video cards w/TV out

adeypius

any one got suggestions which video card is best
suited for TV out, picture quality etc... etc...

thanks

Doodee

well...ATI cards are very good for anything video related.
N-Vidia cards are generally more for Gaming...
ATI Radeon 8500 All in Wonder is your Best bet I'd say....

but then again at the price...

It really is a matter of what you will be using it for?

koneko

The 8500 has a pretty sweet TV output. Better than on the GeForce cards I had.

Though the chip on the new GF4 cards is said to be better ( have yet to test mine out ), so it really depends on what you're using it for, and if you do much gaming.

adeypius

I play the odd game, but its mainly for films (avi's)

wondered if there is limited resolution with certain cards via TV

my budget goes between Radeon 7500 64MB DDR
or GeForce 4 MX440 64MB DDR

Winters

I am looking at getting a GeForce 4 MX440 64MB DDR and was going to use the TV-OUT (For i have a 32" TV and DoD would look pritty sweet on it)

If its good i will get it but i heard somewhere that the 64MB Geforce4 isint that good... hard to believe but what ive read on it im gonna get one

alb

I bought on of the cheapest cards I could find with Tv out and DVD's/divX look perfect on my 29" TV. It's an ATI rage i think.

Winters

Found the Geforce 4 MX420 64MB SDRAM at two places: Peats and ItDirect:

Creative @ Peats: e179.00 (Incl Vat)
MSI @ ITDirect: e114.99 (Incl Vat)

Theres some prices i got. I might go and buy the msi one soon

Stinkah

Can I ask a really cabbaged question here ??

I have been meaning to try the TV out option out so to speak for a while now, but never got around to it. I like adeypius am looking to play the odd avi via my TV and was wondering what exactly I need to do.

I regard myself as pretty competant ( don't know why ) when it comes to anything PC related. But I definitely a Jack of all master of none type. Especially when it comes to Video cards and the like.

Anyhoo... I have a voodoo3 card with TV out and also have to correct ( or so I believe ) cabling to hook the card up to the video card, namely a cable similar in size and design to a keyboard cable, and an adapter type device which converts this signal to scarth. This adapter also has a little in/out switch device on it. Basically I've tried to simply move the pc as it was and removed the monitor cable from the video card and replaced it with the cabling I've mentioned and hooked it up to the scarth connector on the TV, but this doesn't appear to display anything.

Am I on the right track and just need to tune the TV or do I need to go back to the drawing board ??

Winters

You may have to switch your graphics card to TV-Out. It should be in the software somewhere. If should give you the option of TV or Monitor or both.... as far as i know.

strat

im using a gf3 ti 500 and i refularly use the tv-out option

as regards cable
first off i have a scart to phono+s-video adapter on plugged into the scart socket

then an svido cable from the card to the adapter
also then i have standard phono cable from me sound card to the telly for err sound


works very well and the picture quality is excellent

also try out www.tvtool.de - fantastric piece of software for this lark

adeypius

prices from Dabs.com website

http://www.dabs.com/value/value.asp?s=374

po0k

Originally posted by koneko
The 8500 has a pretty sweet TV output. Better than on the GeForce cards I had.

Though the chip on the new GF4 cards is said to be better ( have yet to test mine out ), so it really depends on what you're using it for, and if you do much gaming.

Regarding the chips on nVidia cards:
Unless I'm out of date, nvida cards can work with several chips from different component manufacturers, just depends what the card's manufacturer wants to put/who they've done a deal with.
Chip manufacturers include Conexant and Philips/Sanyo/someone and someone else. Afaik they're all pretty much the same, just differ slightly.
All the TV-out chips really are is external RAMDACs afaik.

Please, correct me if i've madea blunder, this is how has been for the majority of the GF/GF2/GF3s.


Sidenote: ANyone know where I could get teh TV-OUt daughter board for a Creative GF2 Pro? would I need a BIOS flash on the card to enable it, should I by some strange fate aquire one?

strat

im pretty sure its a conexant chip on my gf3ti 500
and the quality is frigging perfect imo

Saruman

I had a Radeon SDR 32mb, excellent TV out... now i have a 64mb Geforce 3 and the TV out is good but not as good as the Radeon.. however the game performence is unbelievably better... so im happier with the Nvidia than ATI overall...

Depends on what your into... if ALL you want to do is watch movies and dont play games then a cheap one with TV out, even an old Voodoo 3 will do fine.

koneko

The TV out on my old GF3 (original, not Ti) was horrible. Really. Compared to the Radeon it was very very blurry, not good quality at all. The bloody TV is in another room now I can't try out the GF4 Ti4200 one.

For films I wouldn't really take too much notice of which card. It'll look fine on anything. As long as you don't want to actually read the desktop, or Windows

TVTool is great though. Yum.

spooky donkey

I want to get a tv out cable for my card, what is the cable called lilke is there a special name for them and can they be got in 20 foot lenghts, you know i dont want to walk in to peats and not know what i even want before i go in there.

Saruman

Depends on the card spooky, usually its an S-Video cable... Or of you dont have an S-video conenction on your tv or VCR then an S-video to Composite Dongle is what you need.. usually you get them with the card

spooky donkey

Baught the card (voodoo3 3ooo) second hand for a score and i got no cable. But thanks for the help. The card has what looks like a ps2 conection for tv out

Clinical Waste

The card has what looks like a ps2 conection for tv out

Thats an S-video cable connector.

po0k

You'll mostlikey need composite audio (RCA) cables too.
A full-puin Euro Scart AV bock might be handy too, if the TV doesn't have exactly the same connector.