software or hardware, but I suspect software, although the DVD playback is hardware 32MB, so could be. If it helps it is basicly the same card as the ATI all-in-wonder 128 32MB without the TV tuner.....in fact it uses the same drivers.

[iluvJLO]

the Rage Fury Pro's quality for TV-out is the same as the Radeon. Only diff is that Radeon is for games obviously. As far as DVD and TV out functions, they're the same. In my opinion ATI makes the best cards for TV-out. You can get a Rage Fury Pro for about 40 bucks now. Get the one with S-Video, hook it up to your TV and godamn, enjoy the clarity!

[CoCoNiPs]

I managed to find an ATI Rage Fury Pro in the uk through computerprices.co.uk which is a bit like pricewatch.com
its £100!!! which is about $144!!!!!!!
erm rip of central :/

[Elchknie]

Here is a good review of the Radeon VE, it even mentions it's very good tv-out. I recently bought one, and i'm happy with it.

Damn, forgot the link: http://www.rivastation.com/radeon_ve_e.htm

-Elchknie

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Elchknie on 2001-11-14 03:42:40 ]</font>