Any good High-Def Cardbus/PCMCIA Video Cards available?

[tbessie]

My laptop has SVGA and S-Video out, but no DVI-out. So I was wondering if there's anywhere I can find a Cardbus/PCMCIA video card that has a DVI output on it. There seem's to've been one popular one out there, which is now discontinued, and all the other things I've found (cardbus or firewire outputs going to a box with multiple DVI outputs) seem to be geared towards high-end corporate presentations, and not home video.

Anyone know of any such beast? Google results are disappointing.

- Tim

[edDV]

What is your goal? Output to HDTV?

There needs to be more than a DVI output for that. You need a hardware codec that will convert a TS or HDV stream to YUV, or a full equiv display card that will convert your desktop to HDTV scan rates.

One way to do it today is buy a Sony HDR-FX1 HDV camcorder and use its hardware codec to convert HDV (over firewire) to Y, Pb, Pr 1080i analog component to a HDTV.

[tbessie]

Yes, DVI output to an HDTV. The reason is, say I have a high-def video in AVI, MPEG-1 or MPEG-2, or any other format. Right now, my laptop's video card is kind of slow and not high-res enough to match the resolution of the video I want to watch. My surmise is that if I had a card that could handle it, I could hook up the DVI output to the HTDV's DVI input and watch it that way.

My HDTV is one of those Samsung HDTV/Monitor combos, so I'm assuming that the DVI input would be processed as-is and not converted, so I'd get a true high-res image.

Am I wrong in this?

- Tim

[edDV]

Are you saying your laptop is fast enough to play these files currently on your laptop screen in HD resolutions (e.g 1280x720 or 1920x1080 progressive)? I'm assuming a software decoder here. Then a DVI or VGA output could drive an external HDTV monitor with the right scan rate conversions.

I assume from above that this is not so. A theoretical "box" would contain hardware codecs for HDV, MPeg2, h,264 and wmv high def streams. It could be a box similar to a HD version of the Canopus ADVC (firewire in, Y, Pb, Pr or DVI out). Or it could be a future HD DVD player or set top box that accepts firewire inputs. All this ignors copy protection issues that will hinder sales of such a box.

Your only option today would be a very fast notebook that could handle software codecs or go to a desktop (shuttle case?) system with a PCI card hardware Mpeg Decoder (e.g. a Janus chip based HDTV tuner card) and a ATI 9xxx class video card that can accommodate HDTV out.

I also would need the model number of your monitor to figure the best way to hack into it.

[tbessie]

Why would you need to hack the montor? What would need to be modified that doesn't already take care of displaying HD? It's 1280 x 1050 or something like that.

I tried playing the Terminator 2 Extreme Edition HD WMV stream to the monitor, and the computer (using it's software codecs) could not keep up, but I wasn't thinking of displaying stuff quite that high res.

I'm starting to think that a shuttlecase system, as you suggest, would be the way to go. My laptop's pretty good (2.5 year old Thinkpad A31 with the chip upgraded to a 2.7Ghz mobile pentium, 1.25GB ram, 7200rpm disks, etc.), but it gets jerky on that really high res stuff.

Thanks for your suggestions!

- Tim

[edDV]

Why would you need to hack the montor? What would need to be modified that doesn't already take care of displaying HD? It's 1280 x 1050 or something like that.

I tried playing the Terminator 2 Extreme Edition HD WMV stream to the monitor, and the computer (using it's software codecs) could not keep up, but I wasn't thinking of displaying stuff quite that high res.

I'm starting to think that a shuttlecase system, as you suggest, would be the way to go. My laptop's pretty good (2.5 year old Thinkpad A31 with the chip upgraded to a 2.7Ghz mobile pentium, 1.25GB ram, 7200rpm disks, etc.), but it gets jerky on that really high res stuff.

Thanks for your suggestions!

- Tim

You might be able to play a 1280x720p WMV-HD file on that machine. Download a sample here.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/HDVideo.aspx

A hardware decoder is really needed to get smooth HD playback.

The HDTV monitor issue depends on whether your DVI input is either perminenly encrypted with HDCP or accepts only HDTV scan rates.
Both are usually true for a normal HDTV making connection to the DVI port difficult except at 640x480. If your monitor accepts normal 1280x1024 RGB computer output then all is well.

Otherwise, a program called Powerstrip is needed to create custom scan rates. This is typically done from a VGA connector or the VGA analog pins in the DVI-I connector to Y, Pb, Pr component analog inputs on the monitor using 1080i or 540p scan rates. 720p is great to use for the few HDTV sets that accept 720p on the analog connectors.

[edDV]

also DivXHD samples here
http://www.divx.com/hd/
Mpeg TS here
http://www.dododge.net/roku/ts-samples.html

[tbessie]

Yeah, even the lower res examples that you suggest play with some jitter. If I want to do some serious multimedia work (both playback and editing), I'm going to have to go back to getting a tower of some sort. Sucks.

- Tim

[Chaseskip]

Are you saying your laptop is fast enough to play these files currently on your laptop screen in HD resolutions (e.g 1280x720 or 1920x1080 progressive)? I'm assuming a software decoder here. Then a DVI or VGA output could drive an external HDTV monitor with the right scan rate conversions.

I assume from above that this is not so. A theoretical "box" would contain hardware codecs for HDV, MPeg2, h,264 and wmv high def streams. It could be a box similar to a HD version of the Canopus ADVC (firewire in, Y, Pb, Pr or DVI out). Or it could be a future HD DVD player or set top box that accepts firewire inputs. All this ignors copy protection issues that will hinder sales of such a box.

Your only option today would be a very fast notebook that could handle software codecs or go to a desktop (shuttle case?) system with a PCI card hardware Mpeg Decoder (e.g. a Janus chip based HDTV tuner card) and a ATI 9xxx class video card that can accommodate HDTV out.

I also would need the model number of your monitor to figure the best way to hack into it.

I have the Acer Aspire 1710 & is MORE than enough to play High Def files
& yes it plays the T2 demo fine.... No problems what so ever.... So I was wondering what is the solution to run to RGB to HDTV? Also trying to put together a Windows Media Center. The only inputs on my older HDTV is RGB. Any suggestions?