Ati X1800XL AIW: Hardware or Software Encoder?

[RobDMB]

I am considering getting this ati all in wonder model as my next video card. I am wondering however if the encoder on the card is hardware or software based for mpegs? Would i be better off just getting a regular video card and then a seperate capture card. Any advice is appreciated. -Rob

 

[gsellis]

This so depends on what you plan to do. For the most part, applications cannot use hardware encoders. And to really make a difference, the real encoder cards start at $1k. With ATI's upcoming encoder, I suspect it will be GPU speed and memory on the card (for bigger video SD vs HDV). I have not seen where any of the additional components make a difference. But don't let that stop you getting the AIW. It still does Analog capture (make sure you have a good sound card too as synch is maintained better with a strong audio card.)