IEEE 1394 FIREWIRE CARDS ...all do the same job?!?!

[freedumb_youth]

Just a question about these cards, theres some on ebay for like $5.00 do these all do the same thing as a more expensive card? The way I see it is, its digital footage and the card is not going to make a difference in quality, its just moving from the camera to the computer? Is this correct or am I way off?

Thanks in advance guys.
Cheers.

[redwudz]

Yes, they all do the same job. The cheapest ones are probably built from the cheapest parts and quality available, not something I would really want in my computer. But in US dollars, $10 to $20 would be reasonable.

[live4ever]

I'd suggest looking for a Firewire card with the Oxford chipset.

[freedumb_youth]

Ok ill look into that, whats the reasoning behind that though?
...ive seen some have internal firewire ports aswell as external with usb 2.0 on them aswell.

[LOWTECH]

FIREWIRE CARDS with USB 2 give you the best of both worlds if you don`t have either on board your computer .....

Remember they are cheap to buy, but you get what you pay for .... Dealer purchase is best, easy to return should you encounter a problem......... buyer beware!

[budz]

If you're able to get the brand called "ADAPTEC" in Australia that would be a good reliable one to buy. It does have the oxford chipset. In the USA at Compusa they do go on sale for $15-20.00.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Yes, they all do the same job but there are different maximum speeds that they support. For most applications, even the most basic (slowest) is sufficient.

Some cards offer more ports than others. I have an Adaptec card for a laptop with 3 ports. I also have a Pyro card for a laptop with 2 ports.

[RLT69]

All firewire cards do the same thing. The differences in features will be:

1. number of firewire ports
2. type of firewire ports: Firewire 400 or Firewire 800
3. number of pins of each port, e.g., 9 pin for FireWire 800, 4 pin or 6 pin for FireWire 400
4. software packages (for the retail cards)

In terms of quality, that will very depending on the chipset of each card. This is VERY important. This is why some people have problems with firewire. Texas Instruments is very good. Best to do a search and see what people say about the different chipsets. Brand name of the card itself isn't going to tell you whether it's good or not.

[TBoneit]

OTOH my ADVC-100 would not work reliable with the first Firewire card I tried it with. An external drive would. Changing to a card with a different brand of chipset and both the ADVC and external drive work fine.

Bottom line is that some firewire devices use hardware that don't work with certain brands/models of firewire card chipsets.

[ofbarea]

I'd suggest looking for a Firewire card with the Oxford chipset.

Oxford chipset is usually used in external cases.

If you're able to get the brand called "ADAPTEC" in Australia that would be a good reliable one to buy. It does have the oxford chipset. In the USA at Compusa they do go on sale for $15-20.00.

Adaptec card usually have TI chipset and they are very high quality indeed.


I have used several chipsets in several machines with several experiences:

Older Orange micro NEC firewire card in an AMD K6-III+ CPU in a VIA MV3 based. I have tested it with a Sony D8 cam and a external HD in an Oxford 911 case. In old machines only cards compatible with PCI 2.0 or 2.1 will work. Most of the newer cards will not support this version of PCI bus.

Adaptec firewire/USB2 combo card in a Dell Optiplex GX1, intel BX based machine upgrated to Celeron 1.4. The firewire is TI and USB2 is NEC. This is working just fine. It has been used with a Sony D8 cam with an external HD (oxford 911).

Ageree firewire card made by ATI, In a Pentium III-S 1.2 in a ASUS TUX4x, a via based mobo. No problem driving a Canon DV cam, Sony D8 cam, external DVD burner (Oxford 911) and external HD (Oxford 911).

Ageree firewire port bundled in a Creative Audigy 1 card. Works just fine with a Sony D8 cam, external DVD burner (Oxford 911) and external HD (Oxford 911). Looks like it did not provide enough power to drive firewire to SCSI adapter.

Ageree firewire port bundled in an ATI AIW 8500DV. This firewire port only worked fine in intel based mobos. Since my current machine is Via based, it just does not work.

Via “el cheapo” brand PCI card in my main PC. I regularly use it with external HD (Oxford 911), ADS Pyro A/V link, Sony DV cam and Sony D8 cam. I never had an error with this one. This card even drives properly my firewire to SCSI converter used with an older SCSI scanner.

Via firewire PCMCIA (cardbus) (got it for $5 at eBay). This is used in a ThinkPad IBM laptop. It works just fine with a Sony D8 cam, external HD (Oxford 911) and external DVD burner (Oxford 911).

Ricoch internal firewire port in a IBM laptop, works OK for video cam but it does not like external HD (Oxford 911).

In summary you mileage will vary, but you will do OK with quality made cards with recent TI, Agere or Via firewire chipsets. You may have luck with cheap via or Agere based cards.

I remember that a while ago there were compatibility problem with TI based cards and Canopus AVDC-100, but these problems were corrected at some point in time.

2. type of firewire ports: Firewire 400 or Firewire 800

For video transfer from camera to PC, just get a firewire 400, firewire 800 is overkill for video transfer.

[Nelson37]

No, they are not all the same. There are decent cards and there are cheap crap. Some work well and are very compatible and some don't, and aren't.

It just like many other things, you can buy cheap crap, get frustrated and disgusted, and either give up or throw away the crap, and the $5 to $10 you spent on it, and buy a good card like you should have done in the first place.

A top-quality Adaptec is not much more than the cheap crap card, do it right the first time and be done with it. We are not talking about a difference of hundreds of dollars here, more like 10-20 bucks.

I should mention that the possibility exists that the cheap crap might work with your current hardware, you might get lucky. Until you change PC's, or camera, then you find out what you're dealing with.