TV tuner card

[jeffc]

Is it best to get a combo video card, or TV tuner card separate? Looking
for a decent gaming computer with TV capability (TV out not important).

 

[HockeyTownUSA]

Is it best to get a combo video card, or TV tuner card separate? Looking
for a decent gaming computer with TV capability (TV out not important).

For ATI cards, the all-in-wonder ones don't compromise performance for
adding a TV tuner. It just costs more money than a standard card. But if you
have a free PCI slot, you might want to consider a separate PCI TV tuner
just so that if it goes bad, or you want to upgrade (i.e. HDTV) in the
future, you can.

 

[J. Clarke]

Is it best to get a combo video card, or TV tuner card separate? Looking
for a decent gaming computer with TV capability (TV out not important).

Each has its advantages. The ATI Rage Theater 200 chip which is found on
their current AIWs is a very, very good video chip, however it is also
proprietary to ATI and doesn't have much in the way of third-party support.

The Brooktree chips have tremendous third-party support but their best
picture quality falls far short of what the Rage Theater can deliver. The
newer Phillips and Conexant chips give very good results and also have a
good deal of third-party support.

Then there is the _new_ ATI Rage Theater chip that is not available on the
AIWs yet, only on the TV Wonder Elite--but it's not even supported by
_ATI_'s own software.

Beyond all this there is high definition television, which is not directly
supported by any available all-in-one solution--nvidia has a reference
design but nobody seems to be selling it, and ATI is providing their HD
support with a separate board.

Personally after using AIWs for many years, I'm now using a Hauppauge
PVR-USB2 tuner and a Dvico Fusion HDTV II and I'm quite happy with the
results and don't think I'll go back.

 

[malam]

I had an AIW 9700Pro that had some wavy lines in the picture. The
lines were traced to the cooling fan on the video card. Nothing I
tried worked except if you turn the fan off - which you can't do uness
you want to burn the card!

Buy a separate Tv Tuner card that isnot part of the video card.