Hello securityman,
Thank you for your question.
Some Video capture cards are also used as the display adapter card
while some are for the sole purpose of video capture. In this case, it
will require another card to connect to your monitor to display the
image.
Most current video cards are available in AGP slot and some still in
PCI, though those are rapidly being phased out. Even AGP now is
available in different speeds such as AGP, AGP 2X, AGP 4X, etc. You
will need to know the capabilities of your motherboard and buy
accordingly.
The short answer to cost vs quality is no, spending twice as much will
not be twice as good. What you are buying in general at higher prices
is speed, memory and the ability to paint textures. The most expensive
video cards sold today are actually targeted toward gamers.
TechTV has an excellent article:
http://www.techtv.com/products/print/0,23102,3340310,00.html
Upgrade Your Video Card
"...Today's video cards depend on a variety of system resources --
especially the CPU. In addition to feeding the video card with the
information it needs to function smoothly, the CPU must also perform
the bidding of any active resident programs. Those programs include
what is usually the biggest resident of all: the operating system.
Modern video cards can churn through more data than all but the
fastest CPUs. Any load you can remove from the CPU will translate into
increased video performance. But this will only get you so far....
...Recommended Video Cards
TechTV Labs' favorite 3D video card for subgigahertz systems is the
Nvidia-based GeForce3 Ti 200. Part of Nvidia's original Titanium
series, the GeForce3 Ti 200 is a 64MB video card sold by a variety of
manufacturers, including Asus, VisionTek, Gainward, Inno3D, Leadtek,
and PNY. GeForce owners enjoy great driver support thanks to Nvidia's
"unified driver architecture." The same driver package supports all
Nvidia-based TNT/GeForce graphics cards. While the GeForce3 series has
since been discontinued in favor of the GeForce4, the remaining GF3 Ti
200s are faster than the "value" GeForce4 MX cards and can be found
online for under $100...
...If you need to capture and edit analog video on your PC, then ATI
Technologies' All-in-Wonder Radeon 7500 is an excellent choice. It
combines decent 2D/3D performance, 64MB of DDR memory, and excellent
DVD-playback quality. The AIW Radeon 7500 is an AGP card and can be
found online for under $150...
As you can see, most of the decisions talked about relate to 3D and
video gaming. You will not need these capabilities for viewing CCTV
that you capture.
At AboutComputer Reviews:
http://www.basichardware.com/howto_install_a_video_card.html
"Video cards are the fastest changing computer technology right now.
Because of this, you may want to upgrade your video card once or twice
during your computer's lifetime. This will provide you with faster
game performance as well as newer features to support the newer
games..."
Everywhere you turn, this seems to be the topic to discuss re: video
card choices.
InfoHQ.com
http://www.infohq.com/Computer/choosing-computer-parts.htm
"I like to play 3D games on my computer to relax and to see how it
performs, I am not an extreme gamer, and as long as a game plays well
I don't worry too much about frame rate.
As a matter of fact, I have been quite happy with my old GeForce 2 GTS
card and I haven't felt left behind in any new game that I have
played. How is this possible?
Well if you are a computer game manufacturer, are you going to write a
computer game to run well on the 5% of the fastest video cards, or are
you going to shoot for good performance on the 80% of mainstream video
cards?
So what I want is the best bang for my graphic card buck. Certainly
not the newly crowned speed king, the $400 Radeon 9700. One year from
now that card will sell for less than $200, and if I feel like I need
it I can buy one then.
Right now, I like the GeForce 4 NVidia Ti 4200 cards. You get the
performance of the NVidia Ti chipset for a very reasonable price, and
the NVidia Ti family is faster than all other graphic cards, except
the Radeon 9700.
The 64 MB versions have faster memory than the 128 MB versions, but
the 128 MB of video RAM could come in handy for future games. The 64
MB versions are usually in the $150 price range and the 128 MB
versions are about $190. I'll probably pick the card that is the best
deal..."
Tom's Hardware has an excellent article that may be helpful in making
your choice:
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/19971109/
"I receive a lot of mail nowadays from people who don't know which
graphic accelerator card to get and I can understand that there are a
lot of choices for all kind of different needs. There's a lot of hype
thrown at us from all the different card and chip manufacturers on the
graphic market too and you can easily face a huge disappointment if
you should make the wrong choice.
The difficulty in choosing the right video accelerator card comes from
the different needs we have for this piece of hardware. As usual we'd
prefer getting a card that can do everything at an excellent level and
this if somehow possible for a low price as well. However the
miraculous cheap all-round card isn't out yet and I guess that it will
possibly take forever until all our needs will be pleased. Hence we
have to make our mind up what is most important to us and also how
much money we are willing to spend.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is if we will use our
system mainly for professional work or mainly for games. Most
professional cards are not great at games and vice versa....
Considerations for Professionals - Picture Quality
If you are working on your computer professionally one of the most
important things is the picture quality. This is achieved by a high
quality and high clocked RAMDAC. Most of the new graphic chips have
included the RAMDAC internally, thus saving cost, but the best picture
quality is still produced by an external RAMDAC. The most popular
cards with external RAMDACs are Matrox Millennium I and II and Number
Nine's Revolution 3D. These cards are still offering you the sharpest
and cleanest picture on the screen. If you have got an expensive
monitor, you want to use the high refresh rates your monitor supports.
As a simple rule you should at least have a refresh rate of 85 Hz
available for all the resolutions you want to use. Refresh rates of
120 and more sound nice, but they won't give you much of an advantage
anymore. Responsible for this is again the RAMDAC. The higher its
clock rate, the higher are possible refresh rates..."
And at Emcomp:
http://www.emcomp.ca/choice2buy/video.htm
"Video
When an image appears on your monitor, it is coming from a piece of
equipment in your computer called a video card. The quality and type
of video card has a great impact on how good the image appears. There
is mainly three things to look for when choosing a video card. You
should look at the manufacturer, the bus type and how much RAM is
onboard. When we say the bus type, we are referring to the type of
expansion slot it plugs into on the motherboard. See Technical Terms
for an explanation on this topic. ISA and PCI are older technologies
and AGP is the current technology used.
Some good manufacturers of video cards are NVIDIA, ATI, Asus Graphics,
and Matrox. The amount of RAM that you need on your video card is
relative to the size of the monitor. For example, if you have a 17"
monitor, you should have 8 to 16 meg RAM. If you have a 19" monitor,
you should have at least 32 meg RAM on your video card. Another factor
that may affect the amount of RAM needed is gaming. High resolution
games will run better with larger amounts of RAM..."
And Directron.com
http://www.directron.com/howtochoosvi.html
How to Choose a Video Card
By Dr. Michael
"The following advice is based on many years of experience. It is
provided as a free service to our customers and visitors. However,
Directron.com is not responsible for any damage as a result of
following any of this advice. You are welcome to distribute these tips
free to your friends and associates as long as it's not for commercial
purposes.
These are major consideration factors in choosing a video card: video
speed, resolution, and price. We offer the following advice for
visitors to weigh these factors according to four types of PC users:
average, above average, graphic workers, and gamers...
For graphic designers and CAD workers, resolution is the most critical
factor. Higher resolution typically means slower speed. Therefore a
video card with a combination of high-resolution chipset and a large
amount of memory is recommended. Keep in mind that the highest
resolution one can achieve is also determined by the maximum monitor
resolution. That's why graphic designers often use high-resolution,
low-dot-pitch professional monitors.
By definition, gamers love high speed, especially raw 3D processing
speed. They often choose the most advanced chipset with the highest
amount of memory. The most advanced and often most expensive video
cards are designed for gamers.
Video card speed is determined mainly by three factors: chipset speed,
amount of memory, and the type of onboard memory. SGRAM is faster than
SDRAM. If you care about speed, make sure you get the faster memory
chips on the video card..."
So, what you can see from the above cited articles, is that for your
needs you should choose a high quality video card with 32-64MB of RAM
and the capability to drive your monitor to the resolution your
require and at the desired refresh rate. Foregoing 3D graphics will
keep the card very reasonably priced and yet provide you with a
quality viewing experience for you CCTV needs.
You will find a number of reviews of video cards to help narrow your
choice at CNET:
http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-1106.html
Search Strategy:
choosing +agp +video +card
2d video card +review
I trust my research has provided you with a good background on video
cards. If a link above should fail to work or anything require further
explanation or research, please do post a Request for Clarification
prior to rating the answer and closing the question and I will be
pleased to assist further.
Regards,
-=clouseau=- |
