Is the tv out better quality on ATI cards??

[PremiumG]

There was a review I read recently that said the ATI Radeon 7500 has better quality tv out than the Geforce 2.

TV out quality is very important to me. So is it true that ATI cards' tv output is better than a Geforce? I've never seen an ATI card output to TV so does anyone here know?

thanks..



review:

"......It is a real problem to choose between them as the prices are equal. The RADEON 7500 card has a dual-monitor support and a TV-out. The GeForce2 Ti card lacks for the former, while the TV-out is of lower quality......."

from:
http://www.neoseeker.com/resourcelink.html?rid=41481

 

[Workin']

ATI's TV-out quality is the best you can get built into a graphics card. MUCH better than any GeForce. ATI makes their own TV chip, all the nvidia-based cards use TV chips from Brooktree/Conexant, Chrontel, or Philips - and ATI's Rage Theater TV chip is the best of them.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Yes ATI's TV-out is much better quality. In particular, the tv-out on the Radeon 7500 is supposed to be better than anything, including that of the 8500 by a good margin. TV-out on a GF3 is crap (I know, I have it

 

[PremiumG]

damn, tv out is very important to me. I just ordered the 8500. Why is the 7500's output better than the 8500?

 

[AA0]

The 8500 and 7500 uses the same hardware, there shouldn't be any difference for tv out quality.

 

[Workin']

<< The 8500 and 7500 uses the same hardware, there shouldn't be any difference for tv out quality. >>

True that.

 

[DClark]

The Radeon 8500's TV-out quality is excellent. I got my Radeon 8500 last week and since then I've been going through my DVD library to re-watch my movies on my 25" TV (My Radeon LE didn't have a TV out, so I had to watch it on a 17" monitor).

 

[Skibby9]

I have the 8500 retail, and use the tv out to watch dvds. No complaints about the tv out, except that my small tv bites. Shoulda tried it on my 32" trinitron. I'm sure it'll look as good as it does on the TechTV shows. (Dunno what vid card they use, but I am sure I have the same sony TV, and their picture is fantastic!)

 

[jonmcc33]

If you are buying a high end 3D card for it's TV-out then you should save your money and get a console instead.

 

[rbV5]

<< If you are buying a high end 3D card for it's TV-out then you should save your money and get a console instead. >>



Or, if you're buying a highend card and while gaming performance is similar between two cards you're considering, one card has a more robust feature set, perhaps including the quality of its TV-out. you decide to buy the latter card because you do more than simply game with your computer(in which case you probably should just consider a console instead)

 

[garyboz]

I've used both. The TV out of ATI cards is much better than Nvidia. You'll get varying opinions on this but ATI drivers suck. They have too many product lines to support them properly and "leagacy" products any time they have an excuse to i.e. new operating system comes out etc. I had a Rage 128 that would lock the machine up 30 seconds into any game even ATI's 3D demo! Eventually I had to use drivers written by some dude on the internet to get it to work at all. That's right, ATI's whole driver team was working on it and couldn't get it to work but "some dude" on the internet fixed the problem in 5 minutes. If you're really serious about TV-out, get a scan converter. I use a TView Gold. Up to 1600x1200 out to your TV. They're a little pricey but you figure you don't have to spend an extra $25 each time you get a new video card to keep buying TV-out over and over again.

 

[AA0]

If the rage drivers didn't work for you, I have a feeling that it was your fault. They are very stable drivers, never heard of anything like that before. I've put many many rage cards in systems without problems.

TVout is standard on all cards now, so you don't pay extra.

 

[railer]

I just hooked up the S-video on my Visiontek GF3 200 to my 32" toshiba....and was very impressed with the picture. Sampled a bunch of my DIVX movies and they all looked perfect. My Radeon 32 DDR doesn't have Video out so I can't compare, but I can't believe that there's much difference. I'm sure the Radeon output is great too, but when I hear people stay that "all geforce TV out is crap" it makes me laugh.

 

[garyboz]

Ok Santa, lets get this straight. I installed the official drivers, various beta drivers from ATI all of which caused the machine to lock up about 30 seconds into a game. Any game. Always after about 30 seconds. Then I find a website where some guy is having similar problems. He's a programmer and rewrote the drivers. I tried them and it worked. This wasn't just on one machine, this was on about ten machines we bought over a 6 month period. Each of which had sleightly different hardware. We only continued using ATI because it was cheap and these were business machines that wouldn't be playing games anyway. Please explain your logic, or lack thereof, that it was somehow my fault. I think very few people who got radeons when they first came out would have called the drivers "very stable".

Also, not every card comes with TV-out, especially if you're buying an OEM card.

 

[manko]

The gurus on AVS Forums (Home Theater geeks) say stay away from the 8500 for high end DVD playback. I guess there's an issue with the gamma adjustment being orders of magnitude more restricted and banding in gradients. On the other hand, they seem to still recommend the Radeon 7000, 7200 and 7500 series by ATI (not OEMs) for video out. Contrary to the assumption, that it should be the same or better than the older cards, I think the 8500 is one to be careful with (it may be a driver issue).

I haven't seen it myself, but I would guess the 8500 is okay, unless you have a huge tv, HDTV or a projector system. Personally, video out is fine on my modest TV with the Brooktree on my Geforce 3.

Anyway for more info check out this AVS HTC Forum

 

[rbV5]

I'll have to disagree with garyboz. I personally set up my 3rd AIW last night (AIW 7500) its my 4th Radeon card and like the others, it was install the card, install the drivers from the CD and everything works fine. I will admit, that I had to learn how to properly manually install drivers with my Radeon cards, but I was never more than a driver install away from a fully functioning card.

and FYI, as much as you would like to believe that the Omega driver guy writes drivers, you are completely wrong. He doesn't write driver code at all, he simply mixes and matches parts of drivers written by the respective driver teams (Yes, I remember using Omega drivers with my V3 3DFX card) He is an enthusiast that does a good job at tweaking somebody elses work, thats it. Writing drivers is a project for a team of engineers.

 

[garyboz]

Hey, I don't want to get into a ATI is great/sucks arguement. I stated that ATI has better TV-out but that I don't think they write very good drivers. But, if "TV out quality is very important to me." then I think you should get a scan converter.

 

[AA0]

TV out is standard on all 7500 cards and above, even OEM.

If the drivers are screwed up on a bunch of machines for you, its obviously that you have something set up inproperly on all of them. Since you seem to be looking after them, or at least one person does, their perferences just probably conflict with something. Its much easier to blame someone else then troubleshoot I guess.

railer:
you might not notice the tv out, but if you see a ATI card, you'll know the difference right away, it is quite major.