InfiniteNothing
07-24-2005, 12:40 PM
I bought a tuner card a couple years ago from surpluscomputers. Now the card was $20 and it was even advertised here on G|A? I never really got it working and I didn't care much because I had other things I wanted to do. I went back to try and get it up to speed again and I can't seem to do it.
Yesterday, I try downloading drivers and such and read articles online until the wee hours of the morning but nothing really works. In the end I'm only able to watch TV and record 16 seconds of TV.
I'm fed up with it and I come across this site:
http://www.complaints.com/directory/2004/january/8/27.htm
As it turns out. Surpluscomputer sold a (then) 6 year old OEM version of the card that had no technical support because it wasn't meant for retail ownership as a different card. The card is even labled as the card it's trying to imitate. Of course, Surplus doesn't notify anyone bought it and doesn't even refund the guy.
Here's the warning from the manufacturer:
Note to eBay and other online buyers:
We strongly recommend that you do not purchase any "WaveWatcher TV-PCI" card listed on eBay or any other online seller if it doesn't look exactly like this picture (http://www.aitech.com/images/tv-pci_large_2chips.jpg) .
This picture (http://www.aitech.com/images/OEM_NetTV98.jpg) shows a card that is labeled as a TV-PCI card, but it is not. It is actually a discontinued OEM version of our Net-TV98 card. These discontinued OEM cards carry the TV-PCI label, so don't be fooled; look for the chips. A real TV-PCI card has two (2) large black chips, and the OEM version has one (1). This discontinued OEM card can NOT use the software listed above - it will not work. If you end up owning one of these OEM cards, this BETA OEM software may provide you with limited access to some of the card's features. There won't be any future or finalized versions of this software.
There are other people selling old stock of the actual discontinued WaveWatcher TV-PCI cards. These cards are more than 6 years old! We do not recommend installing these cards in an XP system. We provide this BETA software only as a courtesy to customers that unknowingly purchase these cards and to our customers that have upgraded to Windows 2000 or XP. The beta software does not work for everyone.
AITech will not offer any support for these discontinued OEM cards or any of our TV cards being installed in a PC with an XP operating system. XP is not supported.
Please do not call for technical support for any of these cards.
http://www.aitech.com/support/ftpwwtvpci.htm
Yesterday, I try downloading drivers and such and read articles online until the wee hours of the morning but nothing really works. In the end I'm only able to watch TV and record 16 seconds of TV.
I'm fed up with it and I come across this site:
http://www.complaints.com/directory/2004/january/8/27.htm
As it turns out. Surpluscomputer sold a (then) 6 year old OEM version of the card that had no technical support because it wasn't meant for retail ownership as a different card. The card is even labled as the card it's trying to imitate. Of course, Surplus doesn't notify anyone bought it and doesn't even refund the guy.
Here's the warning from the manufacturer:
Note to eBay and other online buyers:
We strongly recommend that you do not purchase any "WaveWatcher TV-PCI" card listed on eBay or any other online seller if it doesn't look exactly like this picture (http://www.aitech.com/images/tv-pci_large_2chips.jpg) .
This picture (http://www.aitech.com/images/OEM_NetTV98.jpg) shows a card that is labeled as a TV-PCI card, but it is not. It is actually a discontinued OEM version of our Net-TV98 card. These discontinued OEM cards carry the TV-PCI label, so don't be fooled; look for the chips. A real TV-PCI card has two (2) large black chips, and the OEM version has one (1). This discontinued OEM card can NOT use the software listed above - it will not work. If you end up owning one of these OEM cards, this BETA OEM software may provide you with limited access to some of the card's features. There won't be any future or finalized versions of this software.
There are other people selling old stock of the actual discontinued WaveWatcher TV-PCI cards. These cards are more than 6 years old! We do not recommend installing these cards in an XP system. We provide this BETA software only as a courtesy to customers that unknowingly purchase these cards and to our customers that have upgraded to Windows 2000 or XP. The beta software does not work for everyone.
AITech will not offer any support for these discontinued OEM cards or any of our TV cards being installed in a PC with an XP operating system. XP is not supported.
Please do not call for technical support for any of these cards.
http://www.aitech.com/support/ftpwwtvpci.htm