Nvidia personal cinema vs ATI AIW 9000

I bought a nvidia personal cinema geforce mx440 card today instead of a aiw
9000, got it for $130 i'm using a aiw 128 pro card for the past 3 yrs...is this
card better or worse for capture?....did i screwup? should i exchange
it?...lets hear the truth!!!
Bud-man

 

Hi Chris:

Before I purchased my 8500DV, I had an Xtasy 5564 Everything, (personal
cinema) which I bought to replace my Avermedia Stereo TV card.

I was sorely disappointed.


First of all, it came bundled with WinDVR 1.0, which was hideously
outdated, and practically useless.

The tuner picked up hard drive noise and introduced it into my captures,
which was quite audible. Neither the 8500DV or my 7200 suffer from this
malady.

When capturing Mpeg2, the screen would flicker...with ANY capture
software program. If I captured lossless, this didn't happen. I could
sit there watching television, and as soon as I hit record, the screen
would start flickering, and the artifact was reflected on the resultant
capture as well.

The remote control was pretty fair, but not as versatile as remote
wonder. In fact, if you decide to upgrade your WinDVR app, you'll lose
remote capability, unless you upgrade
your bundled disc, and I'm not sure what they're bundling these days.
The remote software is integrated into the packaged WinDVR. I had one
hell of time trying to get support, and was not able to find an upgrade
for WinDVR to make the remote work. I finally cobbled together two
different versions of WinDVR to get it working satisfactorily.

In fairness, the flickering and hard drive noise may have been exclusive
to my computer; but having tried both, AIW wins hand down.


Your mileage may very, and I hope it does. But knowing what I know now,
I'd not have purchased it.


Best,

CF

 

Thanks for the advice but i think you had the older first generation of that
card that came out in 2001.
It now comes with a geforce mx 440 chipset, windvr 2.0, ulead moviefactory
2.0se, other ulead and dvd recording software.
I'm using a old AIW 128 pro card that ive had for 3+yrs, i want to record using
48khz audio not the old 41khz.
Ive been reading all the reviews i can find on both cards......i know the
nvidia has a advantage over ati in overclocking and performance...but do i open
the box!!!??
Bud-man

 

You are correct, mine had the MX400 chipset.

The last few builds of WinDVR 2.0 were quite excellent. Capture quality
was stellar. Just remember that if you use the integrated EPG Titan
Scheudler, make sure that the title doesn't have any filename "illegal
characters", or your scheduled event will not occur.

I don't know that the new WinDVR 3 has any real advantage over 2.0.
Seems kind of bloaty to me, and the capture quality seems the same.

I just looked in my MMC 8.5. There is a provision for 48khz audio
capture...is it the hardware you have that is not compliant, or is it
just time to upgrade MMC?

You could always try it and resell on eBay if you don't care for it.

 

I just looked in my MMC 8.5. There is a provision for 48khz audio

Yes with the old non radeon card i cannot go to MMC 8 or above so no 48khz
recording..

Ive done alot of reading this morning and some people love it over the AIW but
i read some review somewere that it has only 41khz recording and WinDvr has
only a few record settings ....not alot like MMC does...ive used WinDvr before
and wasnt all that impressed...dual monitor display is nice with the Nvidia and
does the newer ATI cards stil have the same 60hz output?, my monitor is 85hz
and it sucks when you output to tv have to watch it at the same time........
Bud-man

 

No contest. The AIW wins, hands down.

The Personal Cinema isn't even a DX8 card; it's just a pumped=up GeForce2
MX. Even in its hobbled condition, the AIW can still kick ass.

IFIWY, I would definitely try to exchange it--or if you can wait, try to get
the AIW 9600 that's coming out. I think it's supposed to retail for around
$250 or so, and you get DX9 capabilities and hardware encoding assist