[mythtv-users] Nvidia cards with TV-out

[Tom Cornall]

Hello everybody,

I was running an older PC with one of those PCI 8400GS cards to do VDPAU.
Unforunately keeping it in a cupboard during summer wasn't good for it, and
it looks like I cooked the card! It just displays colourful flashing squares
now.

Anyway, I'm going to pick up a new PC, one with PCI-E. I thought it'd be
easy to find a PCI-E card (it was tough to find a PCI card before) that
would do VDPAU and S-Video or component out. Apparently not! Nvidia's latest
cards (the 200 series) don't have S-video sockets. You can still find older
PCI-E 8400GS cards with TV-out, but they're getting thinner on the ground
and I can't find one locally for a good price. Plenty of 8400GS cards for
almost nothing but they don't have S-video sockets!

Anyway, I've noticed these cables for sale which are so-called `breakout'
cables -- they are VGA on one end and split into component or S-video. I
know these aren't converters, and only work on certain cards which support
them. I saw a forum post somewhere which claimed that if the chipset already
supports TV-out (which the 8400GS obviously does), then you can use one of
these cables. Is this true? Or just silly internet rumour?

Otherwise, what cards can people recommend? Or are those VGA to TV
converters any good, or is the quality poor? Never really too impressed with
the quality of the 8400GS S-video output in the first place, how much worse
could it be?

Thanks everybody,

-Tom
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