[XCSSA] Video Cards for TV output

[xcssa@xcssa.org]

I'm looking for a new video card to fit a PCI Express slot.

The leading motivation for video card development is gaming.  But  
what I want is good quality video output for a TV as a second output  
(in addition to the main VGA or DVI output).  Many if not most video  
cards today have some form of s-video output.  You could use this for  
watching DVD's on a real TV.  But, according to many stories, the  
quality of this s-video output is pretty bad on average, with a few  
exceptions.

Typically one of the restrictions of such cards is that you change  
your main display resolution to something like 640x480 in order to  
get any output at all.  Some cards, however, allow other resolutions,  
but it is almost impossible to find out this information without  
actually buying the product.

My last ATI All-In-Wonder card (from about 2000) did support s-video  
output for several main resolutions, including at least 600x800.   
Obviously, to support 800x600 on a plain old TV (480i) requires  
scaling.  So, if they're scaling that resolution already, why can't  
they scale to even higher resolutions, so I don't have to  dumb down  
my computer monitor to get TV output?

Maybe some do, but it's hard to find out.

My Mac Powerbook has nice quality s-video output full screen up to  
800x600, and, IIRC, if you go above that, you still get output, but  
it's cropped.

Scaling or the lack of it is only one of many such issues.  The main  
issue is video quality, or the lack of it.

At least I thought ATI's video out quality was basically OK in the  
past.  Just after ordering an inexpensive fairly low power Nvidia  
card (I don't want to overheat the 300W supply in this computer), I  
read a review very critical of the S-Video output on another Nvidia  
card from several years ago.  The ATI card in that review had the  
best S-Video output.

BTW, the card I ordered is an Nvidia GeForce 7300 LE with 256Mb DDR2  
for $49 at Tiger Direct.  For five bucks more, I could have gotten an  
XFX 7300 GT with 512Mb, but I'm much more worried about overheating  
my small computer than I am about gaming.  The 7300LE is sufficiently  
low power that it's cooled by a (fairly big) heat sink (so it's  
fanless).  I think it's pretty amazing that a card as powerful as the  
7300GT can be had for about $54.

After reading the review, I'm thinking of getting another kind of ATI  
card instead.  ATI's last big dog in this non-race was the All-In- 
Wonder 2006 PCI express, which is now discontinued.  I don't really  
care about having a TV card, but video capture (very rare on video  
cards now) is a nice feature to have.

I'm not a big fan of ATI.  In fact, I've been annoyed by their  
products in the past.  But maybe they're still the ones to get if you  
want TV output, though TV output has become a very common feature.

Charles