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Firewire 800 – which element needs it?
Hi. I just bought a new Maxtor external hard drive that has both Firewire 800 and Firewire 400 connections. I’ve heard it’s faster to capture using a Firewire 800 connection. But my deck connects to my computer via a FW 400 connection (it doesn’t have a FW 800 port). Should I connect the drive to my computer using the 800 connection, or does it not matter what I use, since the deck itself can only connect via a 400 connection? (I have a dual-processor 2.7 Ghz G5 and an older Sony DSR30 deck, if that helps.)
Thanks!
Rumi Girl
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7 Replies
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FW800 is good for uncompresed 8-bit SD work, and DVCPRO HD footage.
Shane
Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net -
Cool, Shane, thanks. But I’m still wondering which components need to be connected via FW 800 connections to get the fastest performance. If my external hard drive is connected to the computer via an FW 800 connection, but the deck is connected to the computer via an FW 400 connection (and I’m capturing from tapes inserted in the deck), do I get any advantage from the FW 800 hard-drive-to-computer connection? Or is the overall speed of the capture operation governed solely by the FW 400 deck-to-computer connection?
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The benefit of the FW800 connection is better playback…higher numbers of realtime streams. You still capture via FW400…that captures one stream to the FW800 drives. But the drives are capable of 3 streams of Uncompressed 8-bit SD playback and 3 streams of DVCPRO HD playback…and one stream of 10-bit uncompressed SD. For the three streams, this means you can have 3 windows on the screen at once (like you see in “24”) and you won’t drop a frame…and you won’t need to render. Add a fourth, then the render comes in.
Shane
Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net -
Cool. Thanks!!!!!
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Just by way of information, you may do yourself a favor if you install a pci-x fw800 card. The fw ports built into your computer all share one bus.
That means when you are capturing the slowest active device determines the speed of everything on the bus. The DSR-30 will hold back the speed of the drive during captures. Lot and lots of people capture with the deck and the media drive on the same firewire bus, but it is not recommended.
These cards can be had for under $100. I bought a pci fw800 card for my G4 and have been running G-Raid disks from this connection with no problems.
Tom
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Hey Tom,
I have a dual 2.5 gig G5 that has a 400 fw port in front and an 800 port in back and have had intermittent problems capturing using an external 800 fw drive connected in back and a camcorder or deck connected in front. I wondered if they were sharing the same bus. Are you sure this is the case? Either way, adding a new card makes sense, but I’m curious if this is the cause of the capture problems that creep up once in a while.
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I am sure that there is only one FW bus built in and that all the FW ports both 400 and 800 share this bus.
It is hard to say definitively that this is the cause of your capture problems, but it is a prime suspect.
Tom
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