Help with Connecting a DV Camera to USB

Hi folks,

I recently acquired a used Samsung Digital Video Camera. It has a firewire port on it.

My PC has no firewire, only USB.

Should I buy a firewire card for my PC, or buy a Firewire to USB cable?

The cable seems to be the cheaper method but i looked at this cable on eBay and the seller said "Will not work for DV!" I'm curious, why is that? Should the computer care if the data being passed through the cable is DV, or spreadsheets, or database files, etc. etc., ? Here it is:

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Thanks in advance for any help!

Reply to
Jason Ducharme
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If you have a spare PCI slot I suggest you buy a firewire card. I bought one on eBay a couple weeks ago for about $18, which included the shipment from Singapore, and it came with a cable having the camera sized connector on one end. Also came with a video editor on a CD.

Don

Reply to
Don Bowey

That's a pretty good deal indeed. I forgot to mention that my PC is a notebook, so a notebook card is a little more expensive than a desktop card. But, we're talking about only $10 to $20 more. I can certainly go that route.

I am curious though, if someone could explain to me in layman's terms, why a Firewire to USB cable will not work for transferring digital video? I understand that it would transfer at the lower speed of USB, but is that not fast enough to transfer digital video?

Thanks...

Reply to
Jason Ducharme

I could be wrong, but I suspect the real problem is a protocol difference between the two interfaces.

Don

Reply to
Don Bowey

I've located a cable that has a chip in it that will do the job, however it's $90 compared to the $4 cable on eBay. You can see it here, if you are interested:

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In the meantime i have bought a PCMCIA firewire card for $37 and a 4pin to

6pin firewire cable and i"m transferring the data between my camera and notebook now. I had a feeling that would end up being the route that I would take but i did want to explore the cable issue a little further, and now i think i understand the matter better.

Jason

Reply to
Jason Ducharme

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