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8500DV or Something else and a Capture Card?

I

ikaika1

Senior member
What are the advantages of going with an all in one solution like the DV vs going with the separate capture card. I always figured that the capture card was a more cost effective solution since it could be carried over even after you change your video card. So many people seem to be opting for all in one solutions though. Am I missing something? Oh, and if you think its better to go with 2 separate cards, can you reccomend a capture/tuner card?
 
One card = one PCI slot only (or AGP in this case), fewer drivers, fewer conflicts, cheaper (more functionality on a single card). It's just less of a hassle than using two cards.
 


<< What are the advantages of going with an all in one solution like the DV vs going with the separate capture card >>



The AIW cards use the Rage Theater chip for VIVO functions, not available on any TV capture card. You loose functionality. With the 8500dv, it would take 3 seperate cards to almost match the same feature set.

If all you need is basic functionality, a seperate TV card is fine.
 
I have a somewhat related question.

How many IRQs does the AIW card use? Just one?

I recall some cards with multiple functions actually using 2 IRQS even though there's only 1 card. (The one I can recall off the top of my head was a 1 way cable modem that used phone line for upload and cable line for download. It was one card, but used two separate IRQs.)
 


<< How many IRQs does the AIW card use? Just one? >>



It uses 1 IRQ, but using ACPI it doesn't matter, all my stuff plays nicely together.
 
It is true that the AIW solutions do add flexibility and features. However, I have owned both the AIW 128 Pro and the AIW Radeon. Both cards have given me headaches with driver issues and packaged software. For the 128 Pro, I could never capture video and the TV tuner didnt work...for the Radeon, it would crash my system once a week if I used Windows Media Player and then sometime later, much later, switched to ATI TV tuner. I suppose it all depends on your config to determine if you'll have any problems. I am waiting for the GF4 to come out and then I am buying a Hauppauge WinTV Theatre card. Sure its a more expensive, but hopefully I wont have as many problems. Hope this helps.

K
 


<< However, I have owned both the AIW 128 Pro and the AIW Radeon. Both cards have given me headaches with driver issues and packaged software >>



YMMV, but:

I've had 2 AIW Radeon's and a radeon SE VIVO, and using them for almost 14 months and numerous driver sets, not a single time was my card not fully functional longer than it took to go back to previous set of drivers The original drivers that came with my first Radeon were a bit slow for gaming, but worked very well with the multimedia features. MMC has had issues, but MMC 7.5 is a great software package, and ATI drivers are very mature. I have an AIW 7500 on the way, I'm sure I wont be disappointed.
 
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