To USB or to Firewire (I-Link)? That is the question!

[Chivo 0]

Ok guys, I finally got my PC-101. But I'm curious... when you're transferring a video to the computer for editing, which port do you use?

The few ppl I've talked to about this have recommended Firewire, what do you think? And what is the pros/cons of using one or the other?

Edit 1: As I understand, USB 1.1 is only useful for transferring images from the Memory Stick. Its too slow (12 Mbps) to handle video. USB 2.0 is comparable to Firewire but USB requires more CPU usage. Other than that, USB 2.0 and Firewire are about the same speed.

Edit 2: Looks like the camera plays the video realtime during the xfer in Firewire, but it's the full quality video. Whereas USB will downconvert the image & be a lossy xfer. Am I right?

Edit 3: I can't seem to find which USB ver. is in the camcorder, but if its 1.1, the only choice would be to do transfers thru Firewire.

~Chivo

[LouDiamond 1]

If you want to stay high quality stick with either firewire or S-video.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[Chivo 0]

Thanks, guess I'll stop @ fry's to get the firewire cables after work.

~Chivo

[LouDiamond 1]

Quote

Thanks, guess I'll stop @ fry's to get the firewire cables after work.

~Chivo

Quick note, Are you going from camera to PC or another device to capture? Reason I ask is that some fire wire cards or devices are either a 4 or 6 pin and you need to know which you have before you go drop cash on a cable...makes life easier Just look at your cameras firewire port which should be a 4(notice it is small) and the 6 are the bigger ones(ports) All this info will be on the firewire package IE 4pin to 6 pin, 4pin to 4 pin etc

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[ledders 0]

I have just been through a similar thought process. My local Sony dealer recommended Firewire (someone else has pointeed out the 4 pin v 6 pin gotcha) to link my PC9 to my laptop for editing. Luckily my laptop has a firewire port so I didnt have to buy a card or additional hardware. Apparently USB 1 doesnt have the capacity to transfer video. I am dropping frmaes through (see seperate thread in this forum) but I think this is a laptop issue rather than the Firewire link.

[Chivo 0]

Thanks, I got 2 cables: 4-to-4 pin to do transfers from camera to camera, and a 4-to-6 pin to do transfers between camera and computer.

After further research, turns out that thru USB you can only get an Mpeg stream at 360x240@29.97fps, whereas thru Firewire its DV (not Mpeg) 720x480@29.97fps.

If you have a 5 min video, it'll take 5 minutes to record that on the computer, but the difference is that thru Firewire you get the actual DV format (full frames uncompressed) so you don't lose quality. And thru USB, it does MPEG EX Mode which uses a lossy format and each frame is sampled to a lower resolution.

If you have enough hard drive space... do the editing on DV format (Firewire). You can achieve the best quality by rendering your final edited video from DV to any other format: Mpeg2 (if you're recording DVDs, VCDs or SVCDs), Mpeg4 or DivX (if you want to do playback on the computer), etc.

~Chivo