Is there a difference in crispness of video out ?

Oliver · Post by **Oliver** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 10:24 pm

I am thinking of getting a passive card such as the gigabyte 6600gt or
the xfx 6600 passive card. But I am open to other suggestions .

One of the things that I want is a very crisp image when the card is hooked up to a tv, so I can preview video I edit, in real time on a tv, to see how it looks on the tv. So the video output quality concerns me.

I noticed the gigabyte offering of the 6600gt passive card has VIVO, so I was hoping that if it has vidoe in capability maybe the the quality of the output may be great? Has anyone got any experience with this card, or a guess? The card is listed as having HDTV out, but what if you only have a regular tv, does it have s-video out converter somehow too?

The xfx 6600 passive card has s-video out only. Do you think it would be as high quality as the gigabyte card?

Finally ati has these all in wonder cards. Do you think the video output would be superior crispness than the cards I mentioned? I do not want the card so I can watch tv as a tivo. I only want the card for sending the signal out during an editing session to the tv very crisply. Also I could make use of the video in , for taking in video from old camcorder, but if dv camcorder pass thru would give better result, I would use that. THoughts?

Thanks a bunch, and any other suggestion are greatly welcome!

jamesm · Post by **jamesm** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 10:48 pm

dv works really well

hazindu · Post by **hazindu** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 6:30 am

I've never met a tv out that I would call crisp. Matrox is the best for outputting to a regular tv, and even that is abismal IMO. In my limited experience, ati cards have slightly better tv out quality than nvidia, and vivo make no difference in that respect.
hd tv's are a different story btw

scruzbeachbum · Post by **scruzbeachbum** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 8:22 am

The GV-N66T128VP comes with an adapter cable/dongle for the VIVO connector. it has S Video in, composite video in, S Video out, and component video out. Haven't tried 'em as I'm just hooking up to my CRT.

Mar. · Post by **Mar.** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 5:31 pm

If you buy an AIW card, don't buy it for the CATV input. The ATI software is terrible.

Hifriday · Post by **Hifriday** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 10:07 am

There are differences in video out quality between different video cards, but afraid I cannot make any recommendations. Maybe you will have better luck checking around other AV forums like here.

However as Hazindu has mentioned, even the best TV out quality is pretty poor compared with VGA/DVI. If this will be your only screen, you will probably have a very hard time running video editing software on it as smaller text/controls will be extremely strenuous to read. However if you plan to have this as a second screen only for playing back video, it is workable.

I'm using a 6800GT with dual screens and Nview will automatically zoom in on any video being run in your primary screen and display it full screen on your second screen. This works great with Pinnacle Studio v9. There are some minor quirks/annoyances to Nview, but overall I found this feature great. Using S-Video out as the second screen also works fine, although again the quality is quite poor (NTSC TV is limited to 480 lines).
I believe the 6600 should work the same. As for ATI, suspect their Hydravision might offer similar functionality.

As for getting video to your PC, if you already have it on DV, definitely use firewire as most video editing programs can automatically control many of the more popular DV cams directly and also automatically mark scenes according to how they were recorded. But if it is analog video, then the quality of your converter will make a difference (whether via a DV cam, VIVO card, TV tuner card, or other video capture device). As for recommendations which would be better, again maybe you can get more advice in AV sites.

kloppe · Post by **kloppe** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 12:04 pm

You can always make a VGA to SCART adapter if you're handy enough with a soldering iron. Only works with ATI cards though.
(I haven't tried this myself [I didn't even read through that page :P], but afaik it works and people have been getting great results with it. YMMV etc.)