PCI TV Tuner (bt848/878) - $15, Internal PCI 4pt Switch/NIC - $15

[Braxus]

TV Tuner $14.99

bt848 or bt878 based TV Tuner. Well supported under Windows and Linux as there are GPLed drivers available. They mainly had the newer bt878 cards there when I bought mine @ their B&M store.

**The drivers supplied by AiTech (the manufacturer) is WAY outdated and if you plan to use this card, you WILL have to use the GPL/3rd party drivers which requires some tweaking to get it working. This is not a card that you can simply plug in and expect to work right out of the box. A good side of it is that some folks say these open source drivers tend to perform better than ones provided by companies like Hauppauge, ATi, Leadtek, etc.**


Internal PCI NIC w/4pt Switch - $14.99 (using coupon code)

Kinda interesting. A NIC and switch put on one card itself. Uses the ADMtek 983B chip for the Ethernet MAC/PHY. Linux supported by using the generic Tulip driver. Kinda cool for smaller LAN parties A switch alone usually costs that much alone (not counting MIRs). Routing functions aren't firmware based or anything. It's all software loaded. Supplied software seems to be a fully functional copy of Sygate Home Network v4.5 which is worth ~40 bucks MSRP.

**This card has only one SINGLE Ethernet controller chip that is hardlinked INTERNALLY to the on-card switch (think of it as an virtual 5th RJ45 port that's already connected). Basically, the NIC will always have its line up and running. The external ports act as a switch, so don't expect this to be a multi-ported NIC**


If you buy online, enter coupon code Free6pcs (code is advertised on front their front page) to get a free mini screwdriver set.

 

[SpaceHulk]

That Network card looks pretty cool. Has anybody used this?

 

[nebula]

Wow, doesn't that seem like ultra cheap for a tuner/capture card? Hopefully we'll get some more opinions in this thread on it.

 

[HKSturboKID]

$6 shipping from west coast to East is not that bad. Anyone has any reviews on the card?

 

[acemcmac]

They're called Tulip Cards... I have one but with all intel chips. To call it a switch is a misnomer... it is basically a way of getting 4 ethernet controllers in the space of 1 :beer:

Still experimenting with mine after having it for 5 months.

 

[Bookmage]

I have one of those cards. It works ok as a nic but it is software based and i have noticed slower performance than a linksys or a netgear. The switch feature is cool, but they work separate from the nic. Port one functions as a nic for the comp, the other 3 ports are kind of hooked together. IT does not function as 4 separate nic ports on one computer and only gives u 3 more little ports. I did not use the sygate software which was a bit confusing and did not work when I tried it. NEat to have and play with, but I did not find that much use out of it.

 

[Flatbroke]

RE: the video cap. cards.
The manufacturer warns against buys single chip OEM cards. here.

This online seller is picturing just that. They say "card and drivers", but manufacturer says only beta drivers on their website will work "to offer a few of the features". Looks like the seller is trying to make a quick buck on hardware they probably got very very cheap, and would only work well in the particular computer that the computer makers or manufacturer wrote drivers for, and are specific to that brand of computer and sound card, etc. See if you can find old dicscontinued stock, RETAIL cards for a little more money. OR if you just want a OEM to play with, for less, here.

 

[dunner]

It's also worth checking these guys on resellerratings.com they're 6 month rating is a whopping 0.10, with a 5.46 lifetime. Buyer beware.

 

[Dran]

The BT848/878 chips are also extremely well supported by a variety of freeware tuner apps, such as Dscaler, so this card should be a solid buy for anyone wanting basic TV. It's the same thing you're going to get from a Hauppauge basic model, for example.

I have a 4-port router card. Very simple, very effective, very efficient. All you do is plug a cable into one of the ports (they're all n-way), then plug three more computers into it and set their gateways and DNS to the IP address of the computer with the card. Boom, instant router/switch. The uplinked port also serves the routing PC with regular connection, so you don't even need a second card.

 

[pxc]

Originally posted by: Flatbroke
RE: the video cap. cards.
The manufacturer warns against buys single chip OEM cards. here.

Nevermind. If these are not the Philips based TV-PCI/NeTV-PCI cards, it will probably work with generic drivers.

 

[pxc]

edited for edit above.

 

[Braxus]

I bought the 4pt card and TV tuner yesterday. The TV Tuner seems to work fine with the generic open sourced drivers (linux and windows). The ones I saw were all of the bt848/878 variety. They didn't seem to have any of the Zorian type in hand to my knowledge (the one AiTech recommends folks to get). As long as you know what your doing for using the open sourced drivers (more tweaking is needed), the card seems to work well. DScaler seems to be able to catch the channels as well.

For the bt cards they had, there were three revisions I could see...

Rev Q - Uses the older bt848 (only found two of these in the bin)
Rev S, 2S, T - Uses the bt878. Dunno what else is different as they all looked the same to me. Mainly had S and 2S revisions. couple of Ts.

 

[pxc]

Nevermind. These BT848/878-based cards doesn't apply to the usual warnings for the AITech TV-PCI/NeTV-PCI (Philips tuner-based) cards.

 

[Flatbroke]

EDIT: I think I would go for the TV/Cap card from Newegg, that is getting all the posts. More expensive, but less headaches for me setting up. Thanks for the original post OP, and the discussion.

 

[ianbergman]

reading resellerratings on a place like this is fun...

 

[BurningDog]

Link

 

[Braxus]

They seem to have two feedback files, one for software and stuff and another for surplus computers (current name).

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2391.html

Last month or two seems to be kinda flakey.

 

[almostrice]

I know this place. It use to be Software and Stuff. Its in Sunnyvale by 101. For all Bay area buyers, you can pick it up locally. They also stock lots of tools made in China. like cordless drills for $11 or 2 for$20.

I dont mind buying from them, but never had to return anything. So, I cant comment on problems.

 

[fzj80]

I have bought a few things from www.surpluscomputer.com (new name)...the stuff you buy is what you would expect. I bought one of those $5.99 1/2" drills, it works, has crap for power and smells like it'll catch on fire...hard to say it but it's not really worth even $6. I also got the TV tuner card, I put it in a docking station for a HP laptop, crashed everything, so I pulled it out. I'll try it in another computer, but I'm not expecting much from it. The drivers they supplied were on a home-burned CD, rather odd and kinda cheesy, but if it works, can't complain, however mine has never worked, not worth returning it in my option.

They did ship quick and I have no complaints about their service, just expect to get what you pay for.

 

[mdcrab]

System Requirements: Pentium 75 MHz or higher IBM PC or compatible computer system., 8 MB RAM available, 4 MB free hard drive space
PCI VGA card with DirectDraw or DCI driver with 16-bit color support or better, Windows Operating System, One available PCI slot,Sound card optional, but necessary for audio capture.

Pretty stiff requirements.

mdcrab

 

[Devistater]

That network card looks interesting.

 

[jplee3]

does the NIC have driver-support for Linux? i'd imagine it should if it's just a generic card. this would be really useful on linux when setting up a DHCP server or even setting up an old linux box to be a router. i guess it wouldn't be THAT much cheaper; but hey, it's cool for geeks!

 

[TTM77]

The resolution on the TV Tuner isn't good. With the fine pixel on the monitor, you should find something alot higher resolution then 640x480. Else your eyes will become bad just like watching the regular TV.

 

[wuduhel]

Originally posted by: TTM77
The resolution on the TV Tuner isn't good. With the fine pixel on the monitor, you should find something alot higher resolution then 640x480. Else your eyes will become bad just like watching the regular TV.

only way you'll get higher res is with a HDTV capture card and that = mucho dinero (~$220). aside from that, all capture cards work at the same resolution that TV signals get. that's why you have to use an app like Dscaler to scale the resolution up to your monitor's resolution. Dscaler is by far the best.

edit:

BT848 tuner chipset is probably the most common and generic drivers are readily available. $15 if it works is a great price for a basic software encoding capture card. if you're serious about HTPC tho you should get at least a hardware encoding card or HDTV card.

 

[simo]

I wouldn't buy either of these (despite the fact that those guys are walking distance from where I sit!) I've found they have a way of "smoothening" the descriptions
e.g. I've bought a FireWire card from them, only to find out it's 100Mbps not 400!

The TV tuner, if you could even get it to work would only be decent as a WebCam (640x480) if plugged into suitable camcorder.

The so-called "router" card doesn't come with the boot ROM from the image, and is going to be dog slow (gotta be software based as no processor on that card) and a 100Mbps NIC is only about $7 anyway, so you could get 3 for this price.....