This Decoder card look's awesome!

[bdf24]

I was just researching different part's for building a Home Theater PC for DVD, Divx, and MP3's. And I came across this.

Sigma Designs REALmagic Xcard MPEG-4 (http://www.sigmadesigns.com/products/xcard.htm)

It look's like the PERFECT solution for a Home Theater PC. I've found it for as cheap as $91.00.
I think I'm gonna order this baby. It's just what I was looking for I think.

What do you guy's think?

[TheBiz]

well, i dont really see that being very worthwhile if you have a pc over 600mhz or so.

my pc has no decoding help(aside from my rage theatre decoder on my ati card) and it can run any dvd, svcd, vcd, divx and mp3 i throw at it with great quality. ive got it hooked up to my tv, and it looks great.

i just dont really see the need for an add on decoder card.........but hey, if you have the money go for it.

[Maxvla]

get the hollywood plus instead. all the xcard really does for ya is divx.

i love mine :) an i use it all the time on my "over 600mhz" pc.

simple reason is more flexibility and less cpu usage (gotta keep folding now don't we!) and great picture/sound quality.

software players use about 40% cpu power while a decoder card usually uses about 5-7% cpu power.

[eli]

Compgeeks (http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=6300449402) has the card for $89, and if you use the code GETMEADEAL it's 10% off. Makes me wish i had 79 bucks.

[bdf24]

Originally posted by TheBiz
well, i dont really see that being very worthwhile if you have a pc over 600mhz or so.

my pc has no decoding help(aside from my rage theatre decoder on my ati card) and it can run any dvd, svcd, vcd, divx and mp3 i throw at it with great quality. ive got it hooked up to my tv, and it looks great.

i just dont really see the need for an add on decoder card.........but hey, if you have the money go for it.
The review's I've read on it said the video out on the decoder card is MUCH more crisp and clearer then coming from a composite or Svideo out on a graphic's card. That's the whole point. Which mean's Divx movies will be much better looking and have more brilliant color's then they do for me now. It will even use hardware decoding for MP3's as well.

If you've thought about making your old PII 266 or higher system You've got laying around into a PC Home theater system. It will be able to run fullscreen video smoothley without a glitch. Wheater it be Divx, DVD, MPEG1 or 2. That's a plus. Throw your DVD rom in there and you've got everything all in one for cheap. That's my plan.

[E_tron]

Fast processors and lots of memory. They are about the best alternative to optimization of your hardware. A P4 will show 2 or 3 DivX Video's at the same time, and have good quality. DVD uses almost nothing (450mhz will make it fly, and a DVD will play on my Pentium MMX 233mhz CPU smoothly).

[SemiCycle]

Originally posted by Maxvla
get the hollywood plus instead. all the xcard really does for ya is divx.

i love mine :) an i use it all the time on my "over 600mhz" pc.



VERY VERY true. I still have my Hollywood Plus in my Athlon 1800XP system.... That card kicks serious butt. I plan to move the card over to a HTPC later on down the line. Having a card like that makes the VIA EDEN platform look very interesting.

[Dieni]

I have the Hollywood Plus in my 2.4Ghz P4 system, the reason I keep it is that the TV-Out quality is amazing plus I can still browse the net, listen to music etc... while my bro watches a DVD.

[SemiCycle]

That is true too. There is absolutly no slow down with that card in the system. I haven't tried the TV out on my system, but I have output a 5.1 dolby digital signal to my Harmon Kardon receiever and that was down without a hitch.

[ThePunkGeek]

i have that card i dislike it so i gave it away :\

[Mord-Sith]

If you truely want to make a good HTPC and your hooking it up to a tv (not a projector) you should use a scanline converter thats not built into the video card. It does however look like that particular card does have a decent tv out compared to other cards. Most people that have HTPCs are using them to output high resolution dvd to their projector instead of using an expensive progressive scan dvd player with a line doubler/tripler. If you realy want to know whats good and whats not I would head over to www.hometheaterforum.com and check out the HTPC area.

[SemiCycle]

I tried the ouput from the decoder card on my TV last night (remind me never to move a 36" TV on my own again :)

The output was PERFECT. It was nothing like a normal video card output. I tried the same DVD in my Toshiba unit (Monsters INC) and the output was the EXACT same. Very impressive.