Please suggest vid card for quality video out

[BG4533]

I am looking for a video card for a computer that will run mainly as a home theater pc/ mp3 server. This computer will be hooked up to a 27" TV through either a Svideo or RCA jack on the video card. It will we used to play Divx and other movies and occassional emulator based games, no new computer games. The video out on my main computers MSI GF4 MX440 VTP seems to be very poor quality. The video card I am looking for will be hooked up to a Abit KT7 with an Athlon 1100. I would prefer the graphics card to be as cheap as possible.

 

[DClark]

Something like an All-in-Wonder Radeon 7500 (here's a newegg.com link with pictures) should be perfect. It comes with a TV tuner and the Remote Wonder (ATi's radio frequency remote control), and the Radeon 7500 core should be fine for older games.

If you just needed a TV out, then you can get a Radeon 7500 for around $50, or a Radeon 9000 based card for around $65.

 

[BG4533]

So would the general consenus be that the TV-Out on the older ATI cards is better than its competitors older cards?

Would an old Radeon 7000 or so for like $30 be just as good?

THanks,
Brian

 

[Frodolives]

My old card was a Radeon 7200 32mb ddr, and it was quite a card for the money, but quite poor for tv out (rca jack only btw).

Just for reference

 

[BG4533]

Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
Brian

 

[Soumaxeridis]

I had an ATI Radeon 7500 in the past and its Tv-out was very good in my opinion, but that's subjective of course.

The previous guy with the 7200 said he didn't like the Tv-out, and I think 7200 and 7500 have the same tv-out!
So go figure!

 

[hojl]

do the 8000 and 9000s have better quality TV out than 7000s (ATI) that is..

 

[rbV5]

do the 8000 and 9000s have better quality TV out than 7000s (ATI) that is..

IMHO..no.

I've owned several Radeon cards.
*My AIW 7500 seemed to have the best NTSC video output using s-video.
*My AIW Radeon was very close, but limited to 800x600 max (1024x768 is only good for gaming anyway), but lacked dual RAMDACs (no theater mode, very important for TV-out IMHO) and no remote. Drivers may have been the only difference as fas as IQ is concerned.
*My AIW 9700 is also very close using s-video (I'm giving the AIW 7500 the nod here so that it doesn't feel bad) but the component output puts all others to shame on the big display.
*My Radeon VIVO was close as well. Virtually the same as the original AIW radeon.

None of my cards had a big edge in quality using s-video TV output(all pretty good for 480i output). Dual RAMDACs in the 7xxx models on up add "Theater Mode" (allows full screen TV output while the player is minimized to the task bar, enabling use of your desktop while viewing video via TV-out) AIW 7xxx cards include the remote wonder which is a nice FM Remote.

 

[BG4533]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I think I am going to be picking up a regular Radeon 7500.

Thanks,
Brian