best capture device AIW 8500DV or GF4 TI4600 VIVO

[pogue1000]

Ok..
I have the AIW 8500dv..(yes the drivers suck, but found some working ones finally). Capture quality was ok... not super.. still havent tweaked it a lot or experimented.

But with the driver support really sucking and being so picky.

Which would be the best for capture the Gf4 ti4600 that has the video in.
Or this AIW 8500.

I am basically going to capture stuff from VCR or from my ultimatetv recorder.

So basically s-video. I dont have dv yet.

So what do you think... bost will fit my needs in gaming purposes. I want the best all purpose video card, capture around 200-250. and i can get the 4600 for 250 on pricewatch.

Thanks! your feedback will be much appreciated. i gotta figure if i want to keep this.

Basically which one will give me best capture is the question.

[crahak]

I'd keep the AIW. I have a GeForce4 Ti4200 VIVO, and it has some issues... For MMC, it's easy to disable macrovision, for the GeForce, youre stuck with v1.08 (old) drivers. It is said that the GeForce cards have a VERY varying quality in tv-out's. Some are good, some have bad ghosting and such. The GeForce4 gives me slighly better captures than my Rage Fury Pro, but not as much difference as I thought there would be... Not better than a decent but cheap bt8x8 anyways. (the bt8x8 cards have much better drivers too). The GeForce 4 supports tvtool for tv out, but it's useless to me since I can't use the card for tv-out. Why? If I plug it straight to TV, it works fine, if I plug the card to TV thru my recoton s-video switch, it won't see the TV... Lots of us have more s-video sources than inputs on TV (my 4 to 1 switch is full). The tv out of the ATI cards I have seem to be just as good anyhow...

So for whatever amount, you get about the same quality captures but with old drivers that you can't think about updating because of macrovision. You also get a tv out that would be good quality if it would care to work. I guess the only real thing you get is a good card for PC gamers (mind you, my Ti4200 is clocked as fast as a Ti4600, and I'm not impressed at all by it anyways). Now you figure if it's a good investment

[crahak]

Well, after much fiddling, tweaking, connecting and messing around with the card, I declare it officially a GeForce 4 Ti4200 VI (no VO). The quality of the output could possibly be good I guess, but there's nothing to do. On top of that, connected directly to TV, I had to use tvtool to select the s-video out (Y/C) so it would detect properly (otherwise I'd get a black and white picture). Also, the 720x480 and equivalent PAL mode could not be enabled either. VERY disappointing card. First GeForce card and very most likely last. Even with all that "ati drivers are crap" and "geforce ownz" type of talk we hear, to date, I have yet to have a problem with an ati card and I have owned a lot (rage32, 64, rage XL, fury pro, 7000ve...). I'd almost consider offering you a swap for your card, but I don't hate you enough to wish you that Anyways. I'll build my HTPC with something else it seems... Laters

[pogue1000]

thanks, yeah i am thinking same thing. The gaming of the 4600 i was looking at would of been nice for not much more... But really this is pretty decent gaming card in my opinion for the price and features.

My vcr captures so far have been from composite, so i gotta get me a vcr with s-video.. hope that will help i am sure it will.

But only other thing i gotta figure out is why my sound isnt capturing. I dont have the line-in muted and i can hear it when it captures but not after it records. I will have to make sure that i have it in the right input on my sound card

have a good one!

[crahak]

No prob
Also, I tried newer BIOS'es (MSI and NVidia, a few versions). All it seemed to have changed, is I couldn't OC it as good, the screen would get weird. So I'm back to the same BIOS that came with it. With any driver new or old, BIOS, tvtool, anything, no TV out. I have looked at the MSI forum, and there's a LOT of people pissed off because they have that same problem. MSI doesn't answer emails either. My brother has a Radeon 7500 and my father has a AIW 7500, and both no problems either. First and last NVidia based card. (Probaly good for gaming, but I'm no gamer)