the best tv-out

[surfseeker]

I am looking for the best quality tv-out card, whilst being the best value for money, has anyone got any advice or suggestions for me. At the moment i am looking at ati and nvidia , the main use will be to play divx movies and dvd`s and must be fully windows xp compliant, can anyone help please.

[SKD_Tech]

I would go for the ATI because I have had a lot of bad luck with new drivers with my Nvidia card (XP Drivers)

[Comberman]

I'm using a Leadtek nvidea a280 ultra VIVO with XP and having problems with drivers. Previously I had an ATI Rage Fury on Win98. If I had to choose again, I would definitely go for ATI. Go buy the best Radeon All in Wonder you can afford.

[Enchanter]

Re: the best tv-out

Originally posted by surfseeker
I am looking for the best quality tv-out card, whilst being the best value for money, has anyone got any advice or suggestions for me. At the moment i am looking at ati and nvidia , the main use will be to play divx movies and dvd`s and must be fully windows xp compliant, can anyone help please.

ATI Radeon series have my recommendations.

If all you are looking for is DivX and DVD, the Radeon 9000 will more than satisfy you (while providing sufficient framerates for gamers on a budget).

[surfseeker]

when you said you had problems with nvidia drivers Comberman, could you please specify abit more, as i already have an ati wonder rage2 card and have major problems trying to get the tv out to work with native xp drivers. Also when i use ati`s own drivers they seem to crash and the quality of the tv-ot seems poor.

[SKD_Tech]

WEll what happens to me is everytime I install a new Nvidia driver it kills my video output to my monitor on both Digital and Analog. So then I have to go into safe mode and get rid of the crap

[surfseeker]

so can anybody recomend me a agp card that will give me good quality output in xp under £100

[Comberman]

Originally posted by surfseeker
when you said you had problems with nvidia drivers Comberman, could you please specify abit more, as i already have an ati wonder rage2 card and have major problems trying to get the tv out to work with native xp drivers. Also when i use ati`s own drivers they seem to crash and the quality of the tv-ot seems poor.

Once upon a time . . . .my Leadtek nvidea A280 Ultra VIVO comes with Leadtek's Winfast software. It includes DVD Player, Video Capture with PiP (picture in picture) and a load of other goodies. I can watch my DVDs on this 'ere PC with wonderful clarity and I can capture raw video up to (720x576) at 25fps without as much as dropping a single frame. And I can capture until my 120Gb hard drive runs out of space because I'm using NTFS. Quality of the captured file? Excellent! So, what's wrong with my drivers?
WinXP and Moviemaker is what's wrong! And what they do to Premiere with which I carry on my pastime of making movies and animations. It's something I'm still trying to figure out and I've managed(with the help of a few Premiere stalwarts) to find a few work arounds. But to put it in a nutshell, my nvidea drivers do not like WinXP and especially Moviemaker which, despite all my efforts to get it to do otherwise, is determined to proclaim itself as the only gawddamn video facility allowed to operate on my machine. My other PC, a lowly Win98SE, 1Ghz machine with an obsolete but wunnerful 32Mb ATI Rage Fury gives me no trouble at all. Sometimes I think that to upgrade to something alien to what you were previously comfortable with is lunacy - better the devil you know than the devil you don't. I'm still beetling away at nvidea to see if they will come up with drivers that will be acceptable and receive the certificate duly requested by XP.
Now I know this hasn't answered your question, but it has at least given me the opportunity to sound off - and you know - I feel a helluvalot better for it!!
If you are getting some sort of output to your TV, the only thing I can recommend is that you check all your connections. I imagine you are channeling output to the TV via the s-video line, via S-VHSconnector + audio leads. The S-video plug is very succeptible to damage because of its fine pins.
If you aren't getting TV output and your system keeps crashing, then I would firstly, uninstall your current drivers and re-install them. You could be getting a driver conflict so seek out (use Find) any that may be left behind.. You don't want nvieda and native XP drivers vying with each other. If that doesn't work, switch everything else off. XP is a horrendous hoarder of PC memory, etc. Go into MSConfig and disable everything. Try to run your app. If it doesn't work, go back into MsConfig and start switching things back on one at a time, each time running your app. The same thing with XP's Services. Go into the Admin folder (via Control Panel) and start disabling all that crap that XP rules the roost with. Same thing, start enabling until you find the culprit, if there is one.
Needless to say, before you do any of this you must activate a System Restore point. Then if something goes drastically wrong, you can revert your system, settings, etc back to where they were before you started hacking the OS to pieces.
Take care
Dave

[Comberman]

Originally posted by surfseeker
so can anybody recomend me a agp card that will give me good quality output in xp under £100

There's probably a few decent AGP cards out there for around £100 and you should really shop around. Also it depends on what you want the card for. You'll be surprised what extras you can get in terms of facilities/software bundles you can get for a few extra quid. Remember, you usually get what you pay for.

[BAKmie]

soo ati radeon is the best now huh??????
which type is the best??

[Enchanter]

Originally posted by BAKmie
soo ati radeon is the best now huh??????
which type is the best??

Depends on your budget AND needs.

Tell us the answers to those two and I can easily give you the model number that suits you.

[Comberman]

As Enchanter says - it depends on how much you are willing to cough up. Any of the ATI 9000 series will more than likely cover your needs.

[surfseeker]

got a tv-out graphics card and slight jitter

i`ve just got a mercury geoforce4 mx440 graphics card and i must say am happy with the results, the only problem i now have is an occasional jitter for a m/s every now and again. This does not seem to be inherent of the tv-out as i can see it on the monitor. To try an cure it i installed dx9 and media player9, this did reduce it somewhat but every know and again it rears its ugly head. It happens whilst watchin mpeg files does anybody have any suggestions? oh yes the tv card cost just £42 for 64mb