WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST

[keziah]

1 AM INTHE MARKET FOR A MPEG DECODER CARD. NOT MANY REVIEWS ONLINE. IF ANYONE HAS EXPERIENCE WITH ONE OF THESE GADGETS .
PLEASE GIVE ME YOUR IDEAS OF WHAT TO USE.
I AM LEANING TOWARDS THE Sigma Designs REALmagic Xcard. IT SEEMS TO BE EVERY WHERE. BUT I CAN NOT FIND ANY REAL CONSUMER REVIEWS.

[Solarjetman]

Please do not post in caps. It is very distracting and annoying.

I have a Sigma in my secondary computer. It is a very good card. I like it. I do not use it in my main computer as I no longer use my computer for DVD viewing, and the mpeg2's I watch for video edditing are decoded through software. So it goes for months without being used.

I have found that hardware mpeg decoders are dying out because computers are plenty fast now to decode them. Except in professional arenas I guess.

[keziah]

So do you think that a videocard with tv/video out will suffice quality wise when compared to a decoder card. If so what do u suggest.

[Solarjetman]

Well, if you are outputting it to TV, I would buy a Hardware decoder with its own TV out (like the hollywood). If you are just watching it on your computer, I would go software. My reasoning is that if you use a video card out, the mpeg would be decompessed, sent to the video card, processed, then output to TV. While a decoder card skips the extra processing of the video card.

If you like, I took a screenshot from the S-video out on my Hollywood.
You have to give it a bit of wiggle room on the quality though, I captured it using my ADVC-100 and of course you lose a little bit of quality because of that, plus its compressed to a jpeg.

If you want the bitmap (1MB) give me an email address to send it.

[keziah]

thank u 4 your help. i am now officially in the market 4 the x card

[The village idiot]

I haven't used the Xcard, but I used the card before that. It was a good card. The only Sigma products that I can recommmend. Their support is horrible. At least the support for their mpeg encoder was, glad I got my money back for that piece junk. But the Xcard, and the one before it should be decent.

If you are going to build a computer based video machine, you might want to look at the Via ITX M-10000 main board. It has an onboard mpeg decoder, a BIOS DVD player, video out, 6 channel audio out. And it can play Divx, and if connected to a highspeed internet connection, online streaming video to your TV. Some people say the video out sucks, but on the board I have (M-9000) it looks pretty good. Just another option to throw at you.

[keziah]

going to look into this now thanx i am open 2 all suggestions

[ImaWeTodd]

I have an xcard in a little pc just for the TV. I give it 2 thumbs up.

The +++ s are:

- Hardware decoder for slow processor
- Great TV out. Actually this is a great value for the card.
- Does Divx, Actually, with JovePlayer you can do any video if you have a good processor.
- Network it, do whatever, because it's a pc


The --- s are:

- Even with good sw like Jove, other options are more tight (easier to use). Sometimes I wish I tried a ReplayTV.