TV Video Out: Reviews/suggestions?

[allan120]

Hi,

Can anyone suggest a video card (preferably <$100) with good TV out? A friend suggested the ATI All-in-Wonder but I'd like some second/third/etc. opinions. The only games I'd be playing much on this particular computer are Diablo 2 and Brood War.

Or can anyone suggest good review sites (besides Anandtech, of course) that focus on video card TV out?

Thanks in advance.

 

[(Chanse)]

ATI and Matrxo both have excellent quality tv-out. ATI cards may not be the best in 3d, but their vide ofeatures are incredible.

 

[allan120]

How about the GeForce II MX? Does that have TV out and have any reviewers said whether or not the TV out is any good?

 

[Workin']

The best video card TV-out is from ATi cards using their Rage Theatre TV-out chip.

The cheapest card with that chip is the ATi Rage Fury Pro (not the plain Rage Fury!). This card can easily be found for less than $100.

3d performance is OK, roughly comparable to non-ultra TNT2.

 

[(Chanse)]

Frow what I've read, the tv-out on the Mx is supposed ot be good, but no telling unti,. I actually see it.

 

[allan120]

Thanks for the advice, I guess I should start looking for a good deal on an ATI card. I think any recent ATI card would be better than my Velocity 100.

 

[ET]

Don't know how much better than a Velocity 100 it will be, especially in the driver department. But it will offer you modern features (32bit rendering, texture compression...) and very good DVD playback.

 

[Hulk]

I have an AIW 128 16MB and a Marvel G400.

The TV out is better on the Marvel by far.

The graduations in color are better and the tv output always fills the entire tv screen without any adjustment. In addition, the computer monitor resolution and refresh can be almost anything. The ATI card requires the monitor resolution to be 6x4 or 8x6 and the refresh must be 60Hz. The tv out on the ATI is a hassle.

Hope this helps,

Mark

 

[allan120]

Thanks again for your input. I'm not really sure about what I'm going to go for but I'll be taking all of this advice into account.

 

[Workin']

Hulk

Your AIW 128 16 MB doesn't have the Rage Theatre TV chip. Only the Rage Fury Pro 32 MB and AIW 32 MB cards have the better TV-out chip.

TV-out will always have a 60 Hz refresh rate. That's all NTSC TV's can display. PAL TV (like in Europe and Japan)is 50 Hz. And 800 x 600 resolution is above the limit for even the finest (non-HDTV) TV's. No NTSC TV that costs less than a brand new Mercedes can display 600 lines of horizontal resolution, and vertical resolution is meaningless in the analog TV world.

allan120

Do you plan on having it connected to a TV all the time? or just sometimes? On the ATi cards, your computer display resolution/refresh is &quot;slaved&quot; to the TV-out settings. So when you have TV-out turned on at 800x600/60 Hz, that's what you'll get on your computer monitor, as well. But if you turn off the TV-out, then you can set your desktop to whatever you like. Just when you turn on the TV-out, the settings will switch to those for the TV. It's really no big deal.

 

[allan120]

Workin': I was hoping to use it for displaying anime mpeg/RM files that I borrow (ahem) from the web. I have a 23&quot;(?) TV that I'd rather use than my lame 15&quot; monitor (don't ask, my roof leaked and my nifty 17&quot; fried) when watching the anime and it would be easier for my nephews to watch with me that way. I'll keep in mind the info you gave me, thanks.

 

[ET]

The good thing about a Matrox G400 DualHead card is that the TV and monitor don't have to by synced. They can use different refresh rates or even display different pictures. Since MPEG movies don't take that much CPU, you should be able to play the movie to TV while you continue working on your desktop on the monitor. Some GeForce2 MX cards will also support this feature.

 

[Hulk]

Workin' - What ET said. It's a pain in the butt to continually have to reset the monitor to 8x6 or 6x4 to enable tv out. It's always set with the Matrox card.

 

[Workin']

Hulk

I get your point but last time I checked a G400 DH cost quite a bit more than $100.

allan120

If you want to be cheap then you might have to put up with a little screwing around.

 

[FuzzyBee]

Do any of ya'll know if any of these cards have jumpers to automaticaaly shunt the video to the tv? I am working on a linux CLI application, and tv-out would be very handy.

 

[ET]

fuzzy bee, my multimedia computer has an XPERT@Play 98, and is hooked only to my TV. It shows everything on TV, from the initial boot screen. I don't have Linux installed, but I just did a small test and booted the BeOS 4.5 demo CD. As long as the display was set to text (computer boot screen) or VGA (BeOS startup screen), the picture showed. Once BeOS entered its desktop (which isn't VGA), the picture got screwed up. My conclusion is that as long as you use text mode or VGA mode, TV out will work fine, at least on this card (and possible other ATI cards). For other modes, you'll need a video out aware driver. I have no idea if there's a Linux driver that supports video out.