Are dirt-cheap firewire cards any good?

My dad is buying a new computer for himself. Someday, they'll probably want to do some very basic home-movie editing, burn to dvd, and mail to relatives. The Dell BTO firewire card is $40, but there are tons of cheaper ones on froogle.

How do I know if, say, the $3.99 is any good? The specification list doesn't mean anything to me. I don't suppose anyone would care to quickly glance through froogle's list of under-$40 cards and see if there are trusted brands there?

Your advice will be greatly appreciated.

 

$3.99 would have to be worth a try! But remember, you usually get what you pay for. Providing the firewire chip is of a known variety and windows detects the card with native drivers, (if you are running (W2K/XP?) or the provided drivers are stable. Then risk the $3.99.

I would feel safer with a $20 or $30 card, mind you.