USB? IEEE 1394? HELP!!!

[lgare]

Gday,
I am about to fork out and buy a Sony DV Camcorder, and have already bought Adobe Premiere 6.5, and have just been reading thru the help screens and am suddenly confused as to what method of connection i should be using between my camera and computer.
I thought it was possible to capture DV through my USB port, but reading this i am confused.

"To capture DV video, your computer must be able to connect to a DV device using IEEE 1394 (FireWire/i.Link). "

Is IEEE 1394 the same thing as USB? Do i need to buy a IEEE 1394 card?
Thanks for your help...

[tgpo]

USB and Firewire are not the same. USB only runs at 12mb/s, while firewire is now up to 800mb/sec. USB 2.0 is now up to 400mb/sec, but firewire is still prefered. If yor motherboard doesn't support Firewire, you'll have to buy a Firewire PCI card, or buy a MAC, which has included Firewire ports for over three years.

[SLICK RICK]

Take it from me, for video transfer USB SUCKS. USB works great for my external hard drive but for my Sony DV Camera it was terrible. I had the Camera for about a year and tried to transfer video to my comp. but the quality was so terrible. So about a week ago I bought a Firewire card and cord and tried again. The results were beautiful. I transfered the video straight to Ulead MF2 and created chapters and a menu. Played it on my DVD player and it looked just as good as it did on my computer. So basically what I am saying is that if you are not going to transfer with firewire dont even waste your money getting a DV Camera.

GOOD LUCK,

SLICK RICK

[SLICK RICK]

@ tgpo,

I see you are still trying to recruit some buyers for MAC. Dont give up my friend, you will get a few...............someday.

ps. I know you had me think about it a couple of times.

SLICK RICK

[tgpo]

I see you are still trying to recruit some buyers for MAC. Dont give up my friend, you will get a few...............someday.

Maybe I'll be easier when the IBM 970s come out.

[lgare]

So they use the same connection though??
How would i check if my system (win2k) supports wirewire?
Appox how much do firewire cards cost?

Thanks for your prompt help as always...

[tgpo]

Naw, Firewire and USB use completely different connections.

Firewire Cards

[BJ_M]

So they use the same connection though??
How would i check if my system (win2k) supports wirewire?
Appox how much do firewire cards cost?

Thanks for your prompt help as always...

a ads pyro firewire card (the best) can cost as much 40$ if you skip the software ...

win2k supports firewire perfectly ..

[hoyboy]

I had to purchase a firewire card in order to download my DV camcorder to my HD. It cost me around $110 australian with a copy of ulead videostudio 5 bundled with it. I see now that there are cards cheaper than this, but you have to work out if you need the software or not. The ulead software I have maqy be an old edition, but it seems to work ok for what I am doing. BTW, I had an 850 duron before this and while it would handle the capture ok and the editing, the rendering was very slow. Upgraded to a XP2100+ athlon, a lot better now. The firewire card I bought was a Swann 3 port model, but there are combination cards out there with usb2 in it as well, might be worth a look!.

[The village idiot]

I see you are still trying to recruit some buyers for MAC. Dont give up my friend, you will get a few...............someday.

Being not a Mac user I will say that the Apple/Sony developement of firewire/iLink was one of the best things to hit computers in years. Universal Suck Bus was one of the worst (IMO).

[WeedVender]

Village Idiot (no pun intended)..

It would be much cheaper to print via USB than to fireware and much more practical.
It would be much cheaper to type on a keyboard or use a mouse, or use a joystick, or connect a game pad, or connect some speakers, or connect external floppy or digital still camera (pictures not video) than to connect them to firewire.
Much cheaper to u and the manufacturer. So USB is still a good, very good, development for small stuff but get USB 2.0 or FireWire 400, 800 (400mb transfer speed) (800mb transfer speed) for Video Cameras, External HDD, External CD or DVD burners, etc.

[tgpo]

My Keyboard, Mouse, Speakers, Microphone, and Zip Drive are all USB. No need for them to be Firewire because they'll never max out the standard 12mb/sec max rate of USB.

[MachineMan]

Firewire is the best. It will give you control of your DV cam from your PC. You should be able to get a firewire card with a i-Link cable and some software included for under $49.

[MpegEncoder]

USB and Firewire are not the same. USB only runs at 12mb/s, while firewire is now up to 800mb/sec. USB 2.0 is now up to 400mb/sec, but firewire is still prefered. If yor motherboard doesn't support Firewire, you'll have to buy a Firewire PCI card, or buy a MAC, which has included Firewire ports for over three years.

Nice try tgpo, but my crappy PC is 4 and 1/2 years old and it also has a firewire port.

[MOVIEGEEK]

@Igare,
This thread may help:https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=157758&highlight=

[lgare]

forgive me if i'm ignorant, but do firewire and USB use the same connector?
I have 2 onboard USB (or i so i assume) ports, plus another 2 (again, i assume they are USB) in the space of a PCI Card, but connected to the motherboard via a cable.
Is Firewire A totally different technology? Is it a software/cable thing?

When My Camera Specs talk about:

• USB Streaming
  i.LINK (IEEE1394) IN / OUT

what does it mean?

I am running a 1000Mhz AMD Duron with 256MB Ram, Win2K
I'll probably need to grab myself another hard drive also, these two are almost full and onyl maek up a total of about 14Gig

[hoyboy]

No, they are not the same connector. They look a little bit similar but are not the same. Sometimes your motherboard can come with firewire on board but given the age of your computer, it is unlikely. If you still have the motherboard instruction book it will be able to tell you if you have it. The pack I purchased was a Swann DVStarter Pack, which had software, the card and a cable inside. Firewire is usb on steroids

[hoyboy]

just read the thread again, you will need a much bigger hard disk than what you have already, every 20mins of captured video works out about 4GB. I tried to do this with a 20GB hd at first, soon gave up and bought an 80GB h/d for about $230 aust. Works well now

[tgpo]

Nice try tgpo, but my crappy PC is 4 and 1/2 years old and it also has a firewire port.

Now was that standard with your build, or extra?

[SeeingMole]

Just a correction.

There are different Firewire speed steps, 100, 200 and the most common is 400 Megabits/sec. NOT MEGABYTES.

You'll have to divide by 8 to get megabytes.
In other words, 400 mbit/sec = 50 megabytes/sec.

Firewire 800 and 1200 is as far as I know still in the planning.

USB1 is 12 mbit/s and USB2 is 480 mbit/s.

This is of course theoretical maximum bandwidth capacity. Doesn't mean that the device will actually deliver at this speed.

Even though USB2 have higher bandwidth than firewire, firewire devices seems to be faster than USB2.

[lgare]

yeh i gathered i would need a MUCH bigger HD.
I've lost my manual for now...
The firewire card you purchased, what speed is it?

[The village idiot]

Village Idiot (no pun intended)..

It would be much cheaper to print via USB than to fireware and much more practical.
It would be much cheaper to type on a keyboard or use a mouse, or use a joystick, or connect a game pad, or connect some speakers, or connect external floppy or digital still camera (pictures not video) than to connect them to firewire.
Much cheaper to u and the manufacturer. So USB is still a good, very good, development for small stuff but get USB 2.0 or FireWire 400, 800 (400mb transfer speed) (800mb transfer speed) for Video Cameras, External HDD, External CD or DVD burners, etc.

If the manufacturers had been wise enough to adopt firewire instead of USB, then the fire wire keyboard and mouse, etc. would be very much cheaper. Economy of scale. Both are serial communications, and very similar in protocol. Firewire has the advantage of direct connection without a hub for networking, as well as looping connections for chaining components so again, no hub. Was faster at the time of implementation, and much more solid from the start. As for items that do not need any speed, like keyboard and mouse, both USB1 and firewire are way overkill for those devices. The slow PS2 connection was good for those, even RS232 was much faster than you needed for keyboard and mouse. Mostly my enmity for USB stems from the early years when it only worked about half the time, and its total adoption without regard for its shortcomings, especially when there was a better emerging connection method that could have been adopted. There are many more reasons why I think firewire is superior. But we digress from the topic at hand. Suffice to say that I guess each has its place, whether I like it or not.

[dcsos]

There is only one speed available for CURRENT FIREWIRE boards
what the poster meant is that the speed used by your components varies

ALL FIREWIRE add in CARDS are FIREWIRE 1 at 400 or so

FIREWIRE 2 is only avaiable on the MAC platform yet,
and within MACINTOSHES only exists on the new POWERBOOKS
(laptops to windows user)
(correct me If I'm wrong TGPO)

USB 2 uses the same cables as USB 1 and is very confusing to distinguish
unless your using the port (2 is way faster)
What I'm trying to say Is I wish they'd marked all USB 2.0 ports with a 2 or something..I hope th've done this with FIREWIRE 2.0 -marked the faster ports properly!

PS are there any applications other than 800MPS ethernet accomplishable by FIREWIRE 2.o now? does any one know If there's anything on the MAC platform that uses this speed yet.. We're already able to capture VIDEO without drooping frames..

Does FIREWIRE 2 allow you to capture HI DEF from a Panasonic HD Deck for example or is there no protocol for HI-DEF capture except by SDI with a CINEWAVE card?

By THE WAY the very first WINDOWS MOTHER BOARD with firwire was introduvced by ASUS with the SLOT 1 (forPIII) about 4yrs ago this board was quicky discontinued as WINDOWS buyers were not into DV capture yet..

[The village idiot]

Add on firewire has been around since about the P233/PII266 days. But you are right, wasn't really used by winderz users. Was supported by NT4, and maybe 98. No one could see the value back then. So it left me waiting with a card that I couldn't connect anything to. I bought my first card when the price when the price went down to a reasonable level. Didn't see the first DV camcorder for some length of time after that.

I think there are firewire 800 hard drive enclosures out. After that not sure what else is available. Firewire 480 will already work with standard def. DV50 and should have enough headroom left for 480p and maybe 720i. Though I don't work with those, so it is only speculation based on SD DV25.

And marking the different ports could be helpful. Though the manufacturers point of view is that they both are backward comp. and therefore you shouldn't need to care what your peripherals are. At least as long as you know you have the 800mbps connection on the motherboard/pci card that is.

[tgpo]

FIREWIRE 2 is only avaiable on the MAC platform yet,
and within MACINTOSHES only exists on the new POWERBOOKS
(laptops to windows user)
(correct me If I'm wrong TGPO)

Naw man, the new G4 Towers all have Firewire 800. Each of them comes with 2 Firewire 400 ports and 1 Firewire 800 Port.

[dcsos]

Why would they include slow ports now that the fast one is out?
Is there any reason?

and is there any application using FIREWIRE 2 yet?

(other than as I mentioned before 800mbp ethernet)
of course HARD DRIVES connected to the faster port might transfer data faster..but for that you'd have to find a FIREWIRE 2.o enclosure to put the drive in first!!!

[vitualis]

Well, Macs are useful for somethings (like pushing/test cool new techs to make it cheaper for the PC world -- e.g., USB/Fireware).

USB and Firewire are somewhat complementary -- at least, insofar as the types applications they have now been used.

USB is great for most low bandwidth peripherals.

Firewire/IEEE 1394 due to the fact it is isochronous is great for high throughput data transfers (e.g., DV, external HDD, etc.)

I question the usefulness of USB2 but since it is completely backward compatible with USB1.1, there is no disadvantage in having essentially a faster version of USB.

Regards.

[tgpo]

Why would they include slow ports now that the fast one is out?
Is there any reason?

Because not everything supports the faster connection speeds I assume.

[ipgpe13]

I am in a similar position as you. I am ready to get a Sony DV camcorder, but I was waiting to see if USB 2.0 video transfer would become available since I have a USB 2.0 card in my computer. NOluck, all dv camcorders I have looked into use Firewire for video transfer.

I have seen 4 port Firewire cards on sale for $20 US and combo cards with both Firewire and USB 2.0 ports for a little more. I ended up getting a Audigy 2 Soundcard for $100 since it upgraded my sound alot and came with an intigrated Firewire port. Works great. Figured I would not need more than one Firewire port since most PC periferals are USB/USB 2.0 .
Can always get a Firewire hub if I need more

[MOVIEGEEK]

Why would they include slow ports now that the fast one is out?
Is there any reason?

Firewire 400(1394a) and Firewire 800(1394b) use different connectors.
Firewire 800:http://www.unibrain.com/1394_products/cables/cablesb.htm

Firewire 400:http://www.unibrain.com/1394_products/cables/cables.htm