Video Performance
I've been toying with some testing methodology when it came to testing the in/output of our multimedia graphics cards and decided on a few simple methods in which I can test each. For our input, I've tested our Canon camcorder through S-video as well as our Sony DVP-S530D hardware DVD player. For output, I am pushing DVD playback from the PC to our Sony KV-24FV10 Trinitron television through S-video. The last test will be to use the provided software to create a video in a certain format at a good resolution to see what type of quality and playback performance we can achieve.
Input quality is about what I expected from our V7700 Deluxe output. The camcorder provided semi blurry input but the input from the DVD was definitely clear when compared. I'm sure that if I had been equipped with a DV capable camcorder that picture quality would improve greatly as the V7700 Deluxe does claim to support DV input although I was unable to test it. I'll try to have a DV capable camcorder for our update.
Output quality of the V7700 was excellent as well. Text was probably the biggest problem but that was due to the TV and not the video output. DVD playback quality was also excellent. If I switched back and forth between my hardware DVD player and the PC, I could pick up a few minor differences but I doubt most of you will notice unless you're a video fanatic. Of course, if you were this into DVD playback, you would be solely using your hardware DVD player.
Using the Ulead software I decided to create two MPGEG-2 videos (one outdoor and one indoor) at full NTSC resolution (720x480) and see what type of frame rate and visual quality I would have. Keep in mind that my Camcorder that is not digital provides output at 525 lines of resolution. I figured that using a digital camcorder would be too high-end for this review since the digital camcorders start costing over $700. My final results looked as clear as they could for the resolution the camcorder was giving the V7700 Deluxe and the frame rate was nearly 30 FPS. Obviously the file size was enormous (due to the resolution and quality settings I used) even though I was using MPEG-2 but overall I would have to say I was happy with the results. It should be interesting to see what happens when we line-up the Radeon "All in Wonder" with this board as one of its biggest advantages was its video editing software.
