2 displays AND TV-out?

[jcwagers]

Hello all. I have a friend who is doing some church work and he is looking into setting up a multiple display setup. He needs a video card that can display 1 monitor, a projector, and hook into a VCR. With the stuff he's going to be doing, he will use the monitor, show the image on the projector, and would like to record the whole thing on a VCR using the TV-out. Is this possible? I wasn't sure what to tell him and so he called ATI and I think they referred him to a Radeon 7500. He decided on a AIW Radeon 7500 but I'm just wondering if that will do all of it. Does each display need its own RAMDAC? If so, the AIW 7500 will do a Monitor and a TV-out but not a projector as well. Is that correct?
He would like to use one card but if necessary he will use a PCI card to help do some of the work. I have a Radeon 8500 and mine will do the dual monitors but I'm not sure if it will do 2 monitors AND tv-out. I've never heard of anyone trying that(but I haven't researched it much either). It might be possible. Do any of you have any ideas? I'm not too swift on dual displays and all of this stuff. I usually just play games and forget about it. Anyways, thanks for taking the time to read this.

jcwagers

 

[Peter]

Radeon 7500 can drive three displays, as long as only two of them are analog. So you can combine CRT and TV (which are analog and each use a RAMDAC) with a digital DVI display. Meaning that the monitor needs to be a digital DVI flat panel thing.

Radeon 8500 is different in that it uses a separate RageTheater chip instead of an integrated one. Feature-wise, no difference.

The cheapest way to get there is to buy PowerColor's RV2LE - it's a 7500LE card, fanless, that has all three outputs. The TV-out is a composite, more expensive cards have an S-Video port there. Also available in PCI as RV2P.

regards, Peter

 

[adlep]

Couldnt explain it any better!

 

[rbV5]

If so, the AIW 7500 will do a Monitor and a TV-out but not a projector as well. Is that correct?

Correct, all AIW cards are single head, dual display. 1 CRT or DFP and 1 TV (or VCR).

Radeon 8500 is different in that it uses a separate RageTheater chip instead of an integrated one. Feature-wise, no difference.

Not quite, the 8500 supports CRT+CRT+TV, while that is unsupported on the 7500, the TVout is a clone of one of the CRT's. That will allow all 3 displays to be analog. The 8500 also supports DVI>component video output dongle, which maybe handy if your projector or TV displays support component video input. This is also unsupported on the 7500.

IMHO, The Radeon 9000 would be a good choice, great feature set and they have dual head models w/tv-out around $80 shipped or less.

 

[jcwagers]

Thank you all for the replies! I learn more and more every day.