Thread: PCIe card recommendation
Brought to you by:
aeb,
bencollins
From: Carl K. <ca...@pe...> - 2012-04-24 19:51:19
|
I need to buy 20 or so PCIe firewire 400 cards. (10 machines, 2 cards each, or 1 card with 2 bus/chips - I need to plug in 2 dv video devices) Has anyone shopped around recently? Are there any I should avoid? -- Carl K |
From: Clemens L. <cl...@la...> - 2012-04-25 08:14:26
|
Carl Karsten wrote: > I need to buy 20 or so PCIe firewire 400 cards. (10 machines, 2 cards > each, or 1 card with 2 bus/chips - I need to plug in 2 dv video > devices) http://subversion.ffado.org/wiki/HostControllers#Recommendations (Those are chips, not cards.) As far as I know, only IOI and Unibrain make dual-controller cards. The only S400 cards with multiple controllers, the FWX3-PCIE1XE120/-3, have three chips and are not widely available, so two cards might be cheaper overall. > Has anyone shopped around recently? Yes, in Germany. :) Which retailers would you consider? > Are there any I should avoid? The most problematic controllers aren't typically used on extension cards. Avoid cards with a PCI controller behind a PCIe/PCI bridge (cards with two visible chips). This also applies to the TI XIO2200A, which has a built-in PCIe/PCI bridge which is so slow and buggy that TI has discontinued this chip. Regards, Clemens |
From: Stefan R. <st...@s5...> - 2012-04-25 13:00:05
|
On Apr 25 Clemens Ladisch wrote: > Carl Karsten wrote: > > I need to buy 20 or so PCIe firewire 400 cards. (10 machines, 2 cards > > each, or 1 card with 2 bus/chips - I need to plug in 2 dv video > > devices) Wouldn't the two DV devices be able to work simultaneously on the same bus? You would of course have to configure them to transmit on separate channels. Haven't tried that myself yet with my three DV specimen (consumer grade camcorders), and don't know what the chances are to get this working with random devices. AFAIU, bus bandwidth is enough for two S100 DV streams. Perhaps three if you cheat and cut into the 1/5 of total bandwidth which are reserved for asynchronous transfers. > http://subversion.ffado.org/wiki/HostControllers#Recommendations > (Those are chips, not cards.) > > As far as I know, only IOI and Unibrain make dual-controller cards. Point Grey offer a dual S800 card too. > The only S400 cards with multiple controllers, the FWX3-PCIE1XE120/-3, > have three chips and are not widely available, so two cards might be > cheaper overall. There are also PCIe cards with 2x TSB43AB22A available, made by IOI. And indeed, two 1x cards are cheaper in retail than one 2x card. > Avoid cards with a PCI controller behind a PCIe/PCI bridge (cards with > two visible chips). This also applies to the TI XIO2200A, which has > a built-in PCIe/PCI bridge which is so slow and buggy that TI has > discontinued this chip. Those were very commonly used on 1394A PCIe cards though, and apparently still are. I have one XIO2200A based card which seemed to work OK overall when I tried it briefly. I didn't stress it much though, and now the slot is occupied by a different card. -- Stefan Richter -=====-===-- -=-- ==--= http://arcgraph.de/sr/ |
From: Carl K. <ca...@pe...> - 2012-04-25 14:15:17
|
On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 7:59 AM, Stefan Richter <st...@s5...> wrote: > Wouldn't the two DV devices be able to work simultaneously on the same > bus? You would of course have to configure them to transmit on separate > channels. Haven't tried that myself yet with my three DV specimen > (consumer grade camcorders), and don't know what the chances are to get > this working with random devices. > Someone I trust, likely Dan Dennedy, said "it could work, but in practice it doesn't." I think the problem is the device (camera) doesn't have the inelegance to negotiate using a different port. I also hear someone has been successful using dvgrab by specifying the device guid, but I never got any details on what device or card. I have tried it in the past, the results were confusing. I quickly decided it wasn't worth messing with. I'll be happy to setup a box with a few cards and devices plugged in if someone wants to feed me some tests. Or send me a public key and I'll give you root. -- Carl K |