different resolution in TV cards, any difference?

[alimo29]

Hi, I am deciding which TV card to buy to do some capturing and of course, watch some TV.

However, most of the TV cards said they can support up to 640 x480 TV VIEWING, but a few stated that they can handle 1280 X 1024... I was wondering,

I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT CAPTURING HERE, just plain TV viewing,

Is there any difference in QUALITY of the TV picture between the card with 1280 x 1024 compare to 640 x480? or it is only that the higher resolution one can get bigger viewing boxes when it's not set to full screen?

thank you very much for the help....

[Nelson37]

Since the best TV res, except for HDTV, is 720x480, I can't see where higher res could do any better. The 1280 you are quoting is almost certainly the res for the pc display, as SFAIK the Hauppauge card is the only one that supports HDTV.

[CeVe]

Are we talking NTSC? The PAL TV format is 625 lines and of these there is 576 lines of picture, ie. PAL 768x576 given a 4:3 picture. So all larger pictures are just rescaled sizes.
So I can only join Nelson37 in saying why do you need larger sizes? I doubt you can see the difference sitting 2 m from the screen. If you want the picture to fill all your screen, then change the screen resolution, it is done in seconds. Don't be afraid to change it on a TFT either, you won't notice the blurry effect on TV pictures.

Talking about resolution, they have some very interesting guides on the DivX homepage, read e.g. the following link, look for the "Resolution" paragraph at the end:

http://www.divx.com/support/guides/guide.php?gid=11

CeVe

[alimo29]

Thanks for the reply, yes, I am talking about NTSC. The reason why I asked this question is because the salesperson is implying that higher resolution results in better TV quality.

I am using a AverMedia TV 98 right now, with no stereo TV and OK image quality. He told me to change to a LeadTek Winfast TV 2000 XP to get full stereo and dbx sound and better TV image because it can handle higher resolution. Is he just bs and for $70 US, is it worth the switch?

I have included the links for my current card and the new card he said...

http://www.aver.com/products/tv04.html
(this is already the new version, mine is obviously older, TV98)

http://www.leadtek.com/mmedia/tv2000xp/tv2000xp.htm

[CeVe]

Hi again,

Well, the question wether it is worth it depends on your needs and standards. Personally I think it is a good deal for a radio/TV card for 70$.
I use the AverTV98 myself and is pretty satisfied, but I'm used to a 14" television with mono sound.
The question of sound quality depends on what you watch on TV, a documentary will not benefit for stereo sound, a blockbuster movie or a concert will. Of course that's provided you use good quality loud speakers, small computer speakers won't give you the value of stereo.

Anyway the picture size is not only hardware dependent. Using the software that came with my AverTV98 I can get a picture of 640x480 either in a window or full screen. Using Cineplayer DVR 2.50, I can get a picture of 768x576 which is native PAL - it's the same card!
I use the Cineplayer for capture since AverTV98 (my version) only is capable to capture in uncompressed avi, though I cannot recommend Cineplayer DVR to capture since it is very unstable, I only use it since I haven't found anything else that'll work with my 350 MHz CPU.

You said you didn't want to capture, but someday you will, I bet; so take a look at the capture methods also. It is not possible to capture a movie using uncompressed avi; you'll need to capture in MPEG-1/2 or ASF.

A complete other thing, are you considering upgrading your OS to Win XP e.g.?, then you might experience problems with an old card, so thats a good reason to change.

To conclude, think of your needs and the quality of your present hardware and its capabilities, the size alone shouldn't make you change your card.

CeVe