A couple of quick questions HD playback?

joni944 · 2 Jan 2009 at 17:20

Im looking at getting a new graphics card for hd playback as my graphics card is old. Does hd playback depend on the monitor/website/graphics card as im stuck on this topic as im not sure hat i need for good hd playback?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

95thrifles · 2 Jan 2009 at 17:52

They would all have to be capable of supporting HD for you to view something in HD, so you need one of latest gfx cards and a decent montior which is at least 24", as well as your source, whether it be via a website or bluray or whatever

joni944 · 2 Jan 2009 at 17:58

Ok i have a hd monitor with 1080p capability. What card would you suggest it will only be for hd playback not gaming. You mean by source if the website supports hd like youtube or vimeo?

95thrifles · 2 Jan 2009 at 18:13

Whats the rest of your system?
What sort of budget can you afford?
And no its not just whether or not it supports HD, that video file would have have to of been recorded in HD too, if you watch a normal youtube video it doesnt matter how good your monitor/gfx card set up is, they cant make the video play in a higher resolution than it was originally recorded

joni944 · 2 Jan 2009 at 18:17

I got vista 32bit, terrible graphics card, amd 64 x2 5000+ @ 2.60ghz, 2gb ram. My budget is not that much lower end.

95thrifles · 2 Jan 2009 at 18:22

This one would do the trick, only £46, you didnt say your M/B but I presume its PCI-E not AGP

joni944 · 2 Jan 2009 at 18:30

yes its pci-e. so that card will be great for hd playback, so i will be able to stream hd from youtube full screen with no flaws?

95thrifles · 2 Jan 2009 at 18:33

so long as you use a cable that supports HD too, a DVI will do it, not an old VGA cable, they cant transmit enough data along them

Big.Wayne · 2 Jan 2009 at 18:36

joni944 said:
Im looking at getting a new graphics card for hd playback as my graphics card is old

Hey joni944,

Most modern graphics cards can offload the Video processing element from the processor, even some motherboards have humble IGP's which deal fine with Blue-Ray playback!

I think AMD hold all the aces for low-powered, HD Playback, Light gaming cards at the moment, either of the two below will be fine although the HD4670 is more suited to a machine which does a bit of light gaming too!

Asus ATI Radeon EAH3450/HTP/512M Vcool Silent 512MB

£29.89 inc VAT

HIS ATI Radeon HD 4670 IceQ Turbo 512MB

£65.54 inc VAT

joni944 · 2 Jan 2009 at 18:41

Thanks for all the help i will have a look at the cards suggested.

Big.Wayne · 2 Jan 2009 at 18:44

No worries, I think between the cards 95thrifles and I suggested you will have a winner!

Maybe worth reading a few reviews, also some of the cards with fans make quite a bit of noise, not really a bonus for a system for watching films and stuff!

joni944 · 2 Jan 2009 at 19:06

Ok i had a look at both of them, is there that much difference between them. Am i going to see a big difference.

Big.Wayne · 2 Jan 2009 at 19:10

Your not gonna see any difference if your just watching BluRay!

If you are doing advanced stuff like 7:1 sound, upscaling DVDs and gaming then go with one of the HD4xxx series!

joni944 · 2 Jan 2009 at 19:26

Its manley for hd videos. Not to much advanced stuff. And what does it mean by tv out on the description.

whiskycycle · 2 Jan 2009 at 19:28

95thrifles said:
This one would do the trick, only £46, you didnt say your M/B but I presume its PCI-E not AGP

Just bought that card myself for the HTPC.

It whips the old 3870 into submission that I was using to play Blu-ray discs! Machine struggled to play The Dark Knight with the 3870 for some reason (even on clean build) so did a bit of searching and plumped for that card.... much quieter/cooler/easier on the juice than the 3870 and works a treat for all the Blu-ray discs I've got. Am also piping it via the HDMI adaptor to a Full HD LCD and it's spot on for that as well.

joni944 · 2 Jan 2009 at 19:40

Thanks for the info

Big.Wayne · 2 Jan 2009 at 19:41

joni944 said:
terrible graphics card

Cmon then joni944, tell us which graphics card you have!

joni944 · 2 Jan 2009 at 19:49

I got a geforce 7300 le :mad:

Big.Wayne · 2 Jan 2009 at 20:16

You could probably sell that for £10 inc on the second hand market!

I've seen quality used passive HD3450's selling for about £20 inc if your really strapped and just need to get the job done for as few a quid as possible!

sunama · 2 Jan 2009 at 20:34

OP. Have you in the first instance, actually tried to watch HD videos on your PC?

I ask this, because I think your PC might be able to do whatever it is that you are wanting it to.