Why don't the new laptops have FIREWIRE??

[jbitakis]

One of my laptops died and I was in Best Buy shopping for a new Laptop and because I have a Mini-DV Camcorder I want a computer with a firewire port to transfer video. I can directly transfer video directly to my DVD Recorder but sometime I want to edit so I use my laptop to put the video on my computer and then edit. BUT none of the Laptops have firewire so what do I do? Is there some kind of adapter? I guess because all the newer camcorders use flash memory and Hard drive, they must be phasing out the firewire??
James

[aedipuss]

by popular demand usb wins and firewire loses because 99% of buyers don't use it. but, if you search around there are laptops with firewire.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834146730

[zoobie]

most rigs today are custom desktop editing stations with a little more power than 6 batteries for today's Heavy-Duty video

[lordsmurf]

DV is a dead format, deprecated by HD formats.
Firewire 400 / IEEE1394 is obsolete, deprecated by Firewire 800.

Hate to break it to you, but most computers never had fw400, aside from Macs.

The end.

[edDV]

Ignore Best Buy and get a Dell Studio. Perfect for budget video editing

Firewire, eSATA, 7200 rpm internal drive, good display chipset (PureVideo HD or AVIVO HD). The only thing missing is USB3.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop_studio_1555?c=us&cs=19...06,,12057977,4
http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/notebooks/studio-1747/pd.aspx?refid=studio-1747&cs=19&s=dhs

Most other laptop manufacturers have models with these features.

[jbitakis]

I bought a Sony Vaio. It does not have a firewire BUT it does have a Express Card slot. Maybe I can find a mini PCMCIA with Firewire attached and then just put it in this slot. Or I guess I could just break down and buy a new Hard Drive HD Camcorder. The Sony HDR-XR150 is full HD with 120GB of hard drive memory with the Exmor R CMOS sensor for low-light performance. It is on sale for $549.

[jman98]

Is there a truly compelling reason why you MUST have a laptop for this task? Because the advantages of desktops are rather enormous in my opinion due to greater expandability and the ability to have larger hard drive space. Not to mention many laptops have problems with overheating. Maybe you do truly have a good reason, but some folks just get fixated into this glassy eyed "MUST HAVE LAPTOP" zone when a desktop would actually be cheaper and better for the task of editing video. You could get a lot more CPU horsepower in a desktop for the same money you'll pay for less in a laptop. That would potentially make your video work faster, depending on what exactly you are doing. Encodes, for example, would be faster.

[orsetto]

DV is a dead format, deprecated by HD formats.

Yes, and the new consumer HD video camera formats are such a joy to use on a PC, aren't they? Gotta love those mini Canons, especially.

Firewire 400 / IEEE1394 is obsolete, deprecated by Firewire 800.

Firewire 800 is DOA as a consumer interface, anyway.

Hate to break it to you, but most computers never had fw400, aside from Macs.

Well, Sony also promoted holy hell out of it, IEEE1394 was a key selling point for the Vaio.

The end.

Yup, real nice of Sony and Apple to lure everyone into "laptop editing" and then pull the plug (literally) on anyone who didn't have the foresight to move all their old DV tapes to a hard drive before 2007. Gotta love when Steve Jobs gets an "inspiration" and kills features he thinks are unhip: for 20 years Apple has had a history of holding over fading connection options, most of them useless, the one time it might have been actually helpful to retain a "dying" interface he pulled the rug out from under FireWire two years ahead of the curve. Too bad he didn't knock $100 off the price of a MacBook while he was at it.

If you need a new laptop with DV input, look for a model with an expansion slot so you can add FW on a card.

[lordsmurf]

I remember their obsession for external SCSI long after it was a dead tech, replaced by USB1.1

When the machines first came out, Mac mini's were $499.
Then $599.
Now a new Mac mini is $699 while other computers are still dropping in price.
Dear Apple: Who do you think you're kidding?
Orsetto, he'd have to knock $200 off just to make it the original price again!

I bought a "mini" style machine 18 months ago that was higher specs and $100 less, from HP.
It has Firewire 400, too.

[victoriabears]

my laptop has fire wire

[victoriabears]

i have spent 20 years on pc's..i am not gonna go MAC

[Ph33r_This]

I found since USB 2.0 came out that fire wire was basically obsolete. The speeds were about the same, so USB 2.0 won out as it was backwards compatible.

I found a PCMCIA card with 2x USB 2.0 and 1x fire wire port for about AU$30 for a laptop I sometimes use it to convert peoples videos to DVD when I have to go to their place. Now most video cameras are USB 2.0 and have more features as well. HD, widescreen, longer battery life, longer recording, on camera editing (that actually works properly without stuffing up), etc.

You could get by with the PCMCIA card for a bit, but I think you will have to upgrade sometime and when that happens...you going to find very few fire wire supported cameras.

[edDV]

...Now most video cameras are USB 2.0 and have more features as well. HD, widescreen, longer battery life, longer recording, on camera editing (that actually works properly without stuffing up), etc.

But they also lost many key features that were standard with Firewire...

- live camera digital a/v stream (essential for broadcasting)
- 16 bit, 48 KHz uncompressed PCM stereo audio
- camcorder remote control from computer for live or edit control
- native support from OS (Windows, OSX, Linux)

All of these are important for semi-pro use. The HDV high definition standard retained these features except for uncompressed audio.