Best PC card for high quality video out?

spwyatt

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Help! I've yet to find a PC card that gives decent quality TV output.

Currently I have an nVidia GeForce4 MX440 - a fairly bog standard card with TV out - and the quality, to be honest, is very average.

This is what I want: a card which can output (pref with S-video or even RGB) a picture to a TV in good quality. I DON'T want a mirror of the desktop - ideally this card will just output the overlay of whatever video player I'm using (I prefer bsPlayer) just like video edit cards do.

I have seen the Sigma Designs X-Card - http://www.pluggedin.tv/item--RealMagic-Xcard-DVD-and-Divx-player--PITVSS002 - would this do the trick?

Many thanks....
 
I spent several weeks trawling through various forums trying to improve the video playback quality on my TV using the TV-Out (Obviously!) and then I came across the XCard. What a brilliant bit of kit! Easy install and even though I'm only using the S-Video signal the playback is stunning, I'd say it's on a par with a standalone DVD player. It's got rid of all the jagged lines on panning shots which I got when using TV-Out.

I plan to get the optional SCART cable as well to see if I can get a further improvement.

There's a guy selling some on ebay at the moment for £41.00 + Postage and he's a good seller coz I got mine from him!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3762&item=5160332241&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Buy one you won't regret it!
 
-- As an eBay Associate, AVForums earns from qualifying purchases --
so the xcard is just a hardware decoder? reminds me of my old creative mpeg card, converted ntsc to pal too.
 
Ive had an Xcard in my PC for ages now working with a Sweetspot via PDI and Dscaler and I dont use it :thumbsdow.
IMO Theatertek gives a better PQ especially when ffdshow has been used for post processing.Graphics card is a XFX6600GT and after a couple of weeks of twiddling PQ is excellent on my PJ
Rob
 
Rob,
What projector do you have? I've got a 6600GT and on my Sanyo Z3 at 1280x720 resolution the desktop is cropped and the image isn't as sharp as it should be (this is via DVI). Do I need to use Powerstrip and if so how do I know what settings I should use for the Z3 to ensure the desktop isn't cropped etc? Sounds like it's quite a challenge?

Cheers
Andy
 
Hi Andy
Got a Panny Ae500 via DVI with 7124 drivers from Guru@ res of 1280x720 and I have no need for powerstrip,TT2 I use overlay and ffdshow with YV12 and only resize @ 1280x720 and luma and chroma sharpen @ 1.5,all other values are I think at default.
Rob
 
Hi Spwyatt

for what you want to do (driving a conventional RGB signal in to a TV) the Xcard is the perfect solution - though you need the RGB output cable unless you want to solder up your own :)
 
Hi i'm building a HTPC & i would like to know which card is considered best for image quality. at the moment i'm using a Radeon X800 pro with windvd6 are the Nvidia cards better ? & would a X300 give the same picture quality as the X800 :lease:
 

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