tv cards

[BroadbandPlacey]

do most tv cards come with tv out? if not which one's do, if any?

cheers

[eldren]

Erm, what's the point? The usefulness in having TV-out on a TV tuner card is doubley negated, in that most graphics cards these days already have TV-out, and, TVs do the exact same thing TV tuners do, save that they have a "built in" screen.

Unless your TV's built-in tuning is broken, or, you're looking to record the output of the TV tuner to VHS or the like, TV-out on a TV tuner is a white elephant.

[Austin]

TV cards are designed to input TV signals to your PC and perhaps take in a feed from VHS or camcorder. If you want to squirt a TV signal from your PC to feed a TV or VCR then you'll really need a gfx card with TVout. Most Radeons have this and very good quality it is too, otherwise you could look to GF4MX which are very cheap now. Most of the time the output is in Svideo or composite form so is good for those or conversion SCART. That means you'll want whatever you're outputting to to be pretty close (2m?) otherwise use something like a VCR to take in the SCART (etc) then output the signal through a std RF (TV) lead which can run as long as you want. Any help?

[Howard]

You'll want a VIVO (Video in Video out) graphics card if you want the facilities of both in and output.

[Merlin]

on the subject of TV cards, do they need to be connected to your tv aerial? ive never seen it mentioned before, but i assume they must!

[Ethos]

Yea, they do.

[Austin]

For digital TV cards you really want a 'High Gain' aerial, well worth paying for as you get 30+ TV channels which (with a good aerial) are all DVD quality (MO). With std TV cards all you should need is an aerial that's capable of giving a good signal to any TV set in your house.

[Merlin]

...and an aerial socket in my room!

[BroadbandPlacey]

noooooo what i want is a tv out to watch dvd's on my tv, but i cant be arsed to buy a new graphics card and want a new gadget to play with, ie the tv card.

[TiG]

heh, i think you slightly missed the point of TV card then, its designed to watch TV on your PC, you want a graphics card with TV/OUT a TV card is not the same thing.

Hope that helps clarify.

TiG

[Austin]

I'm 99% sure that the only way you're likely to get a signal from your PC to a TV set is by using a gfx card with TVout ability, £30 is about the price of a TVout capable Rad7000/7500 or GF4MX. TV cards are designed to give you TV on your PC and usually to recieve an external signal (VCR, camcorder etc) into your PC ... not to squirt a signal from your PC to a TV set.

EDIT: Oh yeah and if you plan to watch DVDs and send the signal to a TV you will most likely need to overcome Macrovision Copy Protection as it is likely to skew the signal resulting in a distorted picture. Try VideoLAN Player.