I've been reading Tom's excellent articles on graphics cards from December and this month, but don't see any explanation of what advantage bi-directional VIVO offers, if any. Any information would be appreciated.

Vivo enabled card essentially means that you can input AND output video from the card. Also usually when you buy Vivo cards, they come with special adapters that let you plug in all sorts of things into them (ie RCA, S-video, HD inputs, etc) instead of having only the composite output in the back of the card itself. If you intend to import lots of video from Digicams, VCRs external player etc, you will need an Vivo card.

Never heard it put that way, it's redundant as VIVO stands for 'Video IN Video OUT'.

But yeah, it's great if you want to record analog sources to your computer, that's all it's good for since all other cards already have vid out, unless they cost $30

Here's where the "bi-directional" reference comes from.

Wikipedia link for "VIVO"

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Video In Video Out, usually seen as the acronym VIVO, enables video cards to have bidirectional (input and output) video transfer through one connector, by using a specialised splitter cable. VIVO is commonly pronounced "Vee-Voe", but other pronunciations are in use.

VIVO is featured on some video cards, such as the Nvidia GeForce range and the ATI Radeon series. It can receive input from RCA or S-Video sources. However, at this time, S-Video is more widely used for VIVO by both Nvidia and ATI.

Some VIVO cables also support the output of component luminance, and 2x chrominance, enabling HDTV support. However as this connection is not digital it does not support HDCP which would be required for official HDTV support as set out by the EICTA.

Still not very informative. I guess it means that one connector can accept both input and also can output video. Sounds like a mere convenience, not a necessity, but am I missing something?

Ah, it's a convenience unless you do basic video editing. I have an old VHS-C camcorder that I take family vids with and 3 of my machines have VIVO capable cards so I can "download" the vids and fix 'em up. I also have a security cam installed on another VIVO machine, I can see/hear whoever is at my front door And lastly I have two computers that display to tv's, which of course most cards can do anyway.

Exactly as i said earlier, if you intend to do a lot of importing of video from outside analog or digital sources, you WILL need a Vivo card, if not, don't bother with it. The difference between normal cards and Vivo cards (I give ATI as an example) integrate Extra chips to handle this type of work, in the case of ATI, before they added a chip called "Rage Theater", which took care of the VI part...the VO part, like the other poster said, is almost present on all type of add-in GFX cards now.

Did you ever use the appz that came with the ASUS 9600XT and 9800XT which would let you know Via email if someone "triggered" the cameras by moving if front of them?! Ive used it at first to check on stuff while at work, but stopped because each and everytime the stupid mailman came it would start sending emails and stuff..LOL Still nice little app.

I've got a slightly more professional version, lets you block off chuncks of the image to ignore or monitor, anybody goes near my garage door and I'll get a test message, dam neighbors kids anyway Front door needs activity for more than 20 seconds for it to alarm.