question about firewire cards

[nachomur]

hi friends !
i'm in process to buy a sony trv 350 digital camcorder, and i want to add to my pc a firewire port, in order to capture perfect quality digital video from the camcorder to the pc.
i saw that there are a lot of firewire cards, with very different prices. please, could anybody tell me if i'm making a mistake buying a cheap card ??
thank you very much !
kind regards,
nachomur

[Tommyknocker]

Maybe I am wrong, but I have been a member here for a while, and I do not recall a firewire card ever causing a problem.

[Metaluna]

I've heard some complaints here and there about VIA firewire chipsets, but a lot of people have used them without any problems at all. I just got a new motherboard that has a VIA chipset and I'm still putting it through its paces, but it has been fine so far. Texas Instruments and Agere-based cards are generally pretty good, with good compatibility and low CPU usage.

Here is a link to a vendor that sells a really nice, cheap firewire card:

http://www.firewiremax.com/3porpcifirca.html

I've bought several cards from here (they used to use the Agere FW323 but now they are claiming they use one of the new TI chips, which should be very good). This card also is nice because it has an auxiliary power connector, and an internal firewire connector in case you are using a device bay. These two features (which aren't used very often, admittedly) are usually missing on the cheap VIA cards. Note that the "sale" price has been the same for at least the past 6 months or so .

[sterno]

A lot of times the main differences between a cheap firewire card and an expensive one are the software bundle and the manufacturer's warranty coverage. Most of the cards use almost identical hardware, I think there are only two or three common types of Firewire chipset.

[alchemy]

Hi,
almost any firewire card will work, The sony 350 camera works very well but be careful of via 133 chipsets on motherboards all others work well. I'm using ati 8500dv card and the sont 350 very pleased with the results.

[nachomur]

hi,
thanks a lot to all of you for your explanation !
i'm waiting for my camcorder in order to begin my caps !
kind regards,
nachomur

[nachomur]

hi friends,
i bought a cheap firewire card, i connected it in my pc, installed the drivers, etc, etc.
when i connect my Sony TRV-350, i can play, review, fast forward, and manage almost controls of the camcorder. But when i want to capture a clip, i become an error message from the capture software (Pixela ImageMixer) : "Message #-[IM01013]. Unable to capture the clip. Check tape and device:"
please, could anybody help me ??
thank you very much !
kind regards
nachomur

[Metaluna]

Have you tried capturing using one of the popular and reliable freeware/shareware capture utilities like DVIO, WinDV, or Scenalyzer Live? I would try one of those and see if you still get error messages.

Here is the link for Scenalyzer. Check the Tools section of this website for the download links for the other ones.

http://www.scenalyzer.com/main.html

Also, are you using Windows 2000 or XP? If so you should not have needed to install any drivers other than a DV codec as 2000 and XP have native Firewire support.

[nachomur]

hi,
thanks for your answer.
first i tried with Pixela ImageMixer (cames with the Camcorder), then tried with Ulead VideoStudio 7, with same results. Now i tried with WinDV, Scenalizer LIVE and DVIO, with same result with all of them...
i can play, ff, rew, etc, etc, the camcorder from the pc, but no video nor audio were captured.
The error message i became with Scenalizer are:
first of all. with the Microsoft DV Video and Camera driver:
i *** Error:cc:can't connect336
! ScLive has not received any video from the driver. Close any other program that uses this capturing device.

with Microsoft-Adaptec DV 1394 Capture driver, and after aprox 25 seconds of "non-capture", while camcorder plays the tape normally:
"There is no device-control at the moment. You will have to push <PLAY> on the camera to start capturing. The features indexing and Batchcapturing are not available.

i will appreciate any kind of help !
kind regards,
nachomur

[Kablooie]

I am experiencing the exact same problem with my sony MiniDV cam. Please help!

[FOO]

I think you guys need to get a DV codec.

[Tommyknocker]

Well, XP Home comes with a DV codec. I still don't know why it does not work for them. Have they tried it on another computer?

[nachomur]

i'm not the only one with this problem !
where should i find a DV Codec ???
thank you very much !
regards,
nachomur

[Tommyknocker]

Where you find most tools. In the Tools section at left.

[nachomur]

hi, bad news...
i tried yesterday with canopus and panasonic dv codecs, the error is the same...
regards,
nachomur

[jtor]

if you're not so tight on the budget, I'd recommend that you buy a 'true' firewire card. The money you've saved when you bought the cheap card was not enough to compensate for the time you've wasted in trying to solve the problem, and for the pain-reliever medicine that you need to buy for the headaches this might have caused...

Consolation...you don't need to throw the cheap card away. You might find some need for it later (for external firewire devices).

Trust me...been there, done that!!!

[Gazorgan]

You need the 'drivers' for your camcorder. That is, your computer needs to know what commands to send to the camera and how it will respond. It's not a universal instruction set, although it should be. You can't just plug in a USB or Firewire device and expect it to work.

[capitola]

I had problem using the on board VIA firewire card that comes with my ASUS P4C800 Deluxe when I use Ulead Videostudio 7. I believe this is a firewire card vs. Video software compatibility problem. Check the Ulead website to see the list of firewire card its software are compatible to. I finally bought a Pinnacle DV firewire card and it worked. It also worked with a SIIG firewire card.

[nachomur]

i installed all the drivers that cames with the camcorder.
i'll try to go to the card's seller in order to try the connection camcorder-card-pc. if this doesn't work, i'll buy a 'true' firewire card...
thank you very much !
regards,
nachomur

[nachomur]

hi,
good news !
i installed win xp last weekend, and everything is working OK ! i can capture audio and video from tape. perhaps win98 should not recognize the camera...
thank you for your help !
regards,
nachomur