TV tuner card recommendations ATI or ???

[Martin Hirsch]

Hi

I'm upgrading/replacing my old ATI AIW 7500 with an ATI 9800 pro 128 to be
able to hook up two monitors.

This swap is going to cause me to loose my TV tuner in the AIW 7500.

Are the ATI stand alone tuner cards comparable to the functionality of the
AIW cards.

Also are there better choices than ATI for tuner cards??

I noticed the only difference in ATI tuner cards is one model has stereo and
one does not. I don't need the remote feature and probably could reuse the
one that came with the AIW 7500.



Thanks. Martin

 

[Mangyrat]

Are the ATI stand alone tuner cards comparable to the functionality of the
AIW cards.

Yes is the short answer.

Also are there better choices than ATI for tuner cards??
check around you dont have to have a ATI TV card just look for one that has
every thing you need and want built in. i have the winfast tv 2000 xp and it
works fine. i also have the ati tv wonder. both are good cards but the
winfast had what i was looking for pic in pic.

 

[mudz]

Also are there better choices than ATI for tuner cards??

Here's my 2 cents worth. I have in the past had an ATI TV card and the
picture quality was 'OK'...granted that was in the days of 98SE. Since that
time I have had experience with a couple of Pinnacle cards...a PCTV (which
is now in my box of 'spare stuff' because of issues with XP), and more
recently a PCTV Pro, which replaced the previously mentioned basic PCTV
card, and which is currently working in a friend's computer. I then
purchased a Hauppauge WinTV Radio card (side of box says WinTV-dbx Model
401) for my computer, and am currently using it. For a period of time these
two computers resided in adjacent rooms and I was able to stand in the
hallway and look back and forth at the screens. I was of the opinion that
the pic quality was about the same with a slight edge to the Hauppauge. This
was using Hauppauge drivers and their WinTV2000 viewing program. Since then
I have done some experimenting and I now use the latest Hauppauge drivers
but, for the viewing program, I use Dscaler version 4.1.8 Beta. This is a
gem and gives a noticably superior picture over the WinTV2000. This can be
found at www.dscaler.com

It appears, from what I have read in various forums, that people who are
into Home Theatre Personal Computers (HTPC), the gold standard is the
Hauppauge WinTV PVR250. As I understand it there is more third party
(quality) software available for this card than any other. I did not get the
PVR250 since being able to record was not as important at the time as
price...the 250 is a tad expensive for what I want to do which is watch
TV...plain and simple. On a related note, I recently bought a Toshiba P10
laptop which comes with XP Media Centre Edition. As such it comes with a TV
tuner...in this case a USB model. It looks slick and has Toshiba embossed on
it. I connected it and was *very* impressed with the picture quality and how
smoothly the software worked. I thought nothing more of it until this very
evening, when I learned this unit is made by Hauppauge and is actually a
WinTV PVR USB2 housed in a different case.

A site that might be helpful in your quest is www.tv-cards.com .

HTH

M

 

[Mangyrat]

i also have both set up at the same time in same room so i can see the tv
quality at same time and the tv 2000 is a littel better than the ati tv
wonder.
both have good points and bad points. the tv 2000 will not run on my 2nd
monitor no mater what.
"i run 2 dual monitor systems both with tv cards installed and KDS monitors"
the ati tv wonder runs on 2nd monitor with no problems. but the tv 2000 has
pic in pic that i like and it works better with my cam corder for some
reason. ati tv wonder works great as desk top viewing but the tv2000 has the
shadows around icons and dont work that great as desk top vewing in back
ground.

if i had to pick one tv card i would take the winfast tv2000 due to the pic
in pic and over all tv quality.
it realy depends on what you want the card to do?
your getting a 9800 for dual monitors so if you want to get it working on
the 2nd monitor i would have to say go ati tv wonder "get the one with
stereo it make a diferance in sound big time" its the only one i have gotten
to work on 2nd display. but if you can live with tv only on 1st display then
get the tv2000

 

[Mangyrat]

this may help on picking a card
http://www.leadtek.com.tw/multimedia/winfast_tv2000xp_expert_1.shtml
its a 10 bit card where as the ati is a 8 bit go to both sites and do some
reading

 

[Paul Murphy]

The newer TV Wonder Pro has a new chipset and 10 bit video decoder - one of
the advantages over the older TV Wonder and TV Wonder VE.

Paul