USB versus FireWire

[mrdondadda]

I am having some problems burning my home movies onto DVDs. I have a Sony DCRTRV25 camcorder and an IBM T23 Thinkpad with the internal MultiBurner DVD drive.

I have been capturing my videos through USB 1.0 and wanted to know if this makes any difference. The reason being because the quality of the captured images has been terrible i.e. I can see the pixel blocks and the picture is sort of choppy. If I did it through Firewire, would it fix my problem?

I figure the USB is not my problem because it is just transferring the video to the computer, but I wanted to check with all of you before I went out and purchased a firewire card. I tried capturing with both WinDVD Creator and Pixela ImageMaker and I got the same result each time.

Any help that you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

[Craig Tucker]

Is it transferring, I think you may find it is capturing. USB is not ideal for capturing the transfer rate is only around 12Mbit/sec whereas firewire is 400Mbit/sec. Do yourself a big favour and splash out on a firewire card (only £15 approx) and transfer the DV rather than capture it. You will not regret it.

[snafu099]

Not meaning to disagree that firewire is better than usb-1 as to transfer rate BUT:

Obvisoly the usb-1 will limit the bitrate to 4-5 mb/s for capture. Which also what is need to fit 2hr cap on 1 dvd. This should also produce excellent finished results. Suspect that the data path -usb-1 vs firewire is not the root cause of problem.

If you are just transfering the file, no effect.
If you are doing a capture, look to your capture device and or source quality

[bugster]

Not meaning to disagree that firewire is better than usb-1 as to transfer rate BUT:

Obvisoly the usb-1 will limit the bitrate to 4-5 mb/s for capture. Which also what is need to fit 2hr cap on 1 dvd. This should also produce excellent finished results. Suspect that the data path -usb-1 vs firewire is not the root cause of problem.

Yes, but the data rate for DV video is ~25Mbps. SO USB cannot transfer it without massive data loss.

Use firewire. Its worth the few $$$$$'s for the massive increase in quality you get.

[makntraks]

Another thread happening as we speak..... slightly different in the question but still voices the pluses of Firewire..

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=200651