ATI Theater 650 or NVidia DualTV

[sunray]

I'm looking at moving from my PVR-250 cards to either the ATI Theater 650 based cards or to the NVidia DualTV. Both are supposed to produce a superior picture to the PVR-250 but which one is better? I've Googled around and read the reviews and postings here, at HTPCNews, Anandtech, etc and they seem to suggest they have about the same quality. So I figured I'd ask here at the Sage forums for people's experiences with these cards especially under Sage.

[jmiddleton]

I've been doing similar research in preparation for a move to Vista early next year but my options are constrained by the limited expansion potential of my MicroATX HTPC and my intention to deploy 64 bit Vista. Here's what I've learned so far:

- Hauppauge PVR500. 64 bit drivers are available. Card is readilly available through distribution. Newer model using Samsung tuners has serious picture quality issues.
- ATI 550/650. Excellent quality. The 650 has a superior 3D comb filter for analog signals and also includes a digital tuner that isn't useful where I live. PowerColor makes a PCIe 1x card with the 550 chip which my motherboard will support. ATI offers 64 bit drivers for both chips.
- ViXS Xcode II. Used by several newer cards including the Nvidia DualTV PCI and Vista View Saber 2020 PCIe 1x. This chip also features an excellent 3D comb filter for analog signals. Whether it is as good as the ATI Theater 650 is being debated. I don't believe a consensus has been reached. Nvidia does not offer, nor have they announced 64 bit drivers. Vista View has announced 64 bit drivers but they aren't yet available.

Right now the Vista View Saber 2020 is at the top of my list because it is dual tuner, uses my PCIe 1x slot and the company has promised 64 bit drivers for Vista. I don't intend to place my order until January and I may learn something that changes my mind between now and then.

[sunray]

My HTPC is 32 bit (3.2 ghz P4 Northwood) so 64 bit compatibility isnt a factor for me. Also I'm not sure if I'll upgrade to Vista since the hardware requirements seem to be large and I dont want to pump too much more money into a old machine. Reviews of the PVR-500 I've read say there is little to no difference in image quality between its captures and those of the PVR-250. My HTPC motherboard only has PCI slots so PCIe cards are out. Ultimately I decided to go with the ATI Wonder 650 (Theater 650 chip) because its on sale at Best Buy for $99 - 12% coupon discount = $87.99 which is the cheapest I've seen it sold for. I hope I havent made a bad choice. Thanks for sharing your research with me Jmiddleton.

[Jesse]

Hi Sunray,

You did not make the wrong choice. I bought two 650's at BB the day after they were re-released. I paid around $130.00 each for them. They were worth every penny. My pvr500mce had bad "crosshatching" which I never managed to cure. The 650's are head and shoulders better. PQ is now on par with my Sony Directv STB's.

I have noticed one issue with these cards. With a nvidia vid card playback of live tv is jumpy. When I was using a 9800pro in my main sage box live tv played back just fine, but the pq with a 6600gt was (IMO) superior, so I switched. I was able to work around by either pausing live tv for several seconds and then starting playback again, or setting vid playback to start five seconds after the tuner began recording. Playback of recordings is no problem.

Although Narflex has said this card will be supported AFAIK it is still not on the list of "officially" supported cards.

HTH. Good luck and enjoy.

Jesse

[dnrmatthews]

Originally Posted by sunray

I'm looking at moving from my PVR-250 cards to either the ATI Theater 650 based cards or to the NVidia DualTV. Both are supposed to produce a superior picture to the PVR-250 but which one is better? I've Googled around and read the reviews and postings here, at HTPCNews, Anandtech, etc and they seem to suggest they have about the same quality. So I figured I'd ask here at the Sage forums for people's experiences with these cards especially under Sage.

The ATI 650 is a great card I like it alot and so I bought two of them since they do not make it in a dual tuner and that's when I ran into issues. If you install 2 of them in the same system and use standby or hibernation one card will always lose the TV signal. Only way to fix it right now is to reboot your pc. The ATI support sight has the following article about it, unfortunatly they have not posted an updated driver. http://support.ati.com/ics/support/d...asp?deptID=894 In the search box type in 737-23923 it will show you the article. Sorry ATI will not let me link directly to it.

So now I am using the NVIDIA Daul Tuner and one ATI 650 card and have not had any issue with Standby.