Is there a difference?

[jettman]

I have a Canon Elura 80 DV camcorder. It has a 4 pin Firewire port on it. My computer does not have any Firewire ports on it. I assume I should get a Firewire PCI card for my computer? I looked on Newegg.com for Firewire cards and there are a ton of them.
Is there any difference as far as quality between Firewire cards?
Also, it looks like all Firewire cards have 6 pin ports. Will this work since my Canon has a 4 pin Firewire port?

[redwudz]

Very little difference in Firewire (1394A) cards, at least not enough to pay a lot for one. Best to stick with name brands like Adaptec, IOgear or similar. I would expect to pay around $25US for one. If you have need of USB 2.0 or more USB connections, consider a combo card with Firewire and USB 2.0.

The six pin cable just includes the power wires, which most devices don't use. There's a common 6 to 4 pin cable that I use for transfers.

[lordsmurf]

I heard that "TI" ones had problems in the past, but no personal experiences.

Some of the ones added onto video cards like ATI are not great, get a dedicated card when you can.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Look for 'OHCI Compliant',I think most cards now use VIA chips.

[Jester700]

My first one was a Pinnacle (the first Studio DV), because at that time Texas Instruments WAS the chip to get! Since then, I've gotten several OHCI cheapos (most were VIA) and never had issue with any.

[guns1inger]

Yeah - in the beginning TI were the best and mosr reliable. If you are getting vanilla firewire there is little to tell them apart. It is when you are looking at specialist cards that things are not so clear cut. The Creative SB1394 port of the audilogy was not fully compatable with all 1394 devices, and the FW ports on some video assist/real-time effects cards will happily capture video, but can't be used for external drives or FW networking.