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Forums › Digital Imaging › USB>Firewire adapters (Recommendations wanted)
ElectronicFerret

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#208513 15-Feb-2017 12:51
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I have about 20 hours of Sony DVCam footage I want to get onto my computer while the camera still powers up.

 

Ideally want to go USB because Windows, but if I have to go PCI I do have a desktop PC running Arch.

 

I understand that firewire is a data stream so I need something that's not going to choke and drop frames.

 

Any recommendations? As per usual unreasonable requests, I'm after the cheapest AND the best! Seriously though, it will get a total of 1 week of use.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

 

 

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richms
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  #1720612 15-Feb-2017 13:25
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I have not seen a firewire to USB converter, but doing it on a desktop PC in windows is a piece of cake even on really old junky systems since the bitrate on DV is so low - its not a lossless format as many would have you believe. 

 

If the desktop still has PCI slots then you should be able to find a card near free almost anywhere since they were really common back around 2000 to have a card with firewire and some USB 2 on them to drop into old computers, useless cards now. If you only have PCIe then a low cost solution is probably not going to happen.

 

When I was doing capture from a cheapie panasonic camera when doing it live off the camera, the results over svideo to a capture card were better than the heavy DV compression, obviously when doing it from tape it was already compressed with the blockyness codec of DV so svideo would be worse, but not signifigantly worse so dont overlook just getting a cheap analog capture device - you will still have the same tedious job of hitting play and record at the same time like a kid of the 90's dubbing music videos between 2 VHS decks.




Richard rich.ms

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