TV-Out Video Card Question

[slightly]

So after owning a Tivo for 4 years and trying ReplayTV out for a week, I'm convinced there has to be something better out there. Enter SageTV.

My goal is to run SageTV on my computer, yet watch all my shows on my TV. So I began researching video cards that will allow me to control Sage while sitting on my couch.

Now, I thought all TV-Out cards are the same. I pretty much assumed that these cards allowed you to emulate your monitor on your TV, thus seeing the mouse move, the XP Start menu, screen savers, etc - just like a second monitor. So questions are:

1) What do TV-Out video cards let you do?

But after reading some posts, I noticed that you had to have the PVR-350 card in order to get the OSD to work on your TV.

2) Why is this?

And finally, my goal is to use my Sony 36" XBR450 Wega TV as a mirrored-monitor. So I can turn SageTV to fullscreen mode, control it from my couch, but also surf the web using IE & a wireless keyboard.

4) Is this even possible?
5) What video card would suit me best in this situation?

Thanks in advance -

[mlbdude]

Video cards with TV work exactly like you think they do. Your TV becomes your monitor.

If you use a hardware DECODER like the 350 or XCard you will only get data that is processed by that decoder sent out of its output to the TV. In the case of the 350 Frey is also encoding the SageTV OSD out as well.

If you are going to do anything more than SageTV and watch more than SageTV recordings then you will definitely want to get a decent video card with good output.

Look into an nVidia 5700+ or ATI 9600 Pro+.

Good luck.

[slightly]

Hey mlbdude,

First off, props to you for the super fast response. You've answered my question - just in time too, I was going to order the SageTV/350 bundle. But I really want to use my TV as a 2nd monitor, so I dont think the 350 will do everything I want.

So my plan is to get the SageTV/250 bundle & purchase a seperate video card with SVideo/TV/Component out.

I'm a total newbie to the whole TV-Out Video card thing, so maybe you can recommend some cards based on my needs.

I have a pretty good Sony tube television, so the quality of the picture is very important. What cards have the best picture when displaying on TV? You recommended an nVidia & ATI card. How is the picture on those cards?

Thanks for you help - much appreciated.

[mlbdude]

Both produce excellent SVideo output. The ATI had slightly better looking video, but the nVidia has a better looking windows desktop and text. If you plan on going component I would probably go with the ATI since you can get it component adapter pretty cheap.

Just keep in mind that if you want to do VMR9 in Sage (get all the cool alpha blended menu's) you will want to use the models I suggested in my first post as minimums.

[slightly]

Yeah, I definitely want SageTV to look nice when using it. What is VMR9 specifically, and how is it affected by the video card?

[stanger89]

VMR9 is the DX9 video renderer that uses your graphics card's 3D engine to draw the video.

Quick question for ya, you list component out above, does that mean you have an HDTV?

[slightly]

No, I don't think I have HDTV, at least not without some kind of add-on component. The reason I wanted to use a component connection is because I assumed a component connection would give me better picture. If the pic quality on the TV is going to be the same with an SVideo connection, then I could prolly just use SVideo. What do you think?

[mdmint]

Originally posted by slightly
No, I don't think I have HDTV, at least not without some kind of add-on component. The reason I wanted to use a component connection is because I assumed a component connection would give me better picture. If the pic quality on the TV is going to be the same with an SVideo connection, then I could prolly just use SVideo. What do you think?

You may not have HDTV source or decoder now but your Sony XBR450 is HD input ready with two component inputs for 1080i, 480p or 480i per Sony website. You assumed correctly component input will give you the best possible picture and your XBR450 is ready for it.

[slightly]

So I would prolly want to buy a TVOut card that supports Component Out.

Do the cards mentioned before (nVidia 5700+ or ATI 9600 Pro+) support Component out. If not, could you recommend a sweet card that will give me excellent display on my TV? Has anyone had really good success with a certain card with Component out?

Thanks guys.

[mlbdude]

No cards come with component out directly. The ATI has an adapter for it that costs around $30. Otherwise you need to get a VGA to component transcoder for around $200.

[slightly]

Sounds like the card to have is the ATI 9600 Pro+ because it offers the component out dongle as an add-on. But you mentioned the nVidia card has better-looking windows desktop and text. Is it a significant difference compared to the ATI 9600, or just slightly better. I guess my question comes down to: What card would you buy? Success/Horror stories on these 2 (or any other TVOut) cards are greatly appreciated.

Also - I've read a little on SageTV Studio. Is this like an API that users can use to write plugins for SageTV? or is it purely for skinning? As a programmer, it'd be really nice to write plugins that customize Sage for our needs. Who is SageTV Studio available to?

Thx guys

[mlbdude]

My upgrade path went as follows...

ATI 9000 - > ATI 9600 non-pro -> nVidia 5700

All were using SVideo.

Overall image quality with the ATI's is better for a PVR, but for small text the 5700 seems sharper. The 5700 is the only card I have that can run VMR9 at 640x480 without tearing so I use that one.

With Overlay the video quality was better with all with the ATI's being the best looking again. Differences were all minor though and I was happy with each card.

I would suspect that when using component you will not have the same text sharpness differences between the two.

[slightly]

Awesome man, that's exactly what I was looking for. I've found a local computer shop selling the ATI Radeon 9600 (non-pro) w/ 256 DDR AGP for $109. I'm thinking that will prolly be good enough for right now, as I can always order the component dongle in a few days.

[mlbdude]

Just expect to NOT run VMR9 (or live with image tearing). I had to move to the 5700 for that.

With Overlay the 9600 is awesome though but you won't get any transparent menu's in Sage.

[slightly]

Sorry to be such a newbie, but what is image tearing? Also, just to be clear, I will not be able to take advantage of anything that uses VMR9, such as the SageTV OSD.

Will it display the OSD at all? perhaps w/out alpha transparency? If so, what does it look like with no alpha?

Thx again.

[kny3twalker]

http://www.pcalchemy.com/index.php/cPath/43
here are some better prices on bundles
also do not waste your money on a 256 MB video card when it has a 9600 NP GPU (the extra memory will never get used)
try to spend the same amount and get a 128 MB 9700PRO+ or apparently 5700 +
I would recommend going 9800 PRO or 5900 if you plan on doing VMR9
stay away from nvidia XT, LE cards
and ATI SE cards


my ATI 9600 XT will stutter on playback with all the quality decoder when VMR9 rendering
that 9600 NP will be no different

yes you will be able to have the menus and such
but VMR9 gives you colored transparent menus
where as overlay rendering gives you clear menus (non colored)
or blue (non transparent)

[stanger89]

Originally posted by slightly
Sorry to be such a newbie, but what is image tearing? Also, just to be clear, I will not be able to take advantage of anything that uses VMR9, such as the SageTV OSD.

Will it display the OSD at all? perhaps w/out alpha transparency? If so, what does it look like with no alpha?

Thx again.

Tearing is basically where the top of the picture doesn't line up with the bottom, you usually notice it on pans where it looks like the picture got torn in two.

You'll still get the Sage OSD (the component out is just like a monitor essentially), but you won't get the semi-transparent OSD (no alpha blending) just full or no transparency.

Full both look like the screenshots, only with full transparency all the blue is video, and with none, the blue is opaque.

[stanger89]

Almost forgot, but FWIW, the Geforce FX 5700 Personal Cinemas come with component out, although they are somewhat pricey.

[kny3twalker]

get a 9800 PRO before spendig the extra money on a personal cinema card which you will not be able to use the tuner with Sage
the 9800 PRO is faster and will out last the 5700 in life before it is outdated
and you can get them cheaper
about 190 according to the newspaper

also I think ATI has a deal now for 5 dollars to get the component dongle
at least they did when I got my last driver update

[nielm]

Originally posted by slightly
And finally, my goal is to use my Sony 36" XBR450 Wega TV as a mirrored-monitor. So I can turn SageTV to fullscreen mode, control it from my couch, but also surf the web using IE & a wireless keyboard.

4) Is this even possible?

One thing people have not mentioned is that composite video/RCA and S-video out have an effective resolution of about 720x480 in NTSC (768x576 in PAL), which means whatever desktop resolution you have, it has to be scaled down in the video card, causing blurring.

Also the ananlogue signal bandwidth on RCA/Svideo is quite low, so sharp changes in brightness (like black text on a white background) become smudged.

What this means is that unless you use REALLY BIG FONTS, things are very difficult to read.

Note also that IE is very bad at rendering webpages with font sizes different to those the designer intended, and it doesn't scale graphics!

My solution is to use Opera, which has two useful functions:

• web page zoom function, which zooms graphics, fonts and layout, but keeps layout intact
• Skin zoom -- zooms toolbar buttons, menubars, sidebars
• User display mode with High Contrast White on Black -- overrides web page color settings making it white text on a black background, which is easier to read on a TV.
• Small-screen mode, re-writing page layout to make everything linear -- designed for use with low-res mobile phone/pda screens.
• The Free version of Opera has an advertising banner, but this (along with all menus and toolbars) disappears in full-screen mode

These features make the browser actually useable from the couch, but I would not use it for long periods of time!

I have added a couple of photos of the sageTV homepage (the font size of which cannot be changed in IE) on my (PAL) 28" TV, one with normal fonts, and one with 150% zoom, high contrast mode. Taking good photos of TVs is near-impossible, but you get the idea!

[edit]updated photo with better focus, and using IE. if you zoom in, you can see the TV pixels, and the gray smudge that is the text!