Need a decent video card with TV-Out.

[chevelle396]

I'm not looking for any graphics power, this is not a gaming machine. The card must be win2k compatible. I'll be using it for playing DVD's, so I guess 8meg of video ram is enough. Now I don't know if all TV-outs are S-video, but I'd prefer it, as the tv i'm looking at has s-video inputs.

edit: the jacks on the card need to be on the lower part of the metal piece, closer to the pci slot. this is going into a specialty case, and I'd rather not cut out any more of it than I have to.

 

[jobberd]

read the recent tv-out review done by Anandtech. It sounds like youd most benefit from a matrox, though

 

[chevelle396]

woops, musta missed that one, thanks for the heads up.

edit: hmm... were you thinking of the TV-tuner roundup? I can't find a tv-out one.

 

[GuardianAli]

radeon ve w/tv out

good gaming if needed with superb DVD quality (being the only card to support iDCT) and great 2d windows quality thanks to a nice RAMDAC.

 

[chevelle396]

hmm, lookin for somethin pretty cheap if possible, but I'll keep that one in mind.

 

[Workin']

ATI Rage Fury Pro 32MB AGP w/TV-out is $65 at www.mwave.com, momentarily backordered, though. Works great in my Win2k box. I think it meets your "jack closer to the bottom" criteria, too.

 

[Nintari]

Does the ATI card enable you to have tv out on all the time or do you have turn it on manually each time? Also can you see the post and etc, what resolutions blah blah blah. Sorry to plauge with questions but doing research right now.

 

[Workin']

<< Does the ATI card enable you to have tv out on all the time or do you have turn it on manually each time? >>

TV-out can be on all the time provided your screen resolution is 800x600 or lower and your refresh rate is 60Hz.

<< Also can you see the post and etc, what resolutions blah blah blah. >>

Yes, you can see the POST, etc., max resolution is 800x600 at 60Hz. 640x480 at 60Hz also works.

 

[chevelle396]

you know that one looks like it would work perfectly, the monitor and s-video jacks are as close as possible to the bottom. Thanks alot for pointing this one out, looks good to me.

 

[Workin']

You know that with that card you also get pretty good gaming performance, since the TV-out limits you to 800x600. Mine plays Quake 3, Half-Life, and Unreal quite well.

Another bonus is excellent DVD decoding, the recent ATI cards have built-in motion compensation and Inverse Discrtete Cosine Transorm (IDCT) support.

It also comes with DVD player software, video capture software, etc. If you get one, DON'T use the software that comes with the card. Get the latest supported drivers, as well as the latest DVD player and &quot;Multimedia Center&quot; software from ATI's web site. Be sure to install DirectX 8 and the DirectX8 digital video supplement from Microsoft before you install the ATI drivers and software.

 

[chevelle396]

ok, i was planning on using powerdvd with it. Does the 800X600 resolution look decent on the tv, or should I possibly look into one with higher res capabilities? and I guess I'll have to switch my desktop back and forth if I want to run everything else in 1024X768.

 

[nairi]

I got a POWERCOLOR SNIPER2 TNT2 m64 32MB with composite and s-video out, $35 shipped, comes with powerDVD and CD with drivers and tweaking program LMK if interested, nairi91205@yahoo.com

 

[Workin']

In my opinion the DVD player software that comes with the ATI card works better with it than PowerDVD. Not as many features but noticeably better picture quality.

I don't even have a monitor connected to my card, I only use a TV (the PC is in my family room).

The TV out quality of any nvidia-based board is poor compared to ATI.

 

[jobberd]

<< edit: hmm... were you thinking of the TV-tuner roundup? I can't find a tv-out one. >>

oops, my bad