Dedicated video capture or ATI AIW

[jspam]

Only one more week of school.... YAY. To keep myself occupied for a short period of time after finals I'm going to build my own PVR. However, I can't figure out if I want to go the route of a dedicated video capture card or an ATI AIW card.

What do you think I should get:

ATI AIW 8500 128MB
ATI AIW 9000 64MB
Dedicated Video Capture - If you think this is the way to go make a suggestion. I will probably get a FX5200 if I get one of these.

I plan to use one of these programs on the PVR:
http://www.mythtv.org/
http://freevo.sourceforge.net/

[idioteQnology]

i wouldnt go with an all inclusive card since when it comes time down the road to upgrade your GC....well there goes ure capture/tv tuner as well.

best buy separate.

what i have, and many others agree, best bang for the buck is the Winfast 2000 xp deluxe tv tuner, like 50 clams at newegg and the such. works like a charm. uses titantv PVR which is sweet.

if u want to spend more go for a hauppage, they have hardware mpeg decoding and encoding but will cost u over 100 easy.

[Mr.Guvernment]

whywoudl you get and fx5200 for a vid card?

you want image quality correct? ATI

the ALl in wonders if u could even get a 9700PRO - or this this stricly image capture and NO gaming? if so ignore that thought

as the 9700 / 9800 AIW are the same as the PRO's i beleive just with the added goodies of tv tuner and such...

[jspam]

Originally posted by Mr.Guvernment
whywoudl you get and fx5200 for a vid card?

you want image quality correct? ATI

the ALl in wonders if u could even get a 9700PRO - or this this stricly image capture and NO gaming? if so ignore that thought


Yup, its only going to be for PVR video capture only. The box is going to be running redhat or suse linux, so I will be limited gaming wise anyway.

[docinthebox]

Video capture is a pretty bandwidth intensive operation. The AGP bus has a much higher bandwidth than the PCI bus, talks directly with the north bridge, and is for exclusive use by the video card, whereas the PCI bus is shared among different peripherals like disk controllers, sound card, USB devices etc, some of which require quite significant bandwidth as well, and a 33MHz 32 bit PCI bus will only give you 133MB/s bandwidth. So I tend to favor the all-inclusive AGP video card approach.

[Mr.Guvernment]

^^^^ true - as you ca get a lower end say 8500DV AIW or evena 7500 - but i have heard of issues with the 7500 - but that was under XP, not sure about linux.