After toying a bit with the various software titles, I loaded up the DVD player, camcorder and Ulead software to begin my video input/output and video compression tests. If you're not familiar with my last bit of video testing, please check Video Excursion with the Asus V7700 Deluxe - Video Performance first.

The first note I'd like to make is that I'm still sticking with a non-DV camcorder as the prices are still ridiculous for most and I doubt many of you have one. I did research the newer models available and found it interesting that Sony had a DV ready model that was able to capture footage at some 1024 lines or so. Too bad the near $2k price tag will keep most users from bothering with it yet.

Starting with the input testing, I played back the same footage I used for my V7700 Deluxe review and compared playback quality. I was hoping to see a clear advantage on the AIW product but I did not. This has most likely to do with the already poor video quality that was being pumped into it. When I ran DVD video in, the story remained the same however so I figured that ruled out the poor input excuse.

When it came to output, the desktop edges did seem slightly jagged on both machines but everything else like DVD playback was nearly identical. Text is still a pain to read on a TV and I wouldn't advise for any type of text work to be done on a TV set (at least until we all have HDTVs). I couldn't pick a winner in this area, as the quality was too close on each solution.

Next I loaded up my indoor and outdoor footage and made high and low quality NTSC MPEG-2 videos. Wow, the AIW Radeon finally came through! High quality MPEG-2 footage had noticeable color clarity. The outdoor footage was the most obvious example where a wide variety of colors and brightness's existed. I'm currently working on a download effective method to show examples of the quality differences so you can see for yourselves. Hopefully this will be the case once the ELSA VIVO add-on makes it way to me. The AIW Radeon without a doubt gets the thumbs up over the V7700 Deluxe for image quality when creating MPEG-2 videos.

Driver Interface

The driver interface hasn't changed much since the Radeon so you can review it here . There was one property window that changed a little so I've added it below just as a small note.

The only big difference here is that you can see the FPD control section since the graphics card supports that feature.