Firewire Question....

[lafemmex]

Hi All,

I want to continue editing video but I'm seriously running out of room on my computer hard drive. So I'm gonna buy an external hard drive. My question is: how do I know if I have a firewire connection? I think I do because when I go under device properties, it lists an IEEE 1394 connection but I don't know if I have a firewire 400 or 800. Anybody know how I might be able to tell? Thanks a bunch for any help you can give...

Gratefully,
Melissa

[Jeremiah58]

You should be able to see the firewire connector (usually a 6 pin connector) on the rear panel of your machine.
Use Google search (pictures) to see how it looks.

[waheed]

Firewire 800 is still very rare. Usually, IEEE1394b refers to firewire 800 and IEEE 1394 or IEEE 1394a refers to firewire 400, so I would say you have firewire 400.

[Capt.Video]

For the sake of argument, the terms are interchangable. If your capping in DV then you have firewire. Since there is not a need for a supercomputer to cap DV, then a firewire HD should be able to perform well enough to allow capping without dropped frames.

Good luck,
Andrew

[lafemmex]

Thank you to all who replied! I'm now quite sure that I have the Firewire 400 connector. Now I can proceed with my purchase Happy Holidays and thanks again!

Gratefully,
Melissa