Best Connectivity 1394a/USB2 Combo PCI-Express Card Review

I have a fairly new Gateway computer that's really fast, perfect for a task like editing some videos that I've had laying around the house. However, the problem was that the camcorder I borrowed used a FireWire port (also known as iLink and IEEE1394) to feed video into the computer and my computer did not have a matching FireWire port. Therefore, I went to the neighborhood computer store and bought a Best Connectivity 1394a/USB2 Combo card for $45.

What it is

The Best Connectivity 1394a/USB2 Combo card fits into a PCI-Express slot in a standard PC-style computer. Your computer must have a PCI-Express slot to work with this card. The card has two FireWire and two USB ports on its back panel and one of each connector on the edge of the card, where they face the inside of the computer. (Take a look at the picture to the right to see what the card looks like.) The card consumes a single slot in the computer.

Installing it

I had two open PCI-Express slots in my computer and needed only one for this card. I popped the cover off the side of the computer and wrestled a bit to get the Best Connectivity 1394a/USB2 Combo card seated properly. All of a sudden, it was seated in the slot and I snapped the fastening bracket back into place. I put the cover back on the computer and that was it for installation. I fired the computer up and the card worked perfectly -- there were no drivers to load, no settings to tweak and nothing to adjust.

Using it

As I said, I booted the computer and the card just worked. No drivers needed to be loaded and the computer didn't even go through the usual routine when a new component is installed. In fact, I had a sinking feeling that the Best Connectivity 1394a/USB2 Combo card wasn't recognized by my Gateway computer, and therefore wasn't working.

However, I plugged my camcorder into the FireWire port and it worked perfectly. My video editing software let me control the camcorder exactly the way it should, and video was fed into the computer without a glitch -- all through a single FireWire cable. I was able to make my edits and could have fed the edited video back to the camcorder to record on a videotape, but I saved the videos on the computer and burned a couple on DVDs. It all worked MUCH easier than I expected.

Through several hours of editing, the Best Connectivity 1394a/USB2 Combo card was completely transparent, working flawlessly without the least bit of attention on my part.

Summary

The Best Connectivity 1394a/USB2 Combo card works perfectly for me. I possibly could have bought it cheaper over the Internet but I wanted the card right away to work on my editing project and the card solved my connectivity problem. The card, which may have a part number of SE-BOXG-BC-PECMB-1, was a little tricky to get seated in the PCI-Express slot. Once seated, however, it has worked perfectly.

I recommend the Best Connectivity 1394a/USB2 Combo card.