No DVI Connection on an AIW9600XT

[Rockhound1]

I purchased an AIW9600XT a couple of weeks ago to replace the video card that is about to die in my father's computer. I wanted to upgrade his existing card and also give him the capability of watching TV in one window while surfing/working in another window. I had bought him a 17" LCD about 3 years ago. The LCD had a DVI connection which was one of the prerequisites for the purchase. However, much to my surprise when I opened the box for the AIW9600XT, I found that it did not have an option to connect a DVI cable, but instead had two D-Sub connections.

What gives? I figured all modern video cards came with DVI. It is not like this is a "low-end" card.

Any advice. Will I experience a degraded image on the LCD if I have to use the analog connection.

Thanks.

 

[Nextman916]

Yes

 

[rbV5]

Any advice. Will I experience a degraded image on the LCD if I have to use the analog connection

17" LCD? Not much if any difference between analog and digital from my experience at 1280x1024.

The AIW9600XT is one of the few ATI cards w/o DVI, and one of the only AIW cards minus DVI.

It was the first dual head-dual display AIW, and only features analog video output. You'll want to research your purchases a little closer in the future as ATI cetainly doesn't hide the act that it is VGA only. I doubt that it will matter however unless he goes with 1600x1200+ native LCD sometime down the road.

He'll be fine with the 17" LCD, I run mine with analog.

 

[Rockhound1]

Sorry, I just can't seem to get past this card not having DVI. I paid extra for the LCD monitor with DVI, so I want a card with a DVI connection.

Here is my new plan. I am returning the AIW9600XT card. Instead, I am purchasing a PNY 6600GT video card and a Hauppauge WinTV Go Plus PCI TV Tuner card. The PNY is $99 after rebate and the Hauppauge is $20 after rebate.

What do you think of this alternative plan? My father is going to use the Hauppauge to watch a little TV which doing other things on the computer. He is not planning on recording any programs or editing any video. Just wanted to watch a football game or something else while he did his e-mail etc.

I wasn't able to see a lot of reviews on the Hauppauge, but what I was able to read was generally positive. Does anyone else have any opinions regarding this card?

Thanks.

 

[xtknight]

I can definitely tell a difference between DVI and VGA on my 17" 1280x1024 LCD. The VGA noticeably lacks contrast. Well it could be my video card's VGA connection is subpar too, but I can definitely tell the difference. There's a small difference in clarity as well.

 

[Rockhound1]

I have heard others say that whenever possible, use a DVI connection on a LCD monitor. I am not saying that you can't get a nice picture using the D-Sub, I have just heard that DVI is preferred.

I am confident the 6600GT will be able to do anything my father wants, I am just not sure about the Hauppauge. I just hope the Hauppauge is able to give him a nice clean crisp image of the TV feed with little or no lag.

Anyone have experience with one of these?

 

[xtknight]

Lag for TV cards (realtime stream to display) in my experience is about 2 seconds IIRC. Nothing to worry about really...
I have used ATI TV Wonder VE and TV Wonder USB 2.0 and had the same small lag. I'm pretty sure all electronics in TV sets are real time but you probably can't say the same for PCs because it does have to go through layers.

You'll perceive a lower quality because it must go through digital/algorithmic deinterlacing (whereas TV CRTs do it inherently 'perfectly'). Also the pixels on your monitor are almost certainly a lot smaller than a TV's pixels. But in reality the quality should be the same because it goes through the same calibre of tuner that you'd find in a real TV. I don't think hardly anything is lost in ADC (analog to digital convert). However a lot is lost in DAC which can be seen by using VGA vs. DVI.