Question about Dual LCD setup

[chr6]

just a curious hardware question 🙂

let's say one has (2) 19" lcd monitors, a video card with dual dvi, and a tv tuner of some sort (undecided).

is it possible to run the full screen tv app on one monitor, and do all your normal apps, browsing on the other? i have no experience with dual monitor setups, so your input is valued.

also, which tv tuner/software would you recommend for such a setup? thanks!

 

[Bozo Galora]

The final card of interest at PowerColor was their Theater 550 Pro based TV tuner. Our recent TV Tuner Comparison showed ATI's Theater 550 Pro offered the absolute best image quality out of any analog TV tuner.

http://anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2434&p=6

 

[NaughtyGeek]

Yes, you can run PC apps on one monitor and video on the other. Nvidia makes this pretty easy in the setup you can configure which screen handles full screen video. Also, while the Theater 550 is ranked the best, I would go with a Hauppauge as they have the most software support(Myth, Sage, others...). There are several packages available for software and you would do well checking with HTPC sites to get the scoop on which is best and why.

 

[chr6]

thanks for the input, i did find some people who say the only thing the ati card lacks is decent software. i will definitely go with the nvidia based card from what you say. cheers

 

[ryanv12]

I have a 2005FPW and a 17" Sharp LCD and I'm running the TV fine in full screen on the 17". I lose a few frames if I go to a heavy flash website (Pentium 4 3.2c) or do some other somewhat processor intensive tasks, but it's actually no problem at all. Just wait till I get my 4400+...I'll be watching TV and rendering at the same time with a minimal hit 😀