Building a standalone DVD/DivX player, going to comp fair, what vid card to look out for?

[Confused]

I am thinking of building a DVD/DivX player for the front room to hook up to the 24" widescreen TV. I have an Abit KT7 and Duron 700 CPU, so i think that will be powerful enough.

There is a computer fair on this Sunday in my town, and am going hunting for a vid card with TV out.

I am looking for best TV-out quality, and it may also be used for some big screen gaming. My budget is about £60 (but might be able to go a little higher if needed), and what cards should i look out for.

I think the sort of cards in price range (from last comp fair) were Radeon VE, which IIRC is the 7000, and about a GF2MX400.

If you can provide a list/rating of vid cards compared to others, i would be very grateful so i can see what i could get if i can stretch my budget that far.

Thanks in advance

ConfusedBW

 

[Workin']

The only cards that have decent TV-out are ATI cards with their Rage Theater chip. The chip is clearly labeled on cards that have it.

TV-out on 99% of nvidia-based cards is if not awful then just not very good. SiS-based cards have mediocre TV-out, also.

Matrox cards have decent TV-out, but tend to be pricey for what you get.

 

[Superwormy]

DO NOT get a Radeon VE if you plan on doing any gaming.

 

[bevancoleman]

A Sigma Designs Hollywood+ card (it's not a video card, but a Mpeg decoder card) has the best quality. They will also play DivX files though it really only works under Win98 and isn't HW accelerated.