How to get Firewire on my laptop

[kelemvor]

Howdy,

I have a laptop and the specs say it has a ExpressCard® Type 54 port. I need a firewire port to offload videos from my camcorder.

I found something like this at Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16839200011

Is that my best option? Are there any other options like USB to Firewire adapters that would work for offloading video from a camcorder?

And if you have a preference on software to use to offload the video, let me know that as well.

[rumplestiltskin]

Forget USB; that's not going to work at all. No way, no how.

The Expresscard option is probably fine as long as the software you decide to use to offload the video will "see" the added FireWire port. Check with the software vendor to verify this. Assuming the software is well behaved, then if the FW port shows up in the Device Manager (or whatever M$ calls it these days), it should be available to the software.

[kelemvor]

Does the Windows 7 video import type software work well enough? I haven't used it but I've seen some people say they use it without any issues.

[rumplestiltskin]

Get the proper card you need and then simply try the software. You can't do the latter without first doing the former.

[edDV]

Does the Windows 7 video import type software work well enough? I haven't used it but I've seen some people say they use it without any issues.

You haven't identified your camcorder or other IEEE-1394 devices or the edit software you use.. Excellent free capture software exists such as WinDV for DV format or HDVSplit for HDV.

Rosewill is Newegg's house brand. Specs say Win7 is supported. newegg has a good return policy.

Supports Windows 2000, XP/2003 32/64 bit, Vista 32/64 bit
Plug n Play support for Win7 (32/64 bit, build 7600)

For a laptop, it is best to avoid running other software during a capture since everything shares the one drive.

[kelemvor]

Camcorder is a Panasonic PV GS150. I think I used WinDV once a long time ago for something else. Nothing else I have that is firewire since I don't even have a firewire port right now.

[edDV]

WinDV is free, simple and it works. You could also cap with edit programs like Premiere or Vegas. Win7 Live software also allows capture to the hard drive.

Other software like Windows Encoder 9, Adobe flash media live encoder or VLC allow live streaming from IEEE-1394 DV/HDV format source. Products like Telestream's Wirecast allow full live production plus uplink.