Which all in 1 Vid Card or is there an alternative

geminiguy

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I am updating a friends HP system, everything is updated now except for the vid card. Man, this thing is just a mess inside to work on! I have never had to remove the PS and a HUGE fan to get to a mobo before. He wants to be able to capture from his VCR and make Mpeg's out of them for DVD/VCD's. He can only afford about $140, the only one I've seen so far is the ATI AIW 7500, listed at $129 online and $135 down the street at Macena's.
He's going to be gone for a week, so I have some time to work on it. I have yet to find a release date for the GF FX.
Here is the question: Is there a better card out there cheaper or same price at the moment? or is there a combo I am missing? I don't want to put an almost outdated card in the sys.
Any info would be greatfull!!!

Sys consists of: Win2kp, 900 Athlon, 448mb Sdram, SB Live, 45 gig hd, DVD/CDRW roms, generic HP mobo.

Cheers,

Gem

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by geminiguy on 02/02/03 12:24 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 

knowan

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There are 2 options here. One is a VIVO card (video in-video out). In your price range I've only been able to find the Radeon AIW 7500 (that you mention), a radeon 9000, or a GF 4 MX440 VIVO. All of these cards perform at about the same level. You can check out <A HREF="http://www17.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021218/index.html" target="_new">Tom's Review</A> if you like for more info.

The other option is to keep his existing video card and get a seperate PCI capture card. If you decide to go that route, I've heard nothing but good thinmgs about the Leadtek winfast TV2000 XP.

The AIW 7500 is a good choice. It's faster than the GF4 MX 440, and just 2 or 3 frames slower than the Radeon 9000. It also includes alot of software which I think would be usefull in your situation, plus it's got that nifty remote.

And I hear you about the HP systems. It took me 2 hours to install 64 megs of RAM in my mother's HP Pavilion.

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geminiguy

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Kowan,

Thanks for the info, I did alot of research on this before I came on. The only good solution to this issue was to get the AIW 7500 Deluxe. I appreciate your input, it makes me more secure on what I am putting into this god for saken beast of a thing HP likes to call a computer!! I am not looking forward to rebuilding this thing.
If it took you 2 hours to put in memory, I don't even want to think how long it's going to take me to replace the sound/modem card with SB Live, reg modem, AIW 7500 card and 256mb more of memory! What a day? :(
Thanks again,

Gem

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by geminiguy on 02/03/03 12:24 PM.</EM></FONT></P>