High quality TV Out

[Guest]

Reven pointed me toward the Geforce 6600 (thanks), so Ive been doing some reading. It gets amaizing reviews, and especially the BFG 6600GT AGP. Seems to be one of the quietest of the 6600s, is a bit faster as it is overclocked a bit, and comes with many adapters for different output. I know it is about $240 or so, but seems like it won't be outdated really soon.

[rtiangha]

Either the 5200 or the 9550 as they are DirectX 9 compliant cards (well, the 9550 moreso than the 5200; the 5200 is DX9 compliant but awfully slow at it) so they will be able to handle VMR9 (the speed of the card becomes even more important as you increase your video resolution).

If money isn't an issue, the 9600 would be good as it will be able to handle VMR9 quite comfortably. However, I believe that the 9550 is just an underclocked 9600 with a smaller memory bus.

Personally, I'd go for the 9550. It's powerful enough and even has some leftover to spare.

[Digiman]

I have a GeForce4 MX440 video card with Tv out and it gives excellent results. However, I'm a big fan of the Hauppauge MVP unit and I'm always using this with GB-PVR. In my opinion, nothing beats it for good quality playback on Tv.

[Guest]

Is anyone in the UK using the nvidia HDTV/Component cable [I cant seem to find out what nvidia cards this works with] OR the ATI Component dongle [which is for HDTV, but it also does 480i and 480p] Officially ATI do not support it in europe, but will it work on the cards you can buy in the UK?

If anyone wants a bit more info:

http://www.ati.com/products/hdtvadapter/faq.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/analog_component_out.html

[cwills]

bucknljake,
The 350 has S-Video input & output.

d3cypher,
Your option #3 is of course the best, but also most expensive. If you are worried about your wife, but still want a roomy case, I would recommend a Silverstone LC03-B or LC03-S (B,S Black or Silver). It can handle a standard ATX motherboard along with micro-ATX, so you aren't stuck with a riser card for expansion slots or just one or two expansion slots with a small form-factor. It looks like a piece of stereo equipment, and holds 2 - 5 1/4 inch drives, and 4 - 3 1/2 inch drives, two external, two internal. I'm using mine as a all-in-one PC. The case is in my entertainment center and the 350's output along with the GeForce 6800 GT's S-Video output are going to my TV. I also have fiber optic sound output going to the stereo, along with multi-channel analog audio going to my stereo. This is necessary two-fold. When watching DVD's your best surround sound is with the digital fiber-optic or coax, but surround sound games, such as Doom3, UT2004, Painkiller, Farcry, Half-Life 2, etc. do not give you a digital 5.1 output, only 2 channel. They are desinged for 5.1+ multi-channel analog PC speakers, so you need a stereo receiver that has analog multi-channel inputs if you want 5.1+ surround sound with them. I've also got a small modern looking glass/silver desk in my living room about 15-20 feet from my TV. This holds a LCD monitor, speakers, multi-function printer/scanner & keyboard/mouse. The KB/Mouse are bluetooth, with the hub sitting by the PC, so then I can have the KB/Mouse at the desk or on a lapboard in front of the TV on the couch for playing FPS games. The USB/VGA/Audio cables for the monitor/speakers/printer&scanner are run through my crawlspace from the PC to the desk. Everything is very clean, you don't see hardly any wires anywhere.

With this setup, I have a DVD-ROM, DVD+-RW, floppy & digital film reader in the case, it has front USB/IEEE 1394/Audio ports, and two internal hard drives. Personally, from what I've seen there isn't much of a speed difference between SATA & ATA yet. I would check http://www.storagereview.com for the latest in hard drives if I were you. With the single computer I can use it as a standard PC, burn DVD's edit video/pictures, surf the internet, etc, along with using it as a HTPC with GB-PVR to record/watch video via the 350's output, and use it as a gaming PC to play all of my games on the TV. I use a program called Ultramon to keep my display profiles straight, dualhead/LCD only/TV out only/etc.

Now that the nvidia drivers are supporting HDTV output via the DVI, I want to upgrade my TV to HDTV, and switch the S-Video output to that. I just gotta talk my wife into that

[ejr]

I upgraded to an ATI 9600 and the blockiness disappeared.  In fact, the video output on my 50" TV is the best I've ever seen - I think its pretty much as good as the original.  Even previously made recordings look great.
But--isn't there always a but --there does seem to be some overlay of black wavy line interference pattern.  This is seen even when not viewing video, e.g., just viewing the desktop.  Sometimes when playing with the video settings, the patter goes a way for a while and the display is perfect.  But, inevitable, it shortly comes back.
To be honest, I only have a 200W power supply.  But there is not much in the computer, its got the MB with 866 PIII, built in networking, 2 HD, 2 CD (but I will disconnect them if needed to save power), an Aureal sound card, PVR 150 and the graphics card itself.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
I do have some other cards that I can try, an ATI 9550 based and an NVIDIA 5200 based.
Thanks for any suggestions.

[DaveParker]

Quote[/b] (Guest @ Feb. 23 2005,05:34)]Is anyone in the UK using the nvidia HDTV/Component cable [I cant seem to find out what nvidia cards this works with] OR the ATI Component dongle [which is for HDTV, but it also does 480i and 480p] Officially ATI do not support it in europe, but will it work on the cards you can buy in the UK?

If anyone wants a bit more info:

http://www.ati.com/products/hdtvadapter/faq.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/analog_component_out.html

Well I've just finally got my hands on the dongle and cables and I'm in the UK. After a few hours of faffing around not being able to get a picture (turned out my TV didn't like 480i) I've finally got it working on the 480p setting. The picture is slightly bigger than the TV though so I'm missing the edges, and can't figure out how to get that right.

[hitek146]

To directly answer the original question....

It depends on your TV... You will always get the best quality by using the highest quality input that you TV has. DVI or something similar would provide the very best image. RGBHV(what I use on the main TV) would be a second best, as the synchronization signals are still isolated from the video. BTW, the options I just listed would require a video card to drive them, either your primary one, or a second one added just for TV display. Third would be some sort of Component input, using an ATI-type adapter, as mentioned in one of the posts above(if you want your desktop displayed) or an XCard feeding Component inputs if you just want video. While it is a quality device, I would not recommend the PVR350 for TV out, as it doesn't support anything above MPEG2. If you are feeding an S-Video or Composite input on your TV, then the best possible image would be obtained the same way the professionals do it.... Through a commercial scan converter. Different than inexpensive consumer scan converters that would likely provide no better image than a video card's own TV out, commercial scan converters provide the very best image one could hope for when using Composite or S-Video. The bad part about the better scan converters is their new price, which starts at about $500 and can go up into the thousands..... Luckily, many excellent commercial scan converters are available on eBay starting at about $50.....

Hitek

PS: As can be witnessed at TV-Cards.com, SATA drives have caused many problems with several different TV cards, so you might keep that in mind....

[daza67]

I bought this Albatron 6600 card recently, however the s-video seems ordinary compared to xcard's. The YPbPr output is nice though. Is a very quite card though at about $200AUD.

On a slightly different topic ALDI are offering a PC containing a geforce 6610Xl with what appears to be scart output. Would be nice to know how exactly that is connected see here.  http://mitglied.lycos.de/hintert....&sid=57