aiw or separate video card and capture device

[dgodwin]

I'm in the market for a new video card and a video capture card. I don't do a lot of gaming or a lot of video editing, but my geforce 2 mx isn't going to cut it much longer, and I have about a dozen educational videos that I'd like to transfer over to DVD. Logic tells me that if I buy 2 separate products, I'll pay more, but get significantly higher quality. Is this the case? Any suggestions? If you'd recommend a separate video capture device, which one? Thanks in advance!

 

[Duvie]

I think the AIW cards are great, and if anything so better then the past...In the past the AIW cards were usually neutered version of the gaming card. I have the AIW 8500 and it runs 195/210 versus stock 275/275 and that constitutes to a big diffeence in gaming....

Now the 9800 and 9700 the crads run at the same speed as the non AIW cards. If you get a nice 9700 or a 9800 you will get high end graphic capability while great capability to built. Not to mention built in TV tuner and access to the MMC of ATI that has great options....


Sometimes the only reason for some not to go this route is in the future if you upgrade the vid card for gaming needs you will lose the caprute capability...basically 2 items makes upgrading easier however that premium for 2 items may outweigh that...

 

[NeoV]

remember that ATI's AIW's do most of their multimedia stuff in software, not hardware, like you would get with a sep card like a Hauppage PVR250 or 350....I would say go seperate

 

[vshah]

seperate for sure. if you buy an aiw once, you're stuck buying aiws forever.

-Vivan

 

[powerMarkymark]

2 cards definately.

Another advantage to seperate cards is for multimonitoring.

Get a dualhead card and with a seperate capture card. You can choose which monitor to display the multimedia apps on.

With the AIW you are limited to the Primary monitor for multimedia apps!

Even if you buy a seperate PCI card for multimonitoring, the multimedia apps cannot be displayed on the secondary monitor.

 

[Delorian]

I'd go with 2 cards, I like the leadtek winfast tv2000xp deluxe @ newegg for about $50. I've had mine for about 6 months, while it isn't perfect, for the money it can't be beaten

 

[rbV5]

With the AIW you are limited to the Primary monitor for multimedia apps!

Actually my secondary display is a widescreen TV...I Watch multimedia all the time with my AIW cards. AIW cards are an excellent value IMO.

 

[gsellis]

If you are doing capture, the AIW is good, but one of the AV/DV capture solutions is better. The Canopus AV/DV 100 and the Pinnacle Moviebox DV are great from all I have heard. Pinnacle does set the Moviebox DV seperately, but I do not have a link to that particular section of the site.

 

[powerMarkymark]

Originally posted by: rbV5

With the AIW you are limited to the Primary monitor for multimedia apps!

Actually my secondary display is a widescreen TV...I Watch multimedia all the time with my AIW cards. AIW cards are an excellent value IMO.

I agree BUT in your case the widescreen is a mirror image of the primary, yes?

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: powerMarkymark

Originally posted by: rbV5

With the AIW you are limited to the Primary monitor for multimedia apps!

Actually my secondary display is a widescreen TV...I Watch multimedia all the time with my AIW cards. AIW cards are an excellent value IMO.

I agree BUT in your case the widescreen is a mirror image of the primary, yes?

No, my desktop is on my CRT and is the primary display. If I'm using Eazylook, I'll use a cloned mirror display, but normally I'll use Theater mode which leaves me with my dresktop free and full screen video on my secondary display.

 

[gsellis]

Of course, if you want to go crazy, you could get Pinnacle Liquid Edition Pro 5.5. That comes with an ATI/Pinnacle created AGP card based off of the AIW8500. No tuner. But it does AV capture and has NTSC monitor out. Not really cheap, but under a grand.

Note for those about to say, "under a grand, not really cheap!" Check out the video context creation market and you will see that it is cheap. The Matrox stuff starts over a grand. Hardware solutions are 5 digits. HD solutions move into 6 digits.

 

[Schadenfroh]

get a sperate non ati tv tuner and the non AIW version of the card

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Separates.

I'll go further and say that if you have USB .0 on your machine, you should look for an external capture/encoding solution. I bought the ADS USB Instant DVD 2.0 a year ago and while the software bundle has its flaws, the hardware MPEG encoding is superior to anything I've seen from internal cards.

 

[Cerb]

ATI AIW Pros:
-One card, cheap.
-One software suite, easy to us
Cons:
-Lots of CPU used for video work.
-One card, one AGP slot. If you game, I think you see where this is going.
-One card, if you need new inputs...
-One card, if you need new outputs...

Separate cards are more hassle to set up, and a bit more expensive, but offer more flexibility. Also, the AIW MMC won't record if it detects macrovision. If that's important to you at all, don't get one.