Better RCA Analog NTSC Output?

[SC-GBPVR]

I have a fairly crappy PCI video card that has an RCA-composite-video-out that I connect to my NTSC television to get video on the television. It displays at 800x600. I was wondering if used the below card, would playback be better? I think this new card has onboard MPEG2 decoding, so I wonder if that will make any difference under GBPVR.

Jaton NVIDIA GEFORCE 6200 256MB DDR AGP 8X/LP VGA DVI TV-OUT

Thanks.

[flyswatta]

Generally the order of quality for video out is:
(worst to best)
Coax cable
Composite (analog) ---> (this is your RCA connector)
S-Video (Digital)
Component (HD)

Most likely the card is using S-Video for TV-Out. I use both composite and s-video and there is a difference - for me, composite is blurrier.

Warning: certain models of NVidia cards don't support hardware based decoding - See this sticky for more info (fortunately it's on the first page ) They specifically mentioned the Nvidia 6200 so you may want to be careful.

[sgilani]

Generally the order of quality for video out is:
(worst to best)
Coax cable
Composite (analog) ---> (this is your RCA connector)
S-Video (Digital)
Component (HD)

Most likely the card is using S-Video for TV-Out. I use both composite and s-video and there is a difference - for me, composite is blurrier.

Warning: certain models of NVidia cards don't support hardware based decoding - See this sticky for more info (fortunately it's on the first page ) They specifically mentioned the Nvidia 6200 so you may want to be careful.

Both S-Video and component video are analog signals, not digital.. DVI and HDMI are digital. the difference between S-Video and composite (RCA) is that it carries luminance and chrominance on separate signals.. composite video just slams them together.. that's why S-Video is much better than composite.

I'd say the 6200 card would be much better than what you have now, but make sure your TV has the proper input.. I would assume the 6200 you mentioned has an S-Video output, but you should check. Of course if you have a TV with HDMI inputs (most plasmas and LCDs these days do) then you can have spectacular digital output by using a DVI-to-HDMI cable.

[zaphod7501]

Another option would be an external VGA to S-Video transcoder (~$100). This connects to the VGA cable on it's way to the monitor. The quality is pretty good and requires no fiddling with desktop resolutions and generally has composite and S-Video outputs. I used one for my MyHD card before I had an HD monitor. I still use it to feed signals to various analog TVs in the house. The picture is noticeably better than the S-Video output of my 6200 and 7600GS cards but not as good as my Hollywood Plus DVD decoder card.

[sgilani]

That's a cool piece of equipment! Definitely a viable option if you don't have an HD set with HDMI or DVI inputs.. but I don't know if I'd fork over $100 if my video card already had S-Video.. and if you're looking to buy a card, you might as well invest the same money in a better card.

[zaphod7501]

That's a cool piece of equipment! Definitely a viable option if you don't have an HD set with HDMI or DVI inputs.. but I don't know if I'd fork over $100 if my video card already had S-Video.. and if you're looking to buy a card, you might as well invest the same money in a better card.

There are some advantages of a transcoder over the Graphics card output (A better GPU is still important for HD playback. I did both)
No messing with Dual-View or clone modes.
No Video showing up on one display but not the other.
No constraints on protected content (DVDs).
No Macrovision.
Three outputs available with most current GPUs. (one to monitor, one to HDTV, one for analog sets and/or recording)
You can record anything that you can display. Feed the S-Video and audio back into a capture card. Set up a background recording. Play anything on the PC (go fullscreen) and record it. This is how I got audio commentary tracks to add to my DVDs of "Heroes"

[SC-GBPVR]

Thanks all for contributing to this thread. Now I am rethinking my video card choice. Although my TV only has coax and composite/RCA input, my next TV will likely be HD and I'd rather not touch my GBPVR box when it's set.

My media PC is a low-profile one, so a low-profile card is a must. I think the Geforce 6800 is my best move right now (according to http://www.nvidia.com/docs/CP/11036/Pure...rison.pdf), but I don't see it in a low-profile model.

Can anyone make more recommendations?

Thanks again.

[gEd]

your link doesn;t work but no, they don;t make a 6800 low profile AFAIK.

I think for a low profile agp card, you are pretty much limited to the 6200 but I am not sure that the 6200 (or many other cards) have composite output.

Does your tv not have an svideo scart input?

As flyswatta linked to, the 6200 may not give you HD hardware decoding in which case I think you might need to look at a pc upgrade, perhaps using one of the new motherboards that has HDMI / HDCP output built in.