Tom said:
I am looking for a card around 150.00 - 200.00. I would like to record tv
a
a good quality. I will also be doing some graphics. Thanks tom
How good a quality do you want? Analog TV will give you less than DVD
resolution no matter how good your hardware is, HD goes way beyond DVD
resolution. There are no all-in-one boards that can receive HD--for that
you need a separate tuner. Even with analog video, from ATI you're going
to get better results with the TV Wonder Elite than with an AIW--the AIWs
still use the Rage Theater 200 chip while the TV Wonder Elite uses the
newer Rage Theater 550. All of those are expensive options though.
When you say you will be doing "some graphics", what _kind_ of graphics?
Are you going to be putting together 3d animations, Photoshop, or what?
For most graphics creation purposes you don't need a super high performance
board and if you're using one of the few apps that does require one there
will usually be a short list of tested boards and anything not on that list
is likely to cause you grief.
If you're got a board that is working well for you now, then adding a tuner
would be your best bet--you can get a decent analog tuner board for 50
bucks or so, or an HD board for 100-150 (the higher price gets better
analog components), or an analog board with hardware encoder that cuts down
the workload on your machine considerably in the same price range as an HD
board--HD comes encoded so the hardware encoder doesn't gain you anything
there.
