Behold TV cards as an alternative to ATI AIW?

[Sunk]

If there's anybody here who has used one of Beholder's Behold TV units, would you recommend them as an alternative to an ATI AIW card? They seem to be commonly spread in Russia on second-hand marketplaces (AIWs and 600 USBs were never sold here). On their website, they list various products, including PCI, PCI-E and USB. If you click on one of the "Comparative table" links, you can see what specs each card has.

http://www.beholdtv.com/products/

[hodgey]

They seem to be use similar chips/reference designs as the typical brand name capture cards of the time elsewhere. E.g the usb ones are either based on a CX23102 chip which is the same thing used by the diamond vc500, elgato usb capture and various other ones, or a trident chip which was used in some of the earlier usb dongles like the original vc500 before trident went bankrupt. Similar story with the pci and pcie ones that are Philips/NXP chip based and similar to a number of pci/pcie capture cards from hauppauge, wintv and other brands more known elsewhere.

As long as the drivers are okay they'll probably be okay. There are some different opinions here on stuff like the vc500/elgato but they're not bottom of the barrel ezcap stuff, the difference with a ATI AIW won't be very large.

[lordsmurf]

It uses generic chipsets. It's not an alternative to an AIW, just a random generic capture card to give generic random quality.

[Sunk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

It uses generic chipsets. It's not an alternative to an AIW, just a random generic capture card to give generic random quality.

I see. Pity, of course, that the forum's marketplace is unavailable to me at the moment. I guess the only other choice I have is to scout the local second-hand online stores and maybe one will pop up later sometime this year (not an ideal way from what I've read, since owners usually aren't able to perform a complex check-up, but it's either that or nothing at all)

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunk

I see. Pity, of course, that the forum's marketplace is unavailable to me at the moment. I guess the only other choice I have is to scout the local second-hand online stores and maybe one will pop up later sometime this year (not an ideal way from what I've read, since owners usually aren't able to perform a complex check-up, but it's either that or nothing at all)

Some of the Osprey cards could be considered AIW alternatives. I've not used one myself (yet), but others I know have made that statement to me. These are not random folks, but old-school AIW users that didn't accept junk.