what's the diff. between cheap & expensive firewire card

[dav34]

Hi all,
I would like to know what's the difference between cheap and expensive firewire cards. Is the price difference mainly because of the software bundle or because of the card quality?

Do all firewire card have the same capture quality, transfer speed, etc?

And, what is OCHI means? I've been told that if I want to get a firewire card, I gotta look for this sign on their packages.

Thanx......

[mij]

You have answered your own question, get any OCHI card and it will work ok. I purchased Studio DV a while back, it has a OCHI card plus the editing software which raised the price, the firewire card works with any software.

mij

[Bondiablo]

Open Host Controller Interface

what's the difference between cheap and expensive firewire cards.

price.

the cards are all pretty much the same, it's just the name on the box and/or the software package.

[Tatase]

Actually there is a difference between expensive & cheap.
Often, but not always, expensive ones have the so called "bridge", chipset managing byte transfer, different.
For example Oxford 1911 is a bridge that allows high speed transfer rate with latest HDD.
Howewer to capture from a DV camera any bridge should be Ok.
If you have a high performance HDD, and want every single byte/sec out of it, you might consider this difference.

[dav34]

so it's similar to a usb port?
is this mean I could get a USD$25 4-port firewire card (without sofware bundle) and still get the same result (using the same software) as USD$1000 firewire card (with sofware bundle)?

Thx.....

[skateni]

so it's similar to a usb port?
is this mean I could get a USD$25 4-port firewire card (without sofware bundle) and still get the same result (using the same software) as USD$1000 firewire card (with sofware bundle)?

Thx.....

Yes .. software is a matter of user preference anyway ( how many "bundled" software do you end up using anyway ?? ) Stick to well known chipsets ( boards based on NEC and VIA chipsets are pretty good ).

[dav34]

Yes .. software is a matter of user preference anyway ( how many "bundled" software do you end up using anyway ?? ) Stick to well known chipsets ( boards based on NEC and VIA chipsets are pretty good ).

I got "Adobe Premiere 6.5" and "Ulead MediaStudio 6.5 Director's Cut".
What's the best software for capturing and editing anyway?
What do you mean by chipsets? Is it the chip on the firewire card? (Sorry, I'm a new about this stuff).

Thx.......

[skateni]

I got "Adobe Premiere 6.5" and "Ulead MediaStudio 6.5 Director's Cut".
What's the best software for capturing and editing anyway?
What do you mean by chipsets? Is it the chip on the firewire card? (Sorry, I'm a new about this stuff).

Thx.......

No such thing as "best" me, I prefer WinDV to capture the AVIs, VirtualDUB to crop and filter my AVIs, TMPGenc or MainConcept Encoder to encode to MPEG2. ULEAD VideoStudio to do some editing and ULead MovieFactory to author my DVDs. Whatever works for you, stay with it I say ( matter of your budget and preference ).

And yes, chips on the firewire card ..