Best TV Output - AIW Radeon 7500 OR AIW Radeon 8500/DV ?

[psxjunky]

I am looking for a video card for my Media Center PC (which is connected to a 27" analog Sony TV as its monitor). I use this PC primarily for viewing DivX video, DVDs, occasional 2D gaming and in the near future I am planning to turn this PC into a PVR using the LeadTek WinFast TV2000XP Deluxe card that I just bought from Newegg.

I am currently using an ATI Radeon LE w/TV Out for the video card on this machine, but I would like to upgrade this to a better card. Obviously, my primary concern is the best possible TV output quality. I have been researching this topic for quite sometime now, and people seem to have pretty unanimous opinion that the ATI cards have the hands down best TV output quality.

So far I have narrowed down my choices to the ATI All-in-Wonder 7500 card (with 64MB DDR) vs. the ATI All-in-Wonder 8500DV card (64MB DDR as well). Does people have any suggestion as to which of these is a better choice for my purpose ? Please keep in mind that I don't plan to do any 3D gaming using this card, so a more powerful processor is not that useful to me. What I really care about is the best possible video output (not text) on an analog TV.

I would have picked the 8500DV in a heartbeat over the 7500, but I recently read at vcdhelp.com that the 7500 has better TV output and a better TV tuner. Does anyone know if this is true ?

If anyone would like to recommend an entirely different card, I would very much appreciate suggestions for that too.

 

[psxjunky]

anyone ?

 

[aircooled]

If you are strictly looking for TV out and not worried about 3D gaming, then the 7500 will work just fine (hell I still have an AIW Rage 128 that looks great as far as TV out is concerened), and I have an classic Radeon 64mb VIVO that also does a good job at TV out.

If I were buying new, I would persoanally get nothing lesser than the 8500 nowadays just because you never know when you'll want to play a game in the future .

 

[SemperFi]

I think the tv out is the same chip on all of the all in wonder boards up to the 9500 I think the 9700 got a new one.

Anyhow buy the cheapest card you can find and go buy something else with what you save.

Semper Fi

 

[xSauronx]

i think the 9700 is only passively cooled, may be wrong...but that means silence, which would be quite nice for a media pc in a livingroom
theres also a new radeon all in wonder pci card i believe, very similar to the 7500 aiw

otherwise, and 8500 dv would do good for aiw capabilites and some gaming (if youre not interested in SUPER heavy gaming, its a good card)

 

[rbV5]

Since AIW 9700 has native component output and 10 bit ADC's, it is the obvious winner (Its definately not passively cooled btw).

If your TV display is not capable of progressive display, the 7500 has superior TV-output over the 8500dv due to its supprt of 1024x768 vs the 8500dv's 800x600 max via TV-out. Otherwise they are pretty much the same quality as your Radeon Le, but support "Theater Mode" which your Radeon Le does not.

The tuner quality is similar between the 7500 and 8500dv, the 7500 uses the trusty analog phillips tuner that most other Radeon AIW cards use, while the 8500dv uses a silicon tuner which sports perhaps slightly better picture quality, but generates considerable heat (the biggest complaint of the silicon tuner)

The real question is why bother with an AIW card if you are getting the Leadtek tuner, and why get the Leadtek if you are getting an AIW? Get the AIW 7500 and forget the Leadtek, if you need firewire...get the 7500 and a firewire card.

 

[psxjunky]

Originally posted by: rbV5
Since AIW 9700 has native component output and 10 bit ADC's, it is the obvious winner (Its definately not passively cooled btw).

If your TV display is not capable of progressive display, the 7500 has superior TV-output over the 8500dv due to its supprt of 1024x768 vs the 8500dv's 800x600 max via TV-out. Otherwise they are pretty much the same quality as your Radeon Le, but support "Theater Mode" which your Radeon Le does not.

Thanks very much for the info, rbV5 ! I didn't know that the 8500 doesn't support 1024x768. I forgot to mention in my original post, but I *do* need to have 1024x768 support in whichever card I buy. I occasionally run the SpruceUp DVD authoring program on this machine, and it wouldn't run on a resolution lower than 1024x768.

Thia pretty much makes the decision for me ... 7500 AIW it is

The tuner quality is similar between the 7500 and 8500dv, the 7500 uses the trusty analog phillips tuner that most other Radeon AIW cards use, while the 8500dv uses a silicon tuner which sports perhaps slightly better picture quality, but generates considerable heat (the biggest complaint of the silicon tuner)

The real question is why bother with an AIW card if you are getting the Leadtek tuner, and why get the Leadtek if you are getting an AIW? Get the AIW 7500 and forget the Leadtek, if you need firewire...get the 7500 and a firewire card.

Actually I already bought the LeadTek card from Newegg ... so it is too late to go back on that. But since it was a steal at $54.99, I am not really complaining. As I mentioned before, I am getting the new video card mostly for improved TV output. I wanted to get an AIW card so that I can also try out the PVR capabilities on this card ... though from what I have read so far, PC PVR software is still lagging ages behind commercial dedicated PVR boxes like Tivo and ReplayTV ... so I am not holding my breath over this.

The LeadTek also have PVR capabilities, so I'll try out that too.

Anyone know which PC PVR software is supposed to be the best so far and provides most "Tivo like" functionality ? I already have a Tivo (and a ReplayTV) and love the Tivo interface ... so I'd like something similar for the PC also. I have done some research and the following seems to be good candidates. Anyone has experience with one or more of these ?

ShowShifter
CyberLink PowerVCR
SnapStream

How does any of these rank up against the ATI Theater software or the LeadTek WinFast PVR software ?

 

[rbV5]

didn't know that the 8500 doesn't support 1024x768

No, it supports 1024x768 just fine, just not via TV-out. Remember that the TV output is still 480i (640x480 interlaced NTSC) no matter what your settings are, the 1024x768 support simply means that your desktop (or game) will be full screen on the TV display when its set to 1024x768, on the 8500dv it will be a virtual screen at the same setting (only 800x600 of the screen will be visable at any time, the screen will be larger than the display) 640x480 TV output is all you need for NTSC interlaced video playback, really, gaming is the "only" reason you'd need higher resolution.

My AIW 7500 was certainly plenty good for analog TV output, in fact I had to use a signal booster on the same signal line for my AIW 9700 to equall its picture quality. MMC is a good multimedia suite, but definately falls short of the functionality of a TIVO's PVR solution.

 

[psxjunky]

Originally posted by: rbV5

didn't know that the 8500 doesn't support 1024x768

No, it supports 1024x768 just fine, just not via TV-out. Remember that the TV output is still 480i (640x480 interlaced NTSC) no matter what your settings are, the 1024x768 support simply means that your desktop (or game) will be full screen on the TV display when its set to 1024x768, on the 8500dv it will be a virtual screen at the same setting (only 800x600 of the screen will be visable at any time, the screen will be larger than the display) 640x480 TV output is all you need for NTSC interlaced video playback, really, gaming is the "only" reason you'd need higher resolution.

I see. Thanks for the explanation. I know exactly what you are talking about ... since my Radeon LE does exactly this when I set the resolution to 1024x768

My AIW 7500 was certainly plenty good for analog TV output, in fact I had to use a signal booster on the same signal line for my AIW 9700 to equall its picture quality. MMC is a good multimedia suite, but definately falls short of the functionality of a TIVO's PVR solution.

Thanks for the comparison between the 7500 and 9700 TV Output. This is very useful feedback for me ... it makes me feel better for not having to cough up the extra $260