which tv card is the best?

[FulciLives]

The ATI 8500 (or 8xxx anything) are garbage. ATI had a brain freeze when they made those. Many people in the avsforum had a hard time with those cards not having decent TV out amoung other things. To the best of my knowledge none of the device drivers ever really fixed anything either. It seemed to be some sort of hardware problem. In fact I think ATI no longer makes any of the 8xxx cards anymore BUT they still do make the 7500 and of course the newer 9000+ cards.

So I would go for the 7500 AIW or the 9000 AIW as you probably don't really need the ultra fast 9800 or whatever it is (I know there was a 9500, 9600, 9700 etc.) unless you need it for intense 3D gaming or have a slow computer that might benefit from the more intensive hardware encoding supplied by that top-end card.

If it were ME I would probably get the 9000 AIW unless your budget is VERY tight or you need PCI ... then go with the 7500 AIW

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[xsbs52x]

FulciLives: thanks you for telling me that that card is bad. i was just about ready to buy it. i read that it was some heat issues, like it got too hot but i didnt really think that wuold be a problem. do any of the other ones have dv? not that i really need it but it would be nice...
i think im going to look into the 9000 series.

btw, the most 3d intensive game i play is solitare....lol

EDIT: i just realized that the 9000 is not advertized as Radeon on the ati website. they call it the ALL-IN-WONDER 9000 PRO. is that a bad thing?

EDIT EDIT: i also just realized that the 9700 and the 9800 dont have Radeon in their names either. i guess they just decided to drop it from the name

[xsbs52x]

grrrr. i was reading about the 9000 and according to ati.com it has only svideo and composite OUTPUTS. thats no good. however, it seems as though the radeon 7500 is exactly what i am looking for. i was just wondering if anyone could tell me for sure if this card does mpeg1/2 and avi. ati.com says nothing about this. it seems as though all of the AIWs have this capability but before i buy this card i just want to make sure.

[FulciLives]

Well I went to www.ati.com and this is the info I could (stated rather clearly at that) about the ALL-IN-WONDER 9000 PRO ... Please note that the below are selected quotes directing from the ATI website:

1.) Powered by the RADEON™ 9000 PRO visual processor
2.) Capture still images and analog video in MPEG-2 format at a resolution up to 720x480 and 30 frames-per-second
3.) One display (VGA or DVI*) simultaneously connected with a TV or VCR
* (DVI-I to VGA adapter included)
4.) Connectors
A.) DVI-I (15 pin VGA adapter included)
B.) S-video, and composite video output only
C.) External stereo connections to sound card’s line input and output
D.) Dolby® digital stereo audio output (S/PDIF)

The above is the info on the website. I then took a look at the product manuel which is also on-line but in the form of a PDF file. Here is some info from that PDF file:

1.) The DVI-I interface on ALL-IN-WONDER 9000 PRO
cards can be used to attach a DVI display or an
analog VGA monitor, using the supplied
DVI-I-to-VGA adapter.
2.) My words: The card comes with a little dongle unit which will allow you to input S-Video or Composite video as well as standard left/right RCA type stereo audio jacks. The dongle has these connectors and then a single wire connects the dongle to a single AV IN on the back of the card.
3.) My words: Card has S-Video and Composite video out. Sound is outputted through the sound card only. Also the single DVI out can be used for DVI or a VGA monitor but not both at the same time (at least from what I can tell). Wait ... there is a S/PDIF out on the video card so that can be used for output or if you need normal analog stereo out then you use the sound card of the computer.
4.) My Words: Yes there is also a TV tuner RF input as well.
5.) Full-motion video. The Personal Video Recorder lets you
record a clip of full-motion video plus audio from your video
source and save it as an MPEG, AVI, ATI VCR (proprietary ATI
video format), or WMV (Windows Media Video for streaming
and download-and-play applications) file on your computer’s
hard disk.
6.) Still images. Capture full-color,
24-bit-per-pixel, still
images from television, save
them, and print them. The
images are placed in the Stills
Gallery, which saves them as
Windows-standard bitmaps (.bmp) or a wide variety of standard
formats.
The Stills Gallery also supports most industry-standard graphics
file formats, so you can insert the images into reports,
presentations, letters, and other documents, to add impact to
training applications and presentations.

So as you can see the AIW 9000PRO is a damn fine peice of equipment. Again why do you think the AIW 7500 is better? Again I say that I would only get the 7500 if I needed PCI otherwise I would definately get the 9000

- John "FulciLives" Coleman


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[xsbs52x]

according to ati.com the 9000 pro does NOT have s video or composite INPUTS. only outputs. but according to you it has both inputs and outputs. no offense or anything but i think it would be wiser to trust ati.com rather then someone i dont even know. that is unless you found this information on the online PDF file, but u said in your own words that it had that dongle. could u give me a link to the PDF if you actually found that information in the PDF? the only reason i wanted the 7500 over the 9000 was because i think that the 9000 has neither svideo or composite input.

EDIT: sorry, i just read the online PDF for the 9000 and it says exactly what you told me. sorry about that, from what you said ("My words") it sounded like you were just making a guess. im very confused because ati.com says nothing of these connectors. i guess ill go to best buy or something and check out the box.

[Sulik]

There is the "9000 Pro" and the "All In Wonder 9000 Pro". Only the All-In-Wonder version has the S-Video+Composite+TV-Tuner (all AIWs do).

[Don2050]

Another alternative is the Leadtek Winfast TV2000 XP...

http://www.leadtek.com/multimedia/winfast_tv2000xp_deluxe_1.html

it is a software based caputure card that captures everything from mpeg 1/2 to avi(huffy,xvid,divx,etc...) any codec you have on your computer it willl capture to. The quality in my opinion is very good. It gets good TV reception and good FM reception if you get the one with the FM tuner.

It has composite/S-video/CVBS in. So you can capture from anything. The capture software that comes with it in my opinion is great... it allows you to schedule tv or radio recordings, and is very easy to use. And it lets you customize exactly the resolutions and codecs you want to capture in.

but as I said it is software based, so having a half way decent comp config is necessary.

I paid around $60 for the fm tuner model and find I am very pleased with it... as I did not want to replace my video card either.

[xsbs52x]

i personally dont like the leadtek winfast. im looking for something a little more high-end.

[FulciLives]

Hello

When I said "My Words" I mean that I was summerizing what was in the PDF file when it wasn't easy or conveinant to quote. Anyways you figured it out so no harm done. As for the website saying it doesn't have composite video and/or S-Video inputs ... well in a "sense" they are correct since it only has that odd single A/V input that uses the dongle but they (ATI) should have made that more clear.
I guess the only concern now is that you don't get an OEM version that doesn't have the dongle. I wouldn't be surprised if at least some OEM version omitted the dongle. So to be safe I'd just go with the full retail version unless you can verify that there is a "full" OEM version.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[xsbs52x]

why would anyone exclude the dongle? and the dongle is only for output, right? there is a breakout box for input, not an input dongle. (lol....dongle.....such a great word....)

[FulciLives]

why would anyone exclude the dongle? and the dongle is only for output, right? there is a breakout box for input, not an input dongle. (lol....dongle.....such a great word....)

When I use the word "dongle" I am referring to the breakout box (or whatever you want to call it) which allows analog video and audio INPUTS. As for my reasoning why it MAY not be included ... OEM hardware products sometimes don't come with software (usually just driver software if that) and in the case of hard disk drives you don't get any screws or rails or IDE cables or anything like that. In the case of OEM CD/DVD drives and/or SOUND CARDS you rarely get that little wire that connects the CD/DVD drive digital out to the SOUND CARD. So, knowing that THAT is a reality of OEM products, I was trying to say that I wouldn't be surprised if an OEM version of the ATI AIW might not ... stress might not ... include the dongle.

BTW I was the first one in this thread to call the input device a dongle (whereas you call it a break-out box). If you read my original post where I first mentioned the dongle you would CLEARLY understand that I was referring to the ANALOG A/V INPUT DEVICE. Please remember that I got this info from the ATI website and the PDF manual. Although there was a visual picture of the dongle/break-out box I don't remember the manual actually giving it a name so I just called it a dongle and been calling it that since in this thread. Again it was clear in my posting that when I said DONGLE I was talking about the INPUT device. I can't see how you could have gotten confused.

This is the SECOND time now you have decided to refute what I have said and only retracted your original comment AFTER you read the ATI on-line PDF manual ... which is something YOU should have done to begin with but I was TRYING to be nice and help out.

Now it is clear that you can't even read properly. I let the first "offense" go as a misunderstanding but now I think that my help ... and time ... are being wasted. I'm done with this thread now!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[gmatov]

Fulci,
If you should happen to glance at this thread again, a dongle might just be a little old fashioned to a whole bunch of the users. There are very few programs that use a mechanical/electrical interface to make them work. One that I know of is a DOS beauty shop program. The dongle, for those who do not know, had resistance added between a pair of the pins, which the program recognized/recorded, and was permitted to run.

Aside from that, I could refer to the post where he said "Why should I take your word..." to understand why you might say "To hell with you, Jack, I'm outa here!"

I'm a little pissed that he told me the data wasn't available on ATI's site, when 5 clicks got me the PDF after "hours and hours of searching."

That aside, I am still playing with my MSI card, but think I am going to buy a 7500. I'm tending toward the pharoah's advice.

[xsbs52x]

sorry if i offened you or anything but i would rather hear the informatin from the people who make the product instead of taking your word for it, buy something i thought was something else and have wasted money and time with it, even though in the end you were right. i just wanted to be sure i was getting the right thing. when i hear the word dongle, to me that means a small bundle of wires, not a little box so thats where i got confused. sorry about that.

and also i hadnt realized that there was an online PDF manual until he mentioned it so when i said i would have to search for hours i meant search for third party websites that have reviewed the piece of hardware i wanted.

[txpharoah]

I'm a little pissed that he told me the data wasn't available on ATI's site, when 5 clicks got me the PDF after "hours and hours of searching."

As with most companies, ATI doesn't make their own website. Somebody else is paid to do so. The unfortunate side-effect is information is placed badly or entirely incorrect. I've found information buried, missing, confusing, and altogether incorrect on their site.

So don't hate the guy too bad. While ATI makes great products, that's about where the line is crossed. Tech support and the company as a whole pretty much sucks, but with the quality of their video cards and graphics cards, we can overlook it, especially when others aren't much better (or worse). Hate them instead. Because of sites like this, we don't need ATI anyway. We can buy their stuff and listen to ATI users that lurk around here if we need help. That's how it works with most companies nowadays anyway, at least on the technology side. Remember that tech support doesn't know as much as you think it does (I often find my knowledge superior to theirs, asking for another tech or hanging up), and the website PDF manuals are just an extension of tech support. The creators of the technology didn't write these, some tech getting paid almost nothing wrote them.

[Dpick]

does the ASUS tuner card do both raw avi capture and mpeg1/mpeg2 capture? i saw that it does mpeg1 and 2 on their website but it didnt mention anything about avi. also, it didnt seem to have s video input. can you tell me if it does those things? also i did not see any price on the web site. how much does one cost?

The card will capture in raw AVI with the packaged software Power Director. Or you can use Virtual Dub or what ever video capture software of choice with the card.

The Asus TV tuner comes prepackaged with an S-video all in adpater that connects to the S video input. You can see the adapter in a photo at newegg.com

This all in one adapter comes with composite and S-video input jacks that you can connect your video camera or VCR thru the S video input of the card. This means you don't have to buy a sound card composite adapter to have audio.

The Asus Tv tuner is the best stand alone tuner for your money hands down, and should be the card of choice for every budget consumer out there.