PCA Forums

Well I finnaly bought that DV camcorder.

Now I find I don't have firewire on any of my systems
Grrr, I never had a use for it and I thought 2 (or at least 1) of my systems had it built on the system board. Nope 3 cases have the port, but none of the boards have the onboard connecters. Just scanned the manuals, no mention of firewire.

Oh well, so now the question is whats my best option?
Should I buy a pci add on card I can use in any system? Whats a good one for DV capture?
Or should I buy a board that has Firewire built in? Thinking of a new board soon for a 333fsb 2500xp still. Decided on the camcorder first, needed it last night! For this I can use the S-video out, but will need firewire soon!

Looks like newegg has some firewire cards for about $15 and $4 shipping. Does that sound about right for a decent one?

Now my two thoughts are,
1 I could use a card in any system so I don't have to tie up my best system for capturing.
2 That $20 helps buy a new system board for the 2500 XP latter.

Is either choice better performance wise?
I am thinking on the card since any of my systems will capture fine, then I could use the best system for editing and rendering after transfering the file/s across the lan to it.

It's certainly nice having a built-in firewire port (nForce2 mobo has one) but if you don't NEED a new mobo I wouldn't buy one just for that. Add-on cards work fine.

I would strongly recommend the Belkin Firewire card. There are cheaper ones but you get what you pay for: http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductP ... _Id=148834

I found it at Best Buy for $40 and I think I've seen it at Walmart. It also comes with a cable which by itself can be pretty pricey.

Big Lots is a great place to buy a firewire cable if there's a store near you - they're $8 there (as opposed to $20 most places). They also have USB cables for $5 BTW.


You don't have to use your best system for capturing, but the system you use it on shouldn't be a slouch either. Video rendering is VERY processor intensive. Faster the system the faster the render.

You also need to have a large EMPTY drive partition (you will be deleting a lot, and the video drive will need to be defragged regularly - better to use a dedicated empty partition just for video). Depending on the software you use, you may need a HUGE drive.

Most software that allows you to edit captured video requires that you capture as a raw AVI - these are huge files.

There are programs, like Ulead Video Studio, that capture and edit with compressed files and don't require as much room.

Still, you want a big partition. You might be working on more than one project, and you might want to store some MPEG2 videos until you have a chance to burn them to DVD. Keep in mind a video file that's for a full DVD is 4.7Gb. Fills up a drive mighty quick.

I'd recommend 40Gb video partition as a MINIMUM if you plan on doing any serious video work. That's what I use, although I archive my MPEG2 videos on a seperate server.

check the belkin refurn site too - i got 2 pci fw cards with cables for like 20

Yep, I listened to ya.

I have a 120 gig drive, 80 gigs for video only and 40gigs for stuff like ghost images as a slave drive. Boot drive is a 60gig or 80gig (I forgot)
Other system I'll be using also has a 100gig slave.

I'll look into the Belkins.

All my systems are 1700xp or better with 256mb ddr, main box has 1gig. I've got an extra 256 too I just took out of the main box when I put in the second 512 stick. Not sure where that one is going yet.
(not counting the 486 dx 100 or pentium 133 of course for this)

We have a Big Lots I got to alot, get some pretty good keyboards for $5, but they don't get in everything. They probably have the cables though, they have lots of various cables.

Well watch for my up comming How do I do this and what to use thread
If you don't mind I can probably use lot's of help before long from everyone for DV capture!
Doing pretty good from the VCR to DVD as mp2, but don't have a clue with DV yet. Not even sure how to get it onto the computer since I been using an ATI AIW card and software for all my captures so far.
Manual for the camcorder says XP software, no mention of W2k anywhere! Think it would work anyway? Not sure what program it is, haven't looked yet. Got it last night and started shooting a theatre play soon as I opened the box. Had Brianna reading me the manual on the way to the theatre
Actually she opened the box, I took out the camera. Nice to have a 12 yr old around sometimes

Thanks John.
I just checked but out of stock. Listed for $9 as refurb too, rats.

I'll have to keep an eye out there, if I can get em for that cheap when they have more I might get several so each system has one.

The DV device will show up as another video capture device in whatever video capture software you use.

what i did was get a fw external hdd enclosure from geeks and slap some big ones in it - portable storage and accesisble on my home lan

I'm using the Tv program for the ATI card. Hadn't tried it for anything else , but I figured it will be limited to the ATI cards inputs.
I do have some other softwares, I'll have to see what they are, haven't used them for many months.

I had thought about using removable drives in those snap in bays for transfering the mp2 files after capture. Never decided if I want to try that. I still need the network though for all the other stuff.
How does the firewire enclosures work, pretty good and fast? Could I capture directly to one, or is it too slow for that?

A few things I should mention maybe. The Fridge will not be internet nor network ready nor the micro wave, so no cat 5 in the kitchen. Also the bathrooms I can live without Cat5
Too much moisture in the laundry room too, so I'll skip it there also.