firewire vs. USB

[Mike Kujbida]

The maximum number of dropped frames capturing through firewire should be zero.

What are your computer specs?
Are you (hopefully not) capturing to drive C?
If capturing to another drive (preferable), how large is the drive and how much free space is on it?
Is the drive in PIO mode or UDMA (preferable)?

[Tom Delacarey]

It says that it is saving the data in C:/ Documents…, so I guess it is saving in the C drive. I have about 10 gigs left. My computer is pretty old, it’s an HP omnibook 510, so about 4-5 years old, win xp, intel pentium 3. It’s pretty slow with large softwares, but it works pretty well otherwise. It may be missing some drivers more modern computers have. I am pretty sure that I have pio, but am unsure how to check. I am a bit of a computer amateur, so don’t laugh at my questions, but is it possible to change the drive it is saving on?

[Neil Moxham]

I have a 8 year old toshiba laptop with onboard firewire.
512 ram
p3 1.1 gig intel processor
never drops a frame !!
If it wasnt for raw horsepower I’d still be editing with it.

My thoughts lean towards a less than decent firewire chip
VIA chipsets have often been troublesome
Texas instruments chipsets have been preferred.
also there may be an IRQ sharing issue.

I understand that you are a computer amateur. I can show you how to check this info

If your computer has a PCMCIA slot on the side.?? You might try going to your local staples or circuit city and get a firewire card. The Belkin ones have been good to me and offer 2 or 3 6pin outputs on them. Roughly $59. They dont require drivers. just plug it in and go.

Neil

Zipedit

[Mike Kujbida]

OK. It’s an older laptop but you should still be able to capture without dropped frames.
10 gigs of drive space isn’t much and C:/My Documnets is the absolute worst place to capture to.
Assuming you have a USB port on this device, buy an external drive (they’re very cheap these days, even at places like Costco) and capture to that. I do this all the time at work and have done 3 hr. captures (live events) with 0 fropped frames.

You’ll neeed to make sure that the drive is formatted NTFS (most still come formatted FAT32) to avoid the small file size limit.
Use the Windows Help file (search on NTFS) to walk you through this procedure. It’s quick and painless 🙂

After that, go into the preferences in VidCap (the capture program for Vegas) and change the location of your captures to the new drive.
Be advised that, unless you change this location, it will capture to the same location every time.

Whenever I start a new project, I create a master folder for ALL media that will be used in this project.
I set up folders inside of this master folder for captured files, music, graphics, etc.
This makes staying organized a lot easier.

[Tom Delacarey]

Thanks, and I do have a PCMCIA slot. Currently I have already used two cardbus cards; one for USB 2.0 and another for Firewire. The Firewire card is by VIA and is working terribly!! I have been looking all over the internet with my dad trying to find a fix for all the problems. We found that the problems I am having with the card and firewire aren’t uncommon. We also applyied for a fix that microsoft says will send within 8 buisness hours, but after 24 it still has not been emailed. Do you think that that a fix like that could fix my problems? (I really don’t wan’t to have to buy a third card, it seems a little excessive).

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

Buy a real firewire card with TI chipset that specifically says OHCI compatible, all your woes will go away. Search the COW or the internet, VIA chipset 1394 has always been a problem. Some get lucky, others don’t.
ADS, SIIG, Orange Micro, Ratoc, Belkin…all have TI chipsets and will cost you about 20.00-30.00 at most any store.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST

Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor

[Tom Delacarey]

Thanks, me and my dad just came to that conclusion, but it’s nice you confirmed it. One last question; would 4 pin to 4 pin work just as well as 6 pin to 4 pin? (I already have a 4 pin to 4 pin cable).

[Neil Moxham]

the 4 pin is all thats needed. those carry the data.
The other 2 pins carry power. External hard drives are 6pin and can use the power off of the laptop sometimes.Macs do this.
Cameras only have 4 ( you dont want erronious power sent to the camera) which has its own any ways.
The Belkin, ADS pcmcia cards with TI chipsets in box stores most often are 6 pin.
Some have both.
DSE says you can get them for 20-30 bucks.
I know the tower cards are cheap but I think the PCMCIA are a little more.
I say get the 4 to 6 cable anyways because in the very near future you should get an external firewire harddrive.
Hook the drive to one port, The camera to the other. Tell VidCap to import to the external drive folder of choice. Then edit off of that drive.
A- its probably a faster drive.
B- keeps the OS from interrupting your dataflow.
C- when you do a final render…render back to your onboard “C”
drive. saves time. (one reads while the other writes)
this works for me

Videoguys.com have a handy “12 steps to optimize XP for video”
guide that is well worth the read !!!

Good luck
Zip

Zipedit

[Tom Delacarey]

Thanks.