Remember composite input on PCI-e cards? There are new PCI-e cards sold today with composite input.
https://www.videohelp.com/capturecards?Captur … connection=PCIE
A direct connection to a capture card isn't necessarily the best solution, depending on your needs there might be better (or more available) external Comb/TBC filters.

Some Hauppage capture and/or tuner boards have composite input on a PCIE board

In the pro side, I have an Aja Kona LHE with composite in on a breakout box (kl-box). That card is based on a PCI-X design with an onboard PCI-X to PCIE bridge chip.

Conexant CX2388x variants mounted on a board with a PCI to PCIE bridge chip are a thing too.

Since none of the hauppauge etc ones do graphics, that adds just the EN7800GT to the list apart from AIWs. Managed to confirm that one here https://www.pcstats.com/articles/1938/2.html

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-11-12, 20:54:

Since none of the hauppauge etc ones do graphics

Why is that relevant?

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#goal

You have asked for help, but you're not describing what problem you're trying to solve.

ZellSF wrote on 2023-11-12, 21:14:

Why is that relevant? […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-11-12, 20:54:

Since none of the hauppauge etc ones do graphics

Why is that relevant?

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#goal

You have asked for help, but you're not describing what problem you're trying to solve.

I mean it's literally the first sentence of the post.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-11-12, 19:53:

Hi folks,

So I got a situation where it would be desirable to have a composite input into a PCIe graphics card,

Still doesn't explain why, which is important.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-11-12, 19:53:

I am aware of alternatives to PCIe for this, but I want to use the PCIe AS WELL.

I'm not sure how you think that explains anything? What are you trying to do? Why?

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-11-12, 21:25:

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-11-12, 19:53:

I am aware of alternatives to PCIe for this, but I want to use the PCIe AS WELL.

I missed the fact that you wanted this functionality on a PCIE graphics card, sorry about that.

After trying a lot of different consumer grade capture cards over the decades, I personally find that many of them have issues with configurability, image quality, stability, frame drops, AV sync issues, Macrovision false positives, forced temporal noise reduction and/or other issues . This includes at least some Nvidia cards with VIVO functionality, and their ATI equivalents, AFAICR.

While others will surely disagree, used PCIE pro gear like my Aja card is so inexpensive now, that I do not see the point in dealing with consumer gear anymore. Unless PCIE slots are limited, I see little advantage in an all-in-one type solution for modern use (composite and/or s-video capture with recent hardware/software).

If the purpose is to do to use "retro" PCIE hardware on a graphics card for video capture purpose because one wants to, that's fine. In that case, I suggest looking for the last ATI or Nvidia cards advertized with VIVO functionality. That would be about 2010-ish AFAICR.
Specifically, I believe that at some point ATI and Nvidia reference designs stopped having options for that functionality, that might give you starting point for what the latest graphics chipsets with that functionality were. From then, you might look for retail products. Expect to have fun finding or making the often required breakout cables.

Well that's why I am wanting other suggestions than AIW cards, ppl either think they are gold, or sell them bare and stripped of accessories and dongles which use custom connectors which are unobtainium. Also support for anything other than the ATI Theater 200 chip which only seems to be on AGP cards for all manner of open source or free utils to handle camera composite video like VideoLAN videoforlinux zoneminder etc etc is essentially zero on the ATI side.

It's not really that I want retro, just that it's a $0 project to repurpose "junk" parts already here, and was hoping to match a list of VIVO cards against a bunch of randoms I've got stored without having to eyeball every single one, and spend like 15 mins plus each trying to dig out a review that actually mentions the existence of the Svid at all. Some have a the 4 pin Svid which is out only and unless the bracket is labelled "Video out" or has the screen icon and =>> symbol then it's hard to know whether it's switchable like some older AGP ones were. Then also there was the 9? Pin version which has semi standard in dongles which has a higher chance of containing INs, but some assholes just put those on cards with only output, yes I'm looking at you XFX. I am using every other interface on the mATX motherboard, if I decide to build the system with a full ATX board, I will still be using every other interface on the motherboard, and will still want to double up basic VGA and a composite input. I don't think I have an available motherboard with onboard graphics that takes a CPU powerful enough to be messing with more than a single SD stream on it's own and doing nothing else, besides some of those short you on another slot anyway so doesn't get you much. Sure if we were starting from scratch and going for perfect it could swallow $20,000 easily, but yeah, available parts, science project style home monitoring and control with a bunch of different systems getting glommed in and individual handling of cameras preferable.

However, failing the chance that one is lurking here somewhere already, I was wanting to keep an eye out for a not necessarily retro but just dirt cheap lower end one.

Aha, there's some specifically TV plus vid capture plus graphics under the "Personal Cinema" branding https://videocardz.net/?s=Personal+Cinema of that list the 7300GS is PCIe and there are PCIe versions of the 6600GT and the 6800s. But then that nameplate dies apparently.

Still an uphill struggle pulling out any VIVO stuff past 2003ish maybe it did die with AGP. Though officially I think VIVO was coined by ATI so only theirs got it in model names, while nVidia mentioned it in small print or 3rd party (reseller) advertising.

Edit: no I'm wrong there, some 7900 cards with VIVO in the name, why the heck didn't google pull them for a "geforce VIVO" search before. Everything only seems to be in high end cards, the G71 seems to have support but not enabled on 7900GS apparently... which would be the one I've got of course... also seems to be in GPU now?? dang, I was hoping it was a Philips SAA something or other like the GF3 and GF4... which are still well supported 🤣 GF AGP VIVO still works in 2023 but not the Radeon versions in X800 etc cards, or maybe the GF7900s since it seems to be nVidia's special proprietary crap, seems at the moment, nobody reviewing these I can find is even plugging the Svid in to go "yeah it works" never mind actually investigating chipset of it.

If you are really low on PCIE slots, maybe getting a PCIE switch and a PCIE capture card might work for you ?

Then there is also the USB option . I have had reasonably decent experiences with Empia EM28xx bases USB 2.0 capture devices that used Philips SAA7113 analogue front-end chips (or possibly GM7113 clones). Uncompressed 720x480 interlaced 60 fields per second (assuming NTSC) video capture in YUV format with 4:2:2 sub-sampling (what most capture cards can natively capture, at best) is only about 20 Megabytes per second (if my math is correct).

There are X300 and low-end GeForce 7200 or 7300 I can't remember, OEM models from Dell/HP with S-Video. Not sure if that's helpful. Iv got a VIVO AGP x1950 pro with a proprietary S-Video with a red, blue, green breakout cable that came with it.

Yeah finding them with an S-Video is easy, telling what they do is the trick question, particularly with gems like this from PC Perspective...

""the card features two dual-link DVI outputs and a single HDTV/VIVO output for connecting your PC to your television.""

It's just an output then? Why are you calling it VIVO? the VI stands for Video Input, is it just VO?? Does anyone know what they're talking about?

Then the wikipedia page for VIVO says crap like "may be marked TV Out" what? Is that for realsies, or we just rolling with "nobody cared what VIVO actually meant in 2006 so we don't either" ????

It's as bad as that shit with phones a few years back where everyone wanted to say phones had USB OTG if they had anything looking like USB, but couldn't actually do a host mode.

I am actually finding a lot of worrying stuff on 2005ish to 2010ish forum posts where ppl are confused about capabilities and actual tech underneath it and nVidia materials quoted at the time are basically, "It has a video input thing, unless it doesn't, it does video input stuff *general arm wave* install driver (think it was just some 70s series drivers that actually worked, in theory) and things *waves arm* will do things *wave arm* " so they didn't want to commit to it specifically supporting anything or say it would work with given applications, only that some sort of applications might work if they used the windows driver interface correctly... okay, yeah that always comes out perfect... I'm not saying it never worked, it just leaves a hell of a lot of maybes hanging if you don't KNOW stuff is meant to work.

There's an XFX model with VIVO in the name that's a 7900GS, reviews say it's a reference board... the EVGA 7900GS I've got seems to be a reference board, damned if I can see one component different. So IDK whether it's a laser cut in the die one way or another on these, or whether it's BIOS or what. ... then also still nothing coming up about what the actual analog to digital chip/core/embedded IP actually is. So yeah, looking less and less likely that even if it works with XP MCE as nicely as it should have done back in the day, that it's any use for anything else whatsoever.

It was probably always poorly documented because doing it was always a bad idea. Anyone who really wanted to do this back then got a decent TV card. Anyone who wants to do it today gets a decent capture card.

First mention of a decoder chip found in a review for an MSI 7600GT card, Philips SAA7115HL, on MSI NX7600GT-VT2D256E ... and searching that and GeForce seems to be getting the largest pull of card models yet. Including many that "vaguely" had VIVO mentioned in other sources. So I guess that that is the actual VIVO McGuffin to look for. It's fairly easy to spot on the board too, half inch square chip... but some are hiding under large coolers. Looks like these are on midrange thru higher end 6k and 7k.

Heh, from a review on a .ru domain...

""The video input on NVIDIA GeForce 7800GTX has been implemented with the aid of the Philips chip marked as SAA7115HL. Unfortunately, there are too few comments on this board, so it is difficult to talk about its qualities, but what is certain is that the TV-in will work.""

So 5 years into the 21st C we could assume hardware reviewing for web is an actual career by now, and the professionals with nVidia contacts can't find out crap about this 🤣

Anyway, no digging into GPU ASIC stuff needed, it apparently isn't in there. Just looking for the SAAxxxxx, or the blank spot where it isn't.

edit: while checking for "brooktree nvidia" to see if there were competing solutions, there used to be but last was on GF2/3 era, came across a Hexus GF3 review and a hint that even back then peak VIVO excitement, nVidia were not bothering with the VIVO functionality in preview drivers, reviewers maybe couldn't review features until release drivers with VIVO support were available.

fyi, The company was bought out by Rockwell Semiconductor in 1996, which became Conexant (Nasdaq: CNXT) in 1998
from the wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooktree

So for later gfx cards I guess you'll need to look for conexant chips.

weedeewee wrote on 2023-11-14, 16:51:

fyi, The company was bought out by Rockwell Semiconductor in 1996, which became Conexant (Nasdaq: CNXT) in 1998
from the wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooktree

So for later gfx cards I guess you'll need to look for conexant chips.

Thanks, didn't occur to me to check for renaming, I thought TV cards up to 2010 or so were still using Brooktree labelled chips, but may have kept their model name with conexant featuring large on the package.

Kudos to TechARP they actually listed specs on a review, bottom half of page... https://archive.techarp.com/showarticle117b.h … rtno=274&pgno=4

Didn't actually "review" the functionality, but they may have been caught in that "preview drivers don't do it" trap.