TV-Out Graphics Adapters

[Zod]

Here's a thread for people to discuss their TV-Out graphics adapters, since I couldn't find one dedicated to the subject already. Over the past few days of trying to build a decent, functional PVR system from both new parts and those found on hand, I've had my share of experiences:

Matrox Marvel G200 TV
No drivers for Windows XP or 2003. Don't even bother.

Abit Siluro GeForce 2 T400 AGP
The Chrontel 7007 TV-out encoder chip means limited TV-Out options. I was actually fairly pleased with the TV-out quality, but unfortunately, it defaults to significant underscan on NTSC, meaning you get large, noticeable black borders around the TV-Out output. None of the nVidia drivers I tried (29.42, 43.45, 77.72) would allow this to be changed. The newest nVidia drivers I tried would promptly crash if you tried to mess with the TV-Out parameters on this card. The only thing I found that would compensate for the underscan was the TVTool app (version 9.7), which would allow the card to be set to "Full Screen" mode, which give a signal that would fill the TV screen with slight overscan. However, TVTool has its own set of problems (it's not free, not easily purchased quickly, and has some software bugs). Due to the underscan problem, I don't recommend this graphics adapter for TV-Out.

PNY Verto GeForce FX 5500 AGP (bought yesterday at CompUSA for $60, after rebates)
No matter what drivers I tried, I have a bitch of a time getting colors to look similarly saturated to the broadcast signal (they look desaturated by default). Additionally, the card outputs a rather noisy TV-Out signal...there is a noticeable "interference" type of pattern in the signal, no matter what settings or driver versions I tried (trust me, I ran the gamut). The pattern looks like a repeating diagonal linear color/brightness distortion that moves horizontally, and it is most noticeable when viewing static images or cartoons. Other than that, the card works decently with the drivers, and doesn't crash too often (just don't try setting PAL when connected to an NTSC television, or you'll be reinstalling the drivers). It's possible to set all of the major TV-out signal parameters (position, size, brightness/contrast, overscan, anti-flicker, etc.). Don't depend on the card's advertised MPEG-2 decoder either. It may provide some assistance, but my poor little 900Mhz AMD Thunderbird was still hitting 75% CPU utilization (averaging 50-55%) when playing back recorded MPEG-2 files. Due to its noisy output signal and the effort required to customize the TV-Out signal to get it to look "decent", I don't recommend this graphics adapter for TV-Out either.

PS - Also, you don't want to use the version 77.72 nVidia drivers, as there is an Overlay gamma settings problem that can't be fixed. Try the 77.76 beta drivers, which resolve this issue, or earlier drivers.

These are the only cards I've tried so far. Can anyone recommend a card that has a TV-Out signal that rivals broadcast television? Does anyone have experience with the Radeon 9200/9250's? How about the Radeon 7000, or GeForce FX 5200's? All I really want is a nice, simple graphics adapter for less than $70 with a good TV-Out signal, preferably one that can be picked up in a common retail electronics store. Is it too much to ask?

[reven]

Matrox Marvel G200 TV
No drivers for Windows XP or 2003. Don't even bother.

i have the matrox marvel g200 (non tv version) its a nice card thou, but 8megs standard, upgradable to 16.

GeForce 6600
nice card, really good svideo ouput, better if you have component input on your tv and the hdtv adapter then you can use 576P (or i guess 480P for NTSC users), only problem is using 576P i must use a resolution of 720x576 or below,otherwise the screen scrolls (which is annoying since some games require 800x600). but for video output its brilliant i love it, i can live with the 720x576 bug (apparently in the 6x.xx drivers this wasnt a problem, but those drivers are really old now).

[jrshan]

When I first built my pvr (Feb/05), I bought a Maddog Predator Radeon 9250 (by ATI) with DVI, VGA, S-Video out. I then proceeded for months to mess with my PVR-150 blaming it for poor picture quality. Then I bought a MSI NVidia FX5200 to try instead of the 9250. There was an immediate and dramatic difference, to the point where my pvr output is better than my TiVo output which I thought was great. So, all my woes were not from the PVR-150, it was from my output card.

[herbs]

PNY 5700LE no problems, and PC chips 9200SE again no problems but the fact the reds are over saturated but this is a known problem with ATi cards on SDTV resolutions or at least it was when I used the card last (about 7 months ago).

[Zod]

Gigabyte Radeon 9250 AGP (bought yesterday at CompUSA for $70)
This has been easily the best of the TV-Out cards I've tried so far. The TV-Out signal quality is significantly better than any of the others I tried (good colors, saturation, and signal quality, right out of the box), and the drivers I installed (currently the latest, ATI's version 5.7 Catalyst) are well designed (yay for standard windows GUI--I'm so tired of problems and challenges associated with using nVidia's custom GUI), offer many TV-Out options, and don't crash. That said, this adapter still has its own TV-Out problems.

As herbs mentioned, there is noticeable over-saturation and color bleeding over a composite video cable...deeps reds and blues are noticeably streaked to the right. Fortunately, the s-video out does not have this problem, and watching live TV through its TV-Out is quite similar to watching the original broadcast signal (determined by side-by-side, PIP comparison with original signal).

As with some of the other adapters I tried, overlay mode has excellent signal quality, saturation, and sharpness, but there does not seem to be a way to set the size, position, or overscan of the overlay output (probably due to the way it works). Fortunately, the default overlay output is fairly well sized on a TV screen. Unfortunately, the overlay (by design) skips any video processing features on the graphics adapter, including the anti-flicker filter that prevents sharp lines from flickering. This flickering is most noticeable in static images and animation, and I personally find it rather distracting. There are many overlay customization options in the "Theater Mode Options" tab, including brightness, contrast, hue, gamma, and saturation, and an additional option that allows the output overlay video signal to automatically adjust to the video's aspect ratio or full screen video. However, these options are only available in overlay mode, and are not available if the TV-Out is the only attached display (though you can still set contrast and saturation under the Displays > TV tab). Despite the overall excellent quality of the overlay display mode, I could not use it due to the flickering lines problem associated with not having an anti-flicker filter.

Under the Displays > TV > Adjustments tab, the drivers allow customization of the position and size (horizontal and vertical, seperately!) of the TV-Out signal, or alternatively, a single binary "overscan" setting, allowing the user to turn overscan on or off, with no size or position changes. Unfortunately, turning overscan on zooms the picture in too far, cutting off much more of the signal than is necessary (and also making it difficult to use Windows on the TV, since it cuts off the toolbar). Fortunately, leaving overscan off and using the signal positioning and sizing options instead, you can resize the TV-Out signal fairly well. I got it to almost fill the television screen perfectly, with only a slightly visible edge at the top and bottom, since I'd reached the maximum vertical size setting.

Some quirks in the drivers/control panel:
The anti-flicker option seems to be broken...changing it to any setting only results in nasty horizontal lines appearing in the signal. Fortunately, anti-flicker seems to work fairly well in its default setting.

Also, while tweaking the various settings, at one point I saw a "Video Mode" option in the Displays > TV > Adjustments tab. I tried selecting it and it seemed to act a lot like "Full Screen" mode did in the nVidia cards I tried. However, after I tweaked other settings, this "Video Mode" option disappeared entirely, and I couldn't get it to come back no matter what I tried. Even uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers wouldn't bring it back. This sort of driver/control panel behavior really irks me.

Overall, I DO recommend this card for PVR systems that will be attached to a TV via S-Video. If you'll be using a composite cable, I'm not as sure, due to the color bleeding problem. There are definitely some quirks with the drivers and control panel, but it is possible to get it set up so that it looks pretty good on a television, by far better than any of the other cards I've tried.

Update: The Omega drivers for Radeon (based on the 5.7 Catalyst drivers) exhibit the same behavior and quirks as the official Catalysts. No additional functionality or features to report, related to TV-Out.

Update: I highly recommend installing the ATI driver package that uses the Catalyst Control Center, not the smaller one that uses the regular Control Panel. While ATI's CCC is a bit bulky, slow, and nearly impossible to use at below 800x600 resolution, it is much easier to set the TV-Out settings properly with it than it is with the regular control panel.

[Zod]

It's also worth checking out AV Forums for more info:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=46

[indigest]

PNY Verto GeForce FX 5500 AGP (bought yesterday at CompUSA for $60, after rebates)
No matter what drivers I tried, I have a bitch of a time getting colors to look similarly saturated to the broadcast signal (they look desaturated by default). Additionally, the card outputs a rather noisy TV-Out signal...there is a noticeable "interference" type of pattern in the signal, no matter what settings or driver versions I tried (trust me, I ran the gamut). The pattern looks like a repeating diagonal linear color/brightness distortion that moves horizontally, and it is most noticeable when viewing static images or cartoons. Other than that, the card works decently with the drivers, and doesn't crash too often (just don't try setting PAL when connected to an NTSC television, or you'll be reinstalling the drivers). It's possible to set all of the major TV-out signal parameters (position, size, brightness/contrast, overscan, anti-flicker, etc.). Don't depend on the card's advertised MPEG-2 decoder either. It may provide some assistance, but my poor little 900Mhz AMD Thunderbird was still hitting 75% CPU utilization (averaging 50-55%) when playing back recorded MPEG-2 files. Due to its noisy output signal and the effort required to customize the TV-Out signal to get it to look "decent", I don't recommend this graphics adapter for TV-Out either.

I'm using the same PNY GeForce FX 5500 and it's working well for me. Try using the NVidia PureVideo Decoder with Hardware Acceleration turned on. There's a free trial that you can get online. I think this decoder takes maximum advantage of the MPEG-2 decoder on the chip, unlike some other decoders which would just do everything in software. I only get 10% CPU usage when playing live TV in Overlay Mode and I have a Celeron 2.93GHz.

I am also interested if anyone else has tried any other MPEG Decoders with this class of graphics card. The InterVideo NonCSS decoder performed pretty poorly for me with about 60% CPU utilization in live TV mode.

[rowle1jt]

Nvidia FX5200 w/128MB by Chaintech
DVI/VGA/s-video

Outputs a nice signal, nothing to complain about on it that is the cards fault. I did in fact pull the fan off of it, clean the GPU, reapply thermal compound and put a heat sink on it. Took the heat sink off of an old TNT2 Ultra! Made the card quieter (correction: silent) and sitting in the HTPC case in the entertainment center it runs fine. Does not get hot, doesn't even really warm up as I don't push it that hard. I have had no "artifacting" or other video issues, from the card related to heat or anything else. I am very pleased with how it runs, the temps and its noise level after fan replacement.

That being said; I need a new TV! I am out of inputs on my current tv, which is a 27" standard definition tv. I used my component video and my s-video, so all that leaves me is the RCA (red/while/yellow) for the HTPC. So I output from the video card to s-video and run it to the TV, then it gets plugged into an s-video to RCA converter and then into the tv. I know... its sad, you can all berate and make fun of me now. :o LoL So for running over RCA AND through a converter I can't complain about the quality, its about 90% as good as my broadcast cable.

I have kicked around the idea of getting one of those multiple input "switches" that I could hook up to the TV with component/S-video, but then I would have to get up to switch between DVD player and HTPC. And we just can't have that now can we.... LoL