Talk:DVB-T PCI cards

PCI 2.1/2.2

I'm currently trying to find one of these cards that'll work with PCI 2.1 - I guess it'd be useful extra info for some people, but I haven't added my findings yet as I don't want to disrupt the page too much.

Do you think it'd work best as an extra page, linked to off this one, or just a note at the bottom of each card listing which PCI version it needs?

From Arny: I think PCI version info is highly usefull. As a mythtv backend server need no mpeg decoding, an older cpu+mainboard (pci<2.2) with budget card(s) may be perfectly suitable peformance-wise. I myself got bitten by pci version incompatibility, and I had looked for this info here and in other places and had not found anything.

Also I think this info doesn't require a page on its own. Its is more concise to keep it in the notes. --Arny 17:10, 12 January 2007 (CET)

While knowing what PCI version a mobo or card is is definitely useful info for some, I would have to say that (in general) most users aren't even aware that there are different versions (!). In any respect, there is absolute no need for an additional page. Please add any relevant info here and on the device's own article page. --CityK 18:30, 31 July 2007 (CEST)

Is there a way to determine from software what the numerical version of your pci bus is (incase you don't have detailed MB specs)? I can say that the Nova-T (old) works even in really old (AT) MB, but the new Nova-T requires an ATX MB with standby power (the red LED on the card stays on even when you turn the PC off). The Nova-T 500 entry implies it requires a 3.3v PCI bus, but I think that is wrong. The card is keyed to accept both 5v and 3.3v slots, so it should work in either. Also even really new MB pretty much all seem to have the same old 5v PCI bus (with the key towards the inside of the PC), for legacy cards. 3.3v PCI (with the key near the backplate) never really took off, and PCI has just been superseded by PCIe and PCI-X for cards needing more bandwidth. --Adrian.t 19:51, 30 July 2007 (CEST)

I'm not sure if you can discern this or not from "lspci", but you could check the man page for it to see what it says. --CityK 18:30, 31 July 2007 (CEST)

man pspci just tells you how to use the lspci prog, not how to interpret it's output, unfortunately. It points you to pci.h. This lists some of the capability codes and names them (but doesn't explain them), but makes no mention of pci versions. pci.h points you to [1] which has the full specifications, but you have to pay for them. Without those I can't say for certain, but I strongly suspect from what I have been able to find that the differences between 2.1-2.3 are fairly trivial, mostly just tightening things up a bit here and there. Hardware that fully conforms to 2.3 is more likely to work flawlessly together, but in the vast majority of cases I think that anything that conforms to 2.1 (probably even 2.0) should work together fine. Just because a card doesn't work probably in a particular 2.1 MB, that is probably due to a random problem with that MB, and most other 2.1 MB will still work. The only big pci compatibility issue is 5v or 3.3 v signalling, but either one of these can be used when designing a MB supporting pci versions 2.1-2.3 (2.0 is only 5v, 3.0 is only 3.3v). However, all the MB I've seen are still 5v with the key near the inside of the case, and all the modern pci cards I've seen are compatible with both voltages anyway (they have both voltage notches, so can be plugged into either type of slot), including the Nova-T 500. If I ever get hold of the full specs I might be able to confirm or refine this, but for now all I can say for sure is that I have 4 Nova-Ts (new type) working fine in a very old Pentium 2 450Mhz PC. --Adrian.t 20:53, 5 August 2007 (CEST)

Tidy-up

Gah, that took ages. Everything is now in alphabetical order by brand, and then chronological order by card. All the cards that were sharing one entry are now separated out. All the Connectors and Notes entries are now bullet-pointed. Various spelling and grammatical improvements have been applied.
On a less visible level, there's a gap between each entry in the Wiki code, to improve readability for editing. I don't think I did anything else - hopefully people'll notice the conventions I've introduced and respect them!

Well done. That must have taken a lot of effort! I've added a section for DViCO. Tell me off if it's wrong. - Dark_Ixion 16:53, 30 Oct 2007 (GMT)

Very recently there has been a whole sale reformatting, but this note was not made in its regards. Your actually responding to a note written on July 21, 2006 by Napalm Llama --CityK 13:55, 31 October 2007 (CET)

DVICO cards

It's my first time visiting this site so I didn't want to jump in the deep end straight away, but is there any reason the DVICO cards are listed at the end, instead of in the table? -- Chuq 03:35, 12 June 2007 (CEST)

No other reason other then when I added or moved the cards there I either didn't have time etc. etc.... Regardless of what the particular reason was (and I assure you I'll never remember it :) ), just consider their current location a placeholder. Feel free to amend them to the table .... else I will get around to it eventually (circa 2009? at my current pace). Cheers. --CityK 04:55, 13 June 2007 (CEST)

I hadn't noticed that. I've added a DViCO card to the list though. Dark_Ixion 16:50, 30 Oct 2007 (GMT)

Thanks. I moved those two bulletted Dvico cards to your newly created section. If anyone wants to figure out the appropriate information, or whether the cards are even supported, then they are there for the taking. --CityK 13:55, 31 October 2007 (CET)

Working, not working separation of the list

I think it could be best the information shown here by making two tables, with the same structure of the actual (I like it), to make easy for the people who want to know quickly if a card is working or not, and then, if they want to know since what kernel version take a look to the pertinent cell. --howl 23:56, 26 July 2007 (CEST)

Yep, definitely want to incorporate something like that to make infor more clear to users --CityK 07:09, 27 July 2007 (CEST)