DVR PC Card - what are my options

Hi Gwyn,

I guess you've gone through what I just went through. 🙂
For some reason I thought that would be relatively easy to find.
I hope others will chime in but the closest thing I could find,
and I'm not sure I found it, is one of these from this store: http://www.clubmac.com/clubmac/shop/detail~dpno~7683845.asp

And that I found from this page:
http://www.macmall.com/macmall/search/search.asp?search=DVR%20card&redir=1&NavIDSearch=false&CurDSN=simple&calledfrom=1&incimage=on&search_dismax_property_prima ry=&search_dismax_property_secondary=&search_sort_by_header=CatCodeOrderasc%2C+score+desc%2C+Popularitydesc&search_sort_by_description=&search_sort_by_price=&search_filter_by_genericu ser_keywords=&search_filter_by_group=&search_filter_by_brand=&search_filter_by_p rice=&search_filter_by_platform=&search_dpno_field=&search_mfrpno_field=&display _search_product_description=false&display_search_available_shipping=false&displa y_product_image=true&search_remove_license_products=false&search_license_product s_only=false&search_filter_by_refurbished=false&search_filter_by_open_box=false& search_filter_by_clearance=false&search_start_row=0&search_current_page=0&search _currentwords=&fq=Manufacturer:

As you will see there is no picture, no description,
but it is among the kind of cards I think you are looking for
and it says its for PCs and Macs, and its pretty darn inexpensive
compared to the others listed on the page.
MacMall doesn't have it in stock but ClubMac claims to.
Maybe if you called ClubMac they could tell you more about it.
They'd probably have to open a box to do so as I bet whoever
you talked to wouldn't have a clue about it either.

Best of luck to you, I think you're going to need it. 😉

PS I had to break my sentences this way so every line didn't need elaborate scrolling.

I also found this one... same dealio:
http://www.onsale.com/shop/detail~dpno~7187136~descr~KworldComputers-SEC+CARD+DVR+PCI4CHf30PFS.aspx

What is it with this discussion page!?

$10? I didn't look on ebay but from this place,
http://www.worldeyecam.com/store/Geovision-DVR-Cards-p-1-c-336.html
they are pretty darn expensive.

Makes me wonder if I really understand what's what here. From $10 to a grand or more... I don't see how they could be connected.

Two names you should Google, El Gato and Miglia. They make a/v products for macs, but I'm just not certain they have what you're looking for. And this is a fantastic store for Mac Products with excellent tech support. I don't know if they have what you need but you can ask them questions and they will be glad to give you what help they can:
http://www.macsales.com/

And seriously... is it just what I'm looking at on my screen now or is this page inordinately wide?

A $25 PC SATA card to support two disk drives, in order to work in Mac, it needs a BIOS that is Mac Open Firmware or EFI compatible; testing and support, and OS X will inject changes not just from 10.4 to .5 but also along the road. And then maybe drivers, though many use Silicon Image they still need either driver or firmware or both.

And drivers just don't pop out of a hat. They take time, manual labor, testing, and be ready to retest with each and every small OS update.

And to be bootable is on top of all that.

How many Mac models? PCI-X, PCI, PCI Express? PowerPC and Intel or just one?

And yes, just throw a DSP chip or two, board and solder. Getting drivers updated for Vista - and 64-bit especially - was one of the main issues for Microsoft and customers. Biggest problem, 3-4%, was problems and bugs in graphic drivers I read, of course a very local game segment probably. Writing graphic drivers, any platform, takes months and months.

Often called "Mac-tax" that can double the cost or add a significant amount. And thankless. Have a legacy scanner? You paid $1000 for 15 yrs ago but no longer provides support when a $99 scanner can do as much or more.

Adaptec had one person working part-time on Mac driver support for SCSI controllers at one time.

So anyone wanting to "throw together" and knock out a driver... have at it! And bundle or include more drivers into OS X, and make device support less like magic, more transparent.

You're in the UK? That might make it even tougher to find one,... eh, maybe not, more international.
I think your best bet is still to talk to someone knowledgeable about this (yeah, I know, you thought you'd find someone here), So maybe you wouldn't be able to talk to OWC which was the link above, I wonder if their live chat window would work ok... Well you could always call Apple and get their opinion, they just love people in the educational field. In the meantime I'll do more checking... there's got to be an explanation for what seems the total dearth of cards available for the Mac. But maybe the Hatter is right overall and the Mac-Tax hasn't been worth paying to develop one. Still you have a lead on two at least, just not much info on either.

I'll try to come back with something. I'll contact OWC tomorrow, mine, and see what they say.

In the meantime... what are doing up so late, young lady? It's past your bedtime 😉

Message was edited by: Samsara

Hi again Gwyn,

Called Apple and after a 10 minute wait they assured me that there were ones out there
and I would simply just have to Google for them....

Emailed OWC and got an email from their Tech Supervisor:
"A preliminary search turned up only this link:
http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/Eng/
Though we do sell the Miglia products, they seem to support only one input device at a time."

The one he pointed to only seems to support 2, and doesn't look mac friendly.
But if you look at the faq's for their products they do indicate that there is some kind of Mac OS driver support.

It's really kind of disappointing. Have you considered moving the bird boxes
close to your classroom windows and installing one way mirrors? 🙂

Good Morning, Gwyn,

Then may I suggest putting the kids in boxes and letting the birds have a look at them?

Hey, this is kind of interesting. I couldn't read through it all as I fear my head will explode,
but it's definitely for Macintosh, no matter what it actually is.
http://www.bensoftware.com/ss/

I tried a different tack in finding that, I went looking for surveillance cameras and home surveillance systems and tracked them back up to what they worked with. Someone had written on a forum asking how he could connect his cameras to his macintosh and someone mentioned that link. I was very excited when I saw all the different camera views on the monitor. Post back if or when you resolve this. I'm pretty darn curious myself at this point. And using IE, well, the last version for Mac was 5 I recall and that might work.

Yes the page isn't sizing to window for some reason. Very annoying.

Thanks ***,

I owe you one. The others apparently were quite happy to allow me to
believe I was insane, or worse, my Mac was. 🙂