Well, kind of self explanatory. Needs to be PCI Xpress 16 to go in a Foxconn Micro ATX motherboard. Does it need to be strong for HTPC duties, i'm getting a Haupage pvr 500 to go in it too. Thanks!
If you don't need HDTV resolution a 6200 will do, but a 6600GT is a good option if you want to future proof yourself a little and it has purevideo which is nice to have.
It would be great if it had an HD tuner, cuz that would keep me from having to buy another seperate card.
I was just looking at 6200's and 6600 GT's and theres a bunch of 6200's with HDTV out. Will that work? I see that it's just a RGB cable.
I say go for ATI X600 All In Wonder. I love nvidia but its cheaper to buy the X600 WID then TV tuner and 6600.
Don't bother with the AIW if its for MCE2005 as the tuner is not natively supported. Superlunch box stick with your pvr500 card it is better than the AIW with it's old rage 200 chip.
Okay, so now for my next question. I was reading that XP MCE only supports dual cards if they both have the same signal. The haupage pvr 500 has 3 different types of output. RCA, S-Video, and CATV. Will this even work? Do I have to buy a seperate TV tuner for HDTV, or will the one on the video card i'm going to get work?
I think i'm just going to not get the whole HDTV thing. I mean, i'll have to pay like $10 a channel anyways, so it's not worth all the extra hassle.
There is also the bonus of post-processing DVDs up to 720p or better. VGA and DVI can handle HDTV as well, but your display needs the right inputs obviously.
What this means is say you want to record from the s-vid port from tuner 1say from a cable box and say from the aerial on tuner 2 you can't do this, you need them to be the same source i.e two cable boxes or from two aerial connections. A lot of HDTV is over the air from an RF aerial so you might want to still consider HDTV.
a 6200 is a great vid card for the price, and for an HTPC it comes with an added bonus- it can be cooled passively with no problems. As for tuners, the MCE500 works just fine...as herbs said, it's all about the input, not the output. Do keep in mind that if you have digital cable, you need 2 cable boxes to have the same signal coming from each.
Just to point out you can't take a standard definition DVD and upscale to 720 or above. You can use progressive scan on the PC or dvd player (if has progressive scan built in) to make the image upto 576p I'm pretty sure the 6200 can handle that. I will try this week as I have a 6200 to replace the on-board on my epia.
Of course you can with a htpc or scaler but its not going to be as good as native high definition resolution. Here is an article on how http://htpcnews.com/main.php?id=ffdshowdvd_4 using ffdshow and dvd software.
gaming vs hdtv 05.09.30 ? Is a htpc video card contrary to a high-performance gaming gpu. Like is tha ability to process HDTV from cable coax feed ( bypassing the cable companie's desktop [ ? de-modulator ]) and view said HD video on the computer monitor or way too expensice hdtv monitor, with dolby-DTS/THX sound (6.1, 7.1 speakers) plus ability to process DVD content to computer hard drive/ monitor/ output to hdtv set.. is this in a htpc mean that computer will have low to middle performance as a gaming computer?!
First things first, Welcome to the forums, Bug!! Now, to your answer...Not necessarily at all. But, there has to be a balance...higher quality gaming boards often put out a lot of heat (the 7800gt is the exception to this), which means fans. Fans mean noise...often, people want something that's sitting in their living room to be whisper quiet. In order to do that, most HTPC enthusiasts, who are using it mostly for HTPC purposes, choose a video card that is passively cooled (no fans). That way, the noise cuts down considerably...and it doesn't take a lot of graphics power to throw a picture up on TV, so you can use a card that is totally silent and get the same HTPC quality as one that is a big, noisy monster. Rest assured, doing so limits your ability to play games on that system...but we'll be looking into ways to get higher end equipment in there quietly enough to be tolerable, while still having some great gaming performance. So stay tuned...
If I'm understanding correctly this is a common misconception (and might should be put in an HTPC FAQ/Sticky). Even with an HD Tuner card you can't run the cable directly into your PC and tune HD channels. High-def channels are scrambled and you must have the set-top box to descramble them. If you run a cable out from the stb into the PC, it will not output at HD reolutions. That would be too easy. You can get an HD signal to your PC using firewire, but that requires your stb to have firewire out--which most don't. Point is, right now the only reliable/easy way to get an HD signal to a PC is using over-the-air transmission and antennas are a different, irritating, ugly creature unto themselves. Back to the subject at hand, I'm running a 6200 in my HTPC and it has no problem outputting at 640x480 (obviously) or 1920x1080. I actually got the 6200 because it was the cheapest card that supported component-out. My only problem is the software. Using my x800 to output went off without a hitch. Control center and even control panel are much easier to navigate and change settings than Nvidia's nView tool. Not to mention the card wont display until it enters windows, which while not a huge problem, is mildly annoying. My Biostar 210V didn't want to boot from my SATA drive when my buddy's USB external drive was plugged in. Had to drag out the old monitor from the closet to find out what the error message was. Not trying to turn this into an ati vs. nvidia thread, just mentioning my experience with both brands. Of course, you can't find an ATI card that supports HD out for US$68.
And therein lies the catch. I have not had that same problem...mine boots directly out to the TV as a monitor...windows acts funny and resizes once the loading screen appears, but I've not had much trouble with NView. However, I may need to look into this further...
