TV-Out Quality: Ati vs Matrox?

[qaotik]

I've been searching and asking around but nowhere have I gotten an answer for this so I hope you guys know your hardware! So what I need is a good, cheap tv-out for my second rig to watch divx/dvds but also for emulation (mame, zsnes). The computer will probably run without a monitor and the tv can do 60hz (its PAL). Here are the ones I can afford and im interested in:


Radeon 7000/7200/7500
Radeon 64MB SDR/DDR (VIVO)
Radeon 32MB SDR/DDR

Matrox G400/G450/G550


On to the questions:

1. Is there a simple answer whose tv-out is generally better?

2. Is there a notable difference in tv-out between the ati's and matrox's own models themselves? If you are able to put any of these in some order (by logic or know-how) then please do!

3. Are there any small quirks that you are unhappy in their software and are worth mentioning?


Thanks for any info!

[funky-d-munky]

Not what you are asking but, I use Tv-Tool. It's $25 but when you consider how cheap some of the older nvidias are, it's a good deal. And it converts ho-hum tv-out to something really nice. I really like the 768x576 and 720x480 resolutions for perfect fit DVD widescreen.
Anyways you might want to add that combo to your list if you want to save a few bucks.

[Drizzt]

Unless you need really sharp 2d image quality, go for an ATI.

At least, they are not outdated cards.

[Ijon_Tichy23]

Out dated?

For what he plans to do, the G400 would do very nicely.

In fact I am doing exactly the same thing (except TV is via second head) with a G400 DH 16MB (which I got for $35 on ebay).

[Chrono_Wanderer]

AFAIK it doesn't really what matter what graphics card you use for those emulators, because they are very CPU dependent. Take VGS for example. I remembered replacing my G550 with my G200 into my Pentium II 350MHz . played ff9 on the new card w/the old processor, which made virtually no difference in terms of speed... all it does is lag when i cast a magic spell.

But when i got my AMD 1.4GHz... guess what? smooth like a baby's a$$ . no lagging whatsoever.

edit: as you can see i still use my G550 over my Radeon 8500 simpily because i don't play games. 2D is absolutely awesome i will tell ya on my P95f+.

[funky-d-munky]

"AFAIK" what is that? To many damn letter to figure out. And while were at it,
"i850E, Dual Channel PC1066 RDRAM) | Samsung 256MB PC800 RDRAM (More SOON™) "
I know you can't have to types of ram, or can you? Just nit-picking but which is it?
IADMPN-I am done my post now ;>)

[Chrono_Wanderer]

Originally posted by funky-d-munky
"AFAIK" what is that? To many damn letter to figure out. And while were at it,
"i850E, Dual Channel PC1066 RDRAM) | Samsung 256MB PC800 RDRAM (More SOON™) "
I know you can't have to types of ram, or can you? Just nit-picking but which is it?
IADMPN-I am done my post now ;>)

AFAIK = as far as i know

all i am doing is running pc800s on a pc1066 mobo, which means slower clock speed and therefore lower memory bandwidth.

my sig means i850e supports dual channel pc1066 RIMMs, but doesn't necessarily mean that i am using them. when i built this machine the PC1066s were just out so i couldn't afford them (they were double the price of PC800s)

when i say i have samsung 256MB PC800 RIMMs = i have 256MB of PC800 RAMs well to be specific... since they run in parallel mode it means i am using 2 sticks of RDRAMs. therefore 2x128MB of PC800 sticks. now... unless Samsung makes mobos

pretty sure u can't use pc800 and pc1066 together tho...

Hope my sig makes sense to you

i guess it's just like saying:

Asus A7V8X (VIA KT400 w/DDR400 support)
2048MB of DDR333 memory.

[funky-d-munky]

O.K I get ya.
It's a little strange though. I mean you could list your mother board with the fastest CPU as well then the slower model you actually use.
But hey it's just a sig so do as you may.
funky

[Flip-Oh]

Matrox TV-out kicks the shit out of ATI tv-out!!!

Hi there,

I own both a Matrox G400 and an ATI Radeon 8500 video card and I can tell you from personal experience, that the TV-out of the G400 is WAY better than that of any other video card I have ever seen, including the ATI Radeon.

The Radeon suffers from a buggy control panel that doesn't allow for proper contrast settings, color calibration and aspect ratio.

The G400 has perfect picture quality, comparable to that of a stand-alone DVD player. It is absolutely the best TV-out you can buy.

Greets,
Jorg

[qaotik]

Hey thanks for the feedback guys! Still one question for Flip-Oh, did you happen to use the same tv-out cable for both cards? And was it the cable that came with your card?

[Novdid]

Well the 8500 tv-out is not as good as other Radeon boards. Keep that in mind.

[DukeP]

The TV out on the 9700 series are good, hardware wise.
But the contropanel aplets suck bigtime.
If your lucky (or very paitient) you might hit a decent picture thats actually all inside your tv.
Most times not.

~~DukeP~~~
(With an old but classy tv).

[Flip-Oh]

qaotik:

For the Matrox card I used the VGA->S-Video/Composite adapter cable that came with the card and connected that to really cheap composite wire. I also tried an S-Video cable, but didn't notice much improvement.
On the Radeon, I used the TV-out->S-Video/Composite cable that came with the card and the aforementioned cheap composite cable and S-video cable.

The cables that come with these cards are way too short for my needs (TV is about 10 metres from the computer). The quality of those cables should be comparable to what I used though.

I now have my Radeon card hooked up to the tv through a VGA cable (my TV has VGA input). I'm running it at 720x480 and the picture quality is awesome. However: The quality of the Matrox TV-out was just as good...

Getting the Radeon to do 720x480 properly is a real hassle (have to tweak with Powerstrip quite a bit) and the result is not much better than the standard TV-out of the Matrox card (in fact: the TV has a refresh of 60Hz when using the VGA input and does 100Hz when using S-video, much easier on the eyes...). If only Matrox would produce a videocard with the quality of the G400 and the 3D speed that is needed for today's games, all at a reasonable price. That's my main caveat with the Parhelia: It's way too expensive.

Oh well, maybe I'll just get a G450 PCI for TV-out and use the Radeon just for games ;-)

Greets,
Jorg

[Seaspray]

TV outs

I used a G400MAX for watching DVDs on my TV for at least a year and thought that the picture quality was very good.

Eventually I decided I must have 3D horse power so I 'invested' in a Twinview GeForce 2 MX. This was truely awful for watching DVDs, almost impossible to get the picture the right size and the image quality was very poor.

This was not acceptable so my next purchase was a hardware DVD decoder. This worked fine, picture fitted properly on a wide screen TV and the quality was good, but not noticeably any better than the Matrox.

I replaced the MX with a Radeon 8500 LE, but I have not used this for watching DVDs on the TV although I have used it for games. I have to say that this is very easy to set up and the picture quality more than acceptable. Medal of Honour on a big screen TV is awesome. Of course you will not tend to notice such differences in picture quality with a fast moving game as you would with a DVD.

I use a set top player for watching DVDs, now that they are a lot cheaper than they used to be, this is noticeably superior to any of the PC based solutions I have tried.

Since you don't mention any of the nvidia cards from my experience either the matrox or the ATI would do just fine.

Jon

[3dfx]

I would tend to agree stand-alone DVD players are so cheap now and definately worth the investment. Or you could go the console/DVD route Have you seen the quality of the Xbox's DVD player and the sound ROXORS!