From ATI Radeon 9000 to a 9600 model ... is it worth the upgrade for TV viewing ?

[EC]

Hi,

I bought an ATI TV Wonder Elite and they recommend an ATI 9600 model for
optimizing the picture quality but earlier models works quite well too with
the Elite. Actually, I've got a Radeon 9000 128 Mb and I wonder if it is
worth to upgrade to a 9600 model. The picture on a 9000 is a bit soft but
not bad and I 'd like to know if an upgrade would make that much of a
difference on the tuner output to the screen. My 19 inches monitor max
resolution output is 1600 x 1200 @ 75 Hertz and. its hightest refresh rate
is 85 Hertz @ 12080 x 1024 . The motherboard AGP slot will take up to 4X
.. Power supply is 350 watts. Has anyone upgraded from 9000 to 9600 or would
you recommend this upgrade for TV viewing using the Elite ? I have no idea
if the image should be much crispier with that particular TV tuner.? Thanks

EC

 

[Paul Mathews]

What kind of Tv do you want to output the 9600 to ?

Needs to have alteast DVI or component. iam out putting a 6600 Gt to a
HD WS TV via componet and am viewing at 720p resolution

Svideo or compiste just dont cut it realy.

But if you dont have a WS Tv Svideo is fine for playing games.

 

[EC]

Thanks Paul for your reply. I'm using the computer as a PVR . Incoming NTSC
, composite and Svideo signals are to be viewed directly on the computer
screen thru TV Wonder Elite/ Radeon 9000 or 9600 combo. No plan for TV out
yet but it may come later at some point. Right now, no Tv set is being used
.. I 'd like to know if upgrading the video board would make a significant
difference on the computer screen PVR rendering .

Does the 6600GT has a built-in TV tuner or do you use a dedicated TV tuner
card ?

Thanks.

 

[Sharanga Dayananda]

You're best off with a hardware encoder card like the Hauppauge PVR 250 or
something ( like the ATi equivalent ). If you do get a graphics card with a
TV tuner built in, 'tis most likely that the host CPU will be used to
compress the input video. If you have a powerful CPU 'tis alright. But the
CPU utilisation will be much lower with a hardware encoder card.