question for a friend about tv-out

my buddy is putting together a new system,

p4 2.4gig
1536mb RAM - 3 sticks of 512mb
Epox 4PEA+
2 - 120GB WD

Question is, what's his best video card solution in that all he wants is for his wife to be able to watch a DiVX movie on the TV out while he's surfing the internet and using DC without making either get really choppy on screen. He and his family aren't hardcore gamers, so they don't need a GFFX or something ridiculous. He's leaning towards an ATI Radeon 8500 w/128mb of ram and TV-out.

Thanks in advance.

Yes, go with the Radeon or possibly a GeForce 3 w/ TV-Out (Radeon prefered). Cheap and effective. :bigthumb:

:wave: Data my non-general discussion forum buddy hehe

So, I'm new to that, he'll be able to watch divx on the big tv, and still surf and shit on the monitor? :o

I wish I'd known that, I may have tried on my old gf2 with tv/out hehe

He's leaning towards the Radeon, but problem he's having is every link he finds on google for an 8500 with 128mb of ram the price is upwards of $200-$350, we think they're old links maybe, but on Pricewatch.com all I can find are 8500LE's with 64mb of ram. He's convinced that he needs the 128mb, but not if he's gonna have to spend that much money. Ideas?

I'm not sure if he'll be able to do both. My experience with my 9500 and TV-Out is the divx movie will only play when you have it set to TV-Out only. If you display on both the monitor and TV then it will play on the monitor, but on the TV it will look like a black box. So you have to be doing one or the other.

Originally posted by ChaoStar
I'm not sure if he'll be able to do both. My experience with my 9500 and TV-Out is the divx movie will only play when you have it set to TV-Out only. If you display on both the monitor and TV then it will play on the monitor, but on the TV it will look like a black box. So you have to be doing one or the other.

same

Ah, see you didn't mention using 2 displays simultaneously. If you wanna do that, you'll need 2 video cards or a dual-head card (which generally suck).

ATI has a PCI add-in board called the ALL-IN-WONDER VE that would be great for TV-in/out. It generally runs about $125.

Why would you want to surf the net while watching a DVD anyway? :p

[Edit: $118.99 on GoogleGear (http://www.googlegear.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?Product Code=320737)]

well, again, it's not me, I dunno why he'd want that, but that's what he wants, I guess for his wife to be able to watch the movie while he surfs the web and stuff, I'm gonna link him to this thread, thanks Data and everyone else :clap: