How much of a difference would I see using TV-Out ATI versus NVidia?

[alm99]

Choice between a GeForce 5200 S-Video Out and a Radeon 9550 or 9600 S-Video out going to a conventional 32" TV. Would there be much a difference as far as viewing text(horrible I know), watching movies, playing games, etc?

 

[obeseotron]

Never used ATI's but I really don't think it would be any better or worse than nVidia's. nVidia does have a nice feature in nView that will let you clone your display out to the TV, but automatically send any overlay to the TV in full screen, don't know if ATI has the same. You can have a movie player minimized on your pc but fullscreen on the TV at the same time. If you actually intend to play games, there are few cards available for purchase worse than a 5200, so I'd go with ATI based on that alone. What I'd actually suggest is a modded xbox for movies, the output from Xbox media center is light years better than TV out from a video card. Text is going to be virtually worthless anyway, and Xbox1 games look better than anything that would run on a FX5200.

 

[alm99]

The comp is going to be used for a HTPC using snapstream media software to link with the server in the basement. All i really want is for this thing to play the movies, tv, mp3s and pictures that i have stored on the server via the network.

 

[MDE]

TV out quality depends on the card, but from my experience Built By ATI cards have more consistent quality. What brands are each card?

 

[RobsTV]

Been using TV out since before windows, when DOS was king.
Huge difference, with ATi as good as it will get, and nvidia as bad as it will get.

Colors will be more vivid.
Brightness and contrast will look great with ATi, and terrible with nvidia.
Little things like reliable sizing of screen that holds after reboots.

TV out is mandatory here, and all my nvidia motherboards have onboard TV out. Like obeseotron stated about nvidia's TV out: "the output from Xbox media center is light years better than (nvidia) TV out from a video card". All required adding a cheap ATi card to improve TV out, and they all now look as good or better than xbox video out. Motherboards in use here with ATi onboard are great.

Using TV out for HTPC, with Sat DVB-S tuners, as well as occasional internet browsing.
HTPC to TV has EPG (TV guide), and with ATi, the image quality is as good or better than any set top TV box from cable company or sat company, or others, including TIVO. ATi = Excellent TV out.

The TV out was the final deciding factor on new PCIe card, and choose ATi x800 over nvidia 6600GT. X800 looked great. 6600gt looked as bad as all prior nvidia cards for TV out. Saying Nasty was being nice.

 

[alm99]

Any suggestions on a cheap ATI card that can do DirectX9? Like cheap as in <$50

 

[tuteja1986]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102409R 9600pro
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102534 9550
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814153028 9600 np

all $50

 

[obeseotron]

I had no idea the 95-9600 cards had gotten so cheap. I've built a lot of PCs for other people with ATI cards but every time I upgrade my personal one nVidia has happened to have the better card (Gefore 4 Ti vs Radeon 8500, 6800GT vs x800 pro, etc.) so I've never gotten to use the TV out feature on ATI cards. Hearing about the difference in TV out on ATI is good to know, I'd basically given up on meaningful TV out after I got XBMC.