Is there an alternative to AIW radeon cards?

[OnefishTwofish]

Is there an alternative to AIW radeon cards?

[OnefishTwofish]

Is anyone running a video card for home theater use (Video capture, TV tunning, GuidePlus, etc) that is not made by ATI.  I have tried the AIW 7500, AIW 8500DV and AIW 8500 128mb (Best Buy must hate me!) and all seem buggy and crash occasionally.  Is there an alternative?  I have heard of nVidias Personal Cinema, but havent heard much about it.  

[DropDeadFred]

There are better alternatives, but most involve using two cards.  There are some capture cards which do a better job at capturing analog video signals.  Once of these in combination with a normal ATI card would probably give you the best picture quality.  I don't think there are any one card solutions that are better than ATI, though.

Personally, I am going to get the AIW 9700 eventually when the price comes down a little.  I think in the next couple months ATI will start release some new cards which will hopefully drive prices down.  The AIW 9700 is also supposed to have a very comprehensive software package with it, including editing software which is better than with previous cards.  It is probably worth giving a chance.

[wdb1966]

The ATI bugginess problems stem from their own driver updates...if you update following their own directions, you end up with an unstable machine and a broken DVD player app, so just install from the CD, download the driver updates, and update only the display drivers (nothing else) through the Device Manager, DO NOT run ATI's installer.

Also, don't use the M$ drivers from Windows Update, they will break the DVD player app too, as well as no OpenGL support.  

[mrwilby]

I have similar requirements to you.

I'm after something I can stick in a HTPC to make a PVR box.

Basically, as I see it (and I'm going down the shuttle route which complicates things further) there are many different options:

1. ATI AIW (AGP or PCI depending on model)
2. ATI G/Card (TV out) and a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR PCI
3. ATI G/Card (TV out) and some other TV Card
4. ATI G/Card and some kind of USB2 TV Box (don't think these exist yet, but they must be on their way...)

In an ideal world, I'd like to have the choice of using 3rd party software. That pretty much rules out the ATI AIW because nobody knows how to talk to it apart from ATI it seems.

Hauppauge (depending on the model) might work with linux (for example), but I'm not entirely sure of that yet. This website seems to imply that the WinTV-PVR x50's don't work with linux yet.

Alternatively, you could get one of the brooktree/connexant TV cards (generally these are quite cheap) and then linux isn't a problem... but I don't know if the picture quality (PQ) of these is as good as the AIW or the Hauppauge

Can anybody suggest any other options?  

[OnefishTwofish]

As an aside, one thing I stumbled onto something that made my TV out experience absolutely perfect: my TV just happened to have a 15pin monitor input.  I was first running a composite signal to my TV (fuzzy, unreadable) and upgraged to S-video (better, pretty readable @ 400x600 with bigger fonts).  During one of my many ATI driver reinstalls, I remembered that 15pin connection on the TV and decided to just hook up the card output through that.  WOW!  Absoulutely PERFECT at 1024x768.  I can read the smallest font on any website.  I would have been willing to pay much more for my TV if I knew it was going to be a 42" flat panel monitor!  

[Jayedeye]

Also check on Avsforum.com and Hometheaterforum.com  for more HTPC solutions.  Especially if you want HDTV stuff, a Hipix card, or a WinTV HD, or one of those might suit better than an AIW.  However, I've got the 8500DV and like it.... still looks like crap on my TV, but I've only got a 27" Standard.  I'll probably get a projector before anything else.

Jim