Cheapest Way to Get Relatively Decent Tv-Out

[kilg0r3]

Well, dito. currenly building a system which will be used for movie playback only. Actually I do not even need dueal head capabilities, i.e., the tv may be the primary/only output of the graphics card.

thanks for your help.

[ride159]

Don't know what the quality is like, but this sort of cable would probably be the cheapest if you already have a card or are picking one up on the cheap:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2741952411&category=3759

If you are buying a new card, you can find most cards in a version with TV out.

[stax76]

afaik graphics card's TV out aren't that good

[mrlipring]

depends on the cards. most ati cards are good, and the philips chip in my gf4 is good too.

definitely check up on this before buying though.

[kilg0r3]

I will buy a card on second hand. Does anybody remeber the tv-out quality of older cards, expecially the voodoo 3000 / 3500 of 3dfx. Other opinions on other models are also well come?
Which is the oldest/cheapest (ati card rage pro lt + tv-out?)with a decent tv-out?

Thank you all.

[rozemab]

I heard good things about

Sigma Designs’ REALmagic Xcard

search for the Company via google etc. and read the specs.

[erbuk]

ATI Rage Fury Pro has got the best TV-out of the cards that I have tested. I also have TV-input. And it's rather old by now so you can probably get it quite cheap. The All-in-wonder cards are also very good for this purpose.

[kilg0r3]

Dont the Ati rage pro cards produce black borders on tv?

[erbuk]

Nope, that's one of the good things with them and you don't need any extra software like with some nvidia cards. And if you only have the tv-set connected it automaticly detects that and sets it as the primary screen. No need to do any settings, just plug and play.

I have two computers build with the cheapest possible components that I only use as vcr:s connected to tv-screens. One with a rage fury pro card and one with a radeon 7000 card. Works perfectly.

I used a nvidia card in one of them but then I had to use tv-tool to get rid of the black borders. That often resulted in a black screen and a need for a restart. And it had a fan that made a lot of noice.

[Xayd]

The Radeon cards are significantly better than the Rage Pro's imo. I've had both, and the Radeon looked much smoother. Reds were too "hot" coming from the Rage Pro.

The X-Card is better than the Radeon IMO as far as image quality goes, but otherwise the Radeon cards do ok.

[erbuk]

Yes, you may be right but I don't see a very huge difference between them. I think the geforce gives decent quality as well but it needs tweakning to get there and as far as I know there are no gf-cards without fan.

I haven't tried the x-card but I have heard that the tv-output should be very good. But I have also heard that it only outputs video-playback, not the bootup and windows screens. I that is true then it's no alternative if you only have your tv-set and no computer screen connected. The ATI cards outputs everyting on the tv including the bootup screen just as if it were a computer monitor.

[mrlipring]

there are a few geforces without fans.

not sure about geforces with the philips chip without fans though. you can always whip the fan off and put something nice from zalman on though.

[erbuk]

Yes, you're right. I found some MX cards without fan :cool: But I still think the ATI cards are the superior choice in this case. Cheap, no fan and no need to tweak.

[Xayd]

Originally posted by erbuk


I haven't tried the x-card but I have heard that the tv-output should be very good. But I have also heard that it only outputs video-playback, not the bootup and windows screens. I that is true then it's no alternative if you only have your tv-set and no computer screen connected. The ATI cards outputs everyting on the tv including the bootup screen just as if it were a computer monitor.

Yup, there's no desktop output through the x-card, but with Jove Player it's not really necessary. With the 3rd party player app you have the ability to browse any and all drives that you have, not just auto-play whatever's inserted into a single drive.

[erbuk]

But then you still have a problem if you get a bios-message och an error-message i Windows or if you need to install a new codec. You will need to have a computer screen connected.

[kilg0r3]

Hey guys thanks for your discussion. it helped me alot.

I guess I will be going for the ati solution. infact just got one from ebay for 16 euro. I hope it is the correct model. For, ati has so many different versions in of and with these rage chips.

the xcard might be a solution if i am not satisfied with the out put quality. but for now i don't like the idea of being forced to use a specific player, which may or may not be compatible with the various formats i am going to use.

now i only need to get my hands on a remote control or a small wireless keyboard.

again, thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[erbuk]

I don't think there is much difference, in this respect, between the different radeon or rage-128/pro based cards. Just check that it's a fan-less model. The faster radeon models have fans.

I would recommend using Zoomplayer and a cordless mouse instead of a remote. If you set the mousewheel to control volume and timeskip (left button=play/stop, right=menu) then it works much more intuitive than using buttons on a remote.

I don't understand why they don't use this solution on remotes. The wheel control is superior for things like swapping between channels, changing volume, controling playback speed and navigating in menus. Cameramakers have understood this but not the people making hifi and tv:s.

[kilg0r3]

The model I bought from ebay for 16.50 Euro is here (http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2742296733). the discribtion is in German, though. To mee the price seems o.k., doesn't it. It'll be 19.50 including shipping. :D

[erbuk]

Yes, that one should work fine. Good that it has both composite and svhs output so you don't need an adapter if you want to connect to a non svhs compatible tv.

A new one costs ~35 euros (295 SEK) here in Sweden so the price looks ok.

[kilg0r3]

Thank you very much for your help!

[SeeMoreDigital]

All ATI fans...

There was a time with ATI cards that when you wanted to send the video output to a TV monitor you would also have to set the VDU output to 640x480. Have these days gone?

[erbuk]

Yes, the radeon cards can handle at least 1024x768 and the rage cards 800x600. I haven't tried setting it any higer cause the standard fonts gets too small for the low resolution of the TV. If you only want to playback video then 640x480 is still the best resolution on a standard 4:3 TV regardless of videocard. It's easy to program a function key to fast-swich between 640 and 1024 whenever you want to do someting more advanced in windows. But you need very good eyes to read the fonts in 1024 res.

[Zhnujm]

For a PAL TV i would prefer 800x600.
I have had a Rage 128 card (without the PRO) and it had a black border at the bottom of the screen, dont know when they changed it, it was the Rage 128 Pro or the Radeon series of cards.
Also i remember that you need some registry tweaking to get it overscan.

[erbuk]

Yes, but why would you want overscan. The videoplayer apps (at least zoomplayer) takes care of that.

You can change the size and position of the tv image in the driver dialoge if you want to remove the black borders if there are any. But I don't see any need to do that since I only have 4:3 tv:s and most movies are 16:9. The black borders will be there anyway and there are never any vertical borders only horizontal over and/or under.

[SeeMoreDigital]

So are you saying that if I set the VDU output to 800x600 or 1024x768 I don't need to re adjust this setting to 640x480 before I start viewing via the TV output.

If so great.... This was a real pain with the old cards. Such as the AWP128 Rage range.

[erbuk]

Yes, that's right. I use one of the computers (with a Radeon VE card)for both tv and monitor output. On that one I use 800x600 and sometimes 1024x768. It works just fine and you no longer need to use a lower refresh-rate on the monitor, I have it set to 85hz.

Just tried using higer resolutions than 1024 but then it switches to virtual desktop mode so you don't see the whole desktop at the same time on the TV. But the TV-picture never went black, not even at the highest res. And up to 1024 you can see the whole screen.

And you don't need to start tv-output any more. It's there all the time from bootup to bluescreen ;). The only thing you need to do (if you are using both tv and monitor) is to set the TV as primary screen when watching DivX in some (but for some strange reason not all) players. Otherwise the videopicture is only displayed in the monitor. If you only have the TV connected this is done automaticly.

[kilg0r3]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
There was a time with ATI cards that when you wanted to send the video output to a TV monitor you would also have to set the VDU output to 640x480.

Well. atelast for me, this is no problem, since I want to use the TV as only output.

[SeeMoreDigital]

That really is great. I have a ATI 9700 card in my main (encoding) PC but I've never tried the TV out function as it's too far away from my TV.

In my ISP/file server PC, which is hooked up to my TV I currently have an old ATI AWP128 RagePro (which I don't use the TV out) and an Xcard which is connectd to my TV via RGB thru' a DSS amp.

I think maybe I should swap the ATI cards around.

Well, this should give me something else to play about with for a while!

Thanks for that you guys.

[Zhnujm]

Originally posted by erbuk
But I don't see any need to do that since I only have 4:3 tv:s and most movies are 16:9. The black borders will be there anyway and there are never any vertical borders only horizontal over and/or under.

well, that completely changes if you have a 16:9 TV or want to play 4:3 movies :D.
but i dont want to make ati cards bad, its surely a perfect solution for a tv only pc. (and the border was really small on my tv) its just that they could still improve it, even with my Radeon 8500 card. if you dont use overscan you will have a black bar at the bottom, if you use overscan the overscan area is much to big and completely off center. (and no way to adjust it)

[erbuk]

Agree :) And I don't think that there is any perfect solution today. TVs and Computers are just not compatible and to get your computer desktop on the TV you just have to compromise. I suppose things will be better when plasma/oled/lcd screens come down to reasonable price levels and the good old CRT-TV goes out the window.

[kilg0r3]

additionally, I can adjust the vertical overscan on my tv :D

[Sharro]

For a driver less and fully adjustable tv out use a scan converter such as the one from Trust (www.trust.com) http://www.trust.com/products/frame-product.htm?artnr=11672

The televiewer gave wonderfull results regarding tv image quality / ease of conf.

Their only drawback is that if you use higher resolutions and refresh rates (above 1024x768 75Hz) you will get a signal degradation on monitor.

Unfortunately trying to get rid of the signal degradation (I have a 19" monitor at 1280x1024 75Hz) I bought a focus enhancements scan converter (Tview Gold) but ... this one did not achieve a borderless tv image (bars on top and bottom none on the sides) and it was EXPENSIVE.

Just to mention ... I got the televiewer (trust) in Portugal for 100,00 €.

All the best,


Sharro

[kilg0r3]

Bought the Ati Radeon 128 pro, and, after hte first disapointment, when i recognized, that it doe not seem to poperly support yv12, i am relatively content now. Yet there is still a problem with vobsub (VSfilter) when not forced to rgb. See subtitles section.

[Zhnujm]

Originally posted by Sharro
The televiewer gave wonderfull results regarding tv image quality / ease of conf.


i have never seen a scan converter that produces a 100% smooth video (for PAL) because of the 75/60/whatever->50Hz conversion.
did you notice somthing like that with this device ?

[communist]

My old GF2 GTS had TV-Out and the black boarders were way too big. Also it could only render on TV or Monitor - not both at the same time.

A few months ago I replaced it with a R7500 - great difference :D
Its pretty easy to set up 'virtual-desktop' / clone mode. I really like it and it has not such gigantic black boarders like my GF2. Also the 'send overlay as fullscreen to TV' is totally awesome.
I can work on my comp while 'sending' a movie as full-screen to TV.

Best of all it runs way cooler than the GF2 and has no fan :)

[kilg0r3]

hihihi, sounds just like my g'old matrox g400. :D