Which Graphics Card to Pair with PVR 250?

[dougrs]

I'm in the process of converting an older PC into a dedicated PVR.
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P3 933
512Mb Ram
80 Gb HD
250W Power Supply
Windows 2000 Pro
Sony 27" TV
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Right now I'm using an ATI AIW 9000 Pro with snap stream, but the computer crashing during recording about once a day. After reading many review on this forum I've ordered the Hauppauge PVR-250, which I hope will fix the crashes during recording.
Here's the dilemma, I still need a card with a TV Out so I can pipe this through my TV.
Should I return the ATI AIW 9000 Pro and go with a better graphics card with TV Out?
What is the best Graphics Card available with TV Out?
I'm not looking to spend too much money on the second graphics card, under $200 would be great.

Thanks.

[Terminal]

Myself along with many others are having good success with the Nividia FX5200. You can get one for around $50.00.

[MonsterMaxx]

I ordered a MSI 5200 w/ tuner.

Ordered one from newegg, it arrived missing pieces. They would not send them either.
They were very rude about it too.
We are in a CC dispute over it now.

I've re-ordered it from www.gameve.com, it was $10 less too, should be here tomorow or Monday.

[BankZ]

Whats the best way to hook a PC up to a TV? I have a old 800mhz that I wanta turn into a PVR. However, its about 100 ft away from my TV.

Nate

[Eric3a]

There never is such a thing as "the best way". All depends on what you want and what you can do.
The server/client solution coming up in 3.5 my be a great answer since it will be av\ble to use wifi connection.

Personally I am a big fan of my RF modulator allowing me to see BTV on all TVs in the house. On the other hand an MVP media player is a good solution too.
Then there is wireless video senders. Not great, and prone to interference, but a decent solution for some cases.

We need to kow more about what you want to achieve for you to find the "best"
Eric

[BankZ]

I mainly want to watch shows that I record on my TV. I really dont care about watching live TV via BTV.

[BankZ]

Any suggestions?

[Zogg]

BankZ, I'd either get a modulator and put the TV out from your PVR box on an unused cable channel so you can watch it on any TV (this has been discussed in other threads), or get a cheap streaming device like the Hauppauge Media MVP that will let you watch your files over the network.

I just got finished with my BTV PVR on a P3-1GHz. Using an old PCI ATI All-in-Wonder I was getting choppy video, unrelated to the MPEG2 decoder. I picked up a cheap FX5200 card at CompUSA and that solved the TV out problem. Guess my old original Radeon AIW just didn't do a good job of handling the MPEG2.

Z

[MonsterMaxx]

Having tried a few different solutions
$250 Hauppauge PVR-350
Dual output vid card -> $100 converter box
Vid card w/ S-vid out

I find that the native S-vid support in windows is the way to go.

After months of jacking around with the PVR-350 I find the S-vid output on it is completely unsupported in the industry. Multiple complaints about terrible drivers from Hauppauge lead me to believe that anyone trying to write to these drivers is trying to hit a moving target.

The converter box (vga -> s-vid) works OK, but the quality is not great.

Just got a nVidia 5200 card and the quality is surpurb. Only complaint is that I cannot re-size the display w/ the driver so I cannot fill the TV.

[Eric3a]

Have a look at TV Tool
http://tvtool.info/index_e.htm
I used to use it when I had an Nvidia card and it was a great program.
Eric