Advice on TV-out (composite/S-video) card

[blechn]

I am in the planning stages of building a PVR machine. I am planning on using SageTV with my P4 1.4GHz machine. I was planning on getting a PVR-350 card to handle my video out to TV (old composite, no plans on upgrading to HDTV, etc). But I am concerned about stability issues I have read about. So I will stick with the pvr-150. Then I read about the Sigma Designs xcard having great video quality and onboard decoding hardware. But can only display SageTV menus in 256 colors and can result in slow response ... so I have ruled this out. What graphics card is recommended for TV out? This machine will be dedicated to SageTV and I have no interest in gaming so what is the cheapest good option? I would also ideally like to get something that is compatible with Windows MCE just in case I decide to go that route instead. An old GeForce FX 5200 is on the official MCE list and I can get this for < $50. Would this be OK? Thanks.

-Mike

[dblaine2]

I believe this thread addresses the Xcard/256 color issue. If you can get your hands on an older Xcard.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11199

I run a 350 and a 150 without any issues. I don't have a screaming machine (Asus A7V 750 mhz) so I need a hardware decoding solution. The 350 has performed very, very well. No problems.

Your mileage may vary....