AIW 8500DV vs. AIW 7500

[Nikepete]

Other than the gaming performance and the Firewire input, is it true that the multimedia features (video encoding, TV tuner etc.) of the 7500 are the same as the 8500DV ?

 

[rbV5]

Actually the AIW 8500 128MB is more closely related, sharing the same feature set other than the GPU and amount of memory. The 8500dv differs a little in that it uses a tuner on silicon rather than the phillips analog tuner the AIW 7500 and AIW 8500 use, also the 8500dv uses a VIVO breakout box that includes both input and outputs, while the AIW7500 and AIW 8500 use seperate Breakout box for video input, and a multi-gang Video-output adapter.

Also, the 8500 cards support ATI's DVI>Component-out dongle while the 7500 does not.

As far as analog video capture, and multimedia features, you can consider them all to be equal.

 

[max105]

From what I've read, they've been using the same rage theatre chip to handle all the multimedia options of the AIW so it wouldn't really make a difference which one you got. the thing that probably matters most is the 3d gaming performance, and the HDTV component adapter.

 

[NicColt]

>The 8500dv differs a little in that it uses a tuner on silicon

Really ? I didn't know that. Does that mean that the DV can use Guide+ then ?

p.s. I'm still holding out for the AIW-9700 Pro I hope that it will have 128Mb

 

[rbV5]

Really ? I didn't know that. Does that mean that the DV can use Guide+ then ?

It can use Guide+, but it still only addresses the same analog channels <125 that the phillips tuner uses. IIRC, the tuner on a chip runs through the cahannels quicker, but produces more heat than the phillips tuner, which is one reason ATI went with slower RAM and underclocked Core on the DV, and also why they dropped the firewire and went with the analog tuner and faster ram on the AIW 8500.

I'm looking to get a 9700 series card myself, I sure hope they come up with a dual head AIW card...that would really make it compelling. I'm also looking at picking up one of the new 9000 VIVO cards as well for one of my rigs. The s-video input is a nice upgrade over the original DDR VIVO, but the cards I've seen so far are single head, and I'd really like to have a dual head video rig.

 

[max105]

seems like most cards are going towards the dual head setup...the only ones that don't seem to have a dual output nowadays are the value cards.

 

[Nikepete]

Thanks for the infos guys. One additional question: with any of those cards(7500, 8500, 8500DV) can we capture mpeg-2 in real time for SVCD burn directly without the conversion step. I heard MMC 7.7 and the new Catalyst drivers correct the compatibility problem with Nero.

 

[rbV5]

can we capture mpeg-2 in real time for SVCD burn directly without the conversion step

Yes, I've used the SVCD capture preset and burned compliant SVCD's in Nero, basically drop and burn.