Need some help with TV out cards please

[sweetca]

i am looking for a tv out card. i know nothing about them, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

i need it for the sole purpose of just watching games on a tv, not for presentations or something like that. so a cheap one is nice, but i would like to keep quality in mind =)



Thanks

 

[Workin']

Get a scan converter like the Averkey imicro. With some smart shopping, you should be able to get one for under $75.

It converts the VGA output of any video card to work with a TV.

 

[epsilon]

No, stay away from the Avermedia and similar external boxes. I have done much experimenting with this and other similar boxes and they produce HORRIBLE output to TV. Everything lookls like its been dithered to 256 colors or something. Ever worse, the display on your monitor will also be distorted because it's being passed through that external box. You'll hate it.

Get a card with built in tv out. The best choices are the Matrox line of cards or the ATI Radeon. The radeon is clearly a better gaming card and with the newest beta drivers, the TV out is goregous ! My choice is the radeon.

Good luck,
Dan

 

[Workin']

Uhh, that's not what others in these forums who actually HAVE this device have said.

What do you think the TV-out chip on a video card is? The exact same thing.

But hedging your bets is never a bad idea - make sure you can return/exchange whatever you get.

I don't know about you but I don't consider a $250 Radeon card an "inexpensive" solution!

 

[epsilon]

I'll gladly clarify.

To begin, if others are happy with the quality of their external boxes then I think thats great. I had both solutions and found the external boxes to be inferior. In particular, the degraded quality on my monitor was unacceptable.

A 32MB DDR radeon can be found for ~ $150 after rebate. I understand it's more expensive, but in light of the points I made above, I feel it is worth it.

Regards,
Dan