What quality can I expect?

[new2this]

I recently bought a projector, and after having used an ATI TV Wonder VE card i am not very inclined to use a PC to encode my TV signals again. The quality was horrible.

*Where can I see screenshots of the capture quality of the different (modern) cards?

*Is HW MPEG decoding as good as they say?

*why shouldn't I get an AIW from ATI and get a decent video card on the way. It retails for the same price as the WinTV PVR-250 (when adding the cost of the RF Remote)

Many thanks for your replies.

[rampy]

Quote[/b] (new2this @ Aug. 25 2004,16:10)]I recently bought a projector, and after having used an ATI TV Wonder VE card i am not very inclined to use a PC to encode my TV signals again. The quality was horrible.

*Where can I see screenshots of the capture quality of the different (modern) cards?

*Is HW MPEG decoding as good as they say?

*why shouldn't I get an AIW from ATI and get a decent video card on the way. It retails for the same price as the WinTV PVR-250 (when adding the cost of the RF Remote)

Many thanks for your replies.

Well,

I can see how an ATI TV wonder VE could turn you off to the idea of using a PC to record tv

I don't have a link to a picture quality comparison handy, atm, sorry...

Decoding? or encoding? I would argue, that HW encoding is generally superior to cards that do software only encoding, as generally the cards that do software only are "cheaper" (in both senses of the word) and use cheaper parts/spec... plus it really takes the strain of recording off of your main CPU, and therefore less likely to skip precious frames when recording...

I'm of the opinion that you should get a regular radeon 9600 (or whatever) and a separate pvr250. I don't want my tv tuning/capturing bundled up with my gaming card... I want a card that does one thing well not 3 things mediocre. but that's my opinion... and when it's time to upgrade for doom4 or hl3, where's my Tv tuner going to go if the agp slot is an AIW?

The one advantage a software card has over a hardware card is flexibility in formats at record time... i.e. you can do .wmv's or whatever... although I can convert all my mpeg2's to whatever I want, after =)

*Shrug* it really depends... the real reason you'd pick a hardware based card is that you CANNOT use gbpvr with a software encoding card. That's enough of a reason for me =)

good luck, and hope that helps...

rampy

[new2this]

Thanks your your help. It really clarifies some of the issues.

The only outstanding concern I have is picture quality. The TV signal I watched looked horrible on my 17" monitor, I don't even want to think how bad it would look on a 100" projected image.

Is tv viewable with these cards? is it grainy? are the colors washed? does it skip frames? how bad is it compared to hooking the component input directly from receiver/vhs/cable box?

[rampy]

Quote[/b] (new2this @ Aug. 26 2004,13:42)]Thanks your your help. It really clarifies some of the issues.

The only outstanding concern I have is picture quality. The TV signal I watched looked horrible on my 17" monitor, I don't even want to think how bad it would look on a 100" projected image.

Is tv viewable with these cards? is it grainy? are the colors washed? does it skip frames? how bad is it compared to hooking the component input directly from receiver/vhs/cable box?

I knew, if I left the interlacing explanation off my post, this would come up...

For the most part, if you watch TV from a TV tuner (hardware encoded or not) it's gonna look slightly junky on your PC monitor as your PC monitor is NOT interlaced (which is good, you'd go blind otherwise)

i.e. you pc monitor and your projector (most likely) are apple and oranges...

You can remedy that with filters and upscanners like Dscaler, but that's only really a concern if you are watching the interlaced programming (regular tv) on a non-interlaced screen... like a PC monitor or possible a progressive scan HDTV or the like...

the same crappy image on your PC monitor will look MUCH better when you pipe that same image out to your regular TV (svideo out quality of your Tv out card, not withstanding)

Maybe someone else can contribute a link to a good explanation of interlacing... i know the "how stuff works" site has a good explanation of HDTV that goes into it a little bit...

*shrug* good luck, and hope that helps,

rampy