Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Camcorder hookups

This is topic Camcorder hookups in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-14-2003, 01:53 AM:

Okay. This is just a little rant of mine. I had to plunk down a little over $50 for a new 1394 firewire card for my aging PC so I could download some video off this inexpensive 3CCD palmcorder I recently purchased.

The damn thing has both 1394 and USB 2.0 connections on it. The model is a sub $1000 Panasonic PV-GS70. It records excellent color and has one hell of a macro lens, so I bought the damned thing to tide me over while I wait for a 3CCD camera that will do BOTH 24P and native 16x9 recording (no such luck for any MiniDV cam on the market right now --the f**king bastards).

Anyway, you would figure that the Panasonic folks would have some extra drivers and software tricks to make that high bandwidth USB 2.0 480Mbs connection work for offloading video right? Not. Turns out the USB thing is only good for transferring still images off the SD card or using the f**ker for a web cam. Further research shows most other digital camcorders with USB connections also do the same damned thing. USB is really only good for some useless bullcrap.

Anyway, I bought a 3 port Belkin Firewire card and it installed fine. No hangups or anything. Caputuring MiniDV video is a little on the problematic side (it drops a frame or two here and there). Maybe my computer is just too damned old and has too slow a hard disc to manage doing DV work. Anyway, I thought I would forward along this little bit of experience for those of you out there thinking you might be able to do DV work without Firewire. Sorry, but 1394 apparently rules the roost.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 09-14-2003, 02:54 AM:

Firewire kicks ass. A 5400rpm hard drive should be plenty fast enough. But might as well get a 7200. I don't know why they wouldn't use USB 2.0 as well if there wasn't some kind of hangup with it. Though I've heard of a few problems with Windows and Firewire.

Posted by Christopher Duvall (Member # 284) on 09-14-2003, 03:13 AM:

I ran into the very same thing with my SONY camcorder. The USB sux ass. However, I installed the same firewire card and all was right in the world.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 09-14-2003, 12:09 PM:

The only producs that Panasonic makes that DON'T suck are their vacuum cleaners!

When it comes to digital cameras I prefer to go with Canon. JVC makes some camcorders that are nice but I don't like the "form factor". All of the JVC cameras that I looked at were these box-shaped things. Canon's products are still shaped like cameras.

The still picture mode of most video cameras will almost always pale by comparison to a real digital still camera. I found it better to go with a regular digital still camera. You get better resolution, better color and more features. Plus, it's cheaper to operate because you don't have to buy tapes and there's less wear and tear on the transport mechanism/heads that way.

Again, I like Canon's products. I have one of the "Digital Elph" cameras and I'm very happy with it. You just plug it in and it works. As soon as OS X sees the device come on line it loads the ".kext" file (kernel extension) and you're on-line. You can set the OS to trigger your favorite photo editing application.

If I had a faster computer instead of this three year old iBook I could be downloading my photos in about half of a minute. If I had an "officially blessed" DVD burner (Super Drive) I could have simple, 2-3 minute movies downloaded, edited and burned to DVD in under an hour.

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 09-14-2003, 12:39 PM:

Hey Randy - I've also got an iBook! Thinking about getting a new eMac myself - the new Apple Soundtrack software is awsome, but my 500mgz G3 is too slow for it.

Oh yeah. Firewire rocks.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 09-14-2003, 05:37 PM:

Max it out on memory, Mike. The less often it has to go to Virtual Memory the better it will run. You won't get a super duper speed improvement unless you have (I think) 8 MB of video RAM but the less often the HD has to run the faster you'll go!

I have 384 MB in the iBook and 500 in my iMac. The iBook is 600 MHz with a 100 MHz bus. The iMac is 400 MHz with (I think) a 66 MHz bus. In certain circumstances, the iMac is faster by almost 20% even though it's got a slower processor! When you're talking processor-heavy tasks like rendering the iBook wins, as expected. But when you're talking multi-tasking, windowing and things like that the computer with the larger amount of RAM wins.

USB vs. FireWire? I'll still take FireWire, even against USB 2.0.

USB 1.0 maxes out at, what? 12 Mb/sec? At 50-something Mb/sec, USB 2.0 is much faster than the old but in terms of REAL speed, FireWire is STILL faster, even in perfect conditions. Now that we have FireWire 2 coming out, USB is lagging behind even further.

Why not keep USB for "mundane" chores like keyboards and input devices that don't need the bandwidth and go with FireWire for everything else? I just don't get it when people want to buy these super-duper hard drives and DVD burners then try to hook them up with USB. It's a waste!

The only reason I can see that manufacturers push USB like this it is to keep consumers on a "constant upgrade path"... It makes people spend money!

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 09-14-2003, 05:59 PM:

quote:
the new Apple Soundtrack software is awsome

No it isn't. I have it. It came with Final Cut Pro 4. It is very limiting and there is no way to begin or end a song (musically). It's fun to play with for a few hours, but then it is pretty useless. If you want to create music, get Reason 2.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 09-14-2003, 06:05 PM:

Firewire is 400 Mb/s, USB 2 is 480, but the figures don't mean much. In my experience, firewire tends to be slightly faster, maybe by 10-20% If you want to move a lot of data, firewire is a better interface.

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 09-15-2003, 01:57 AM:

Oh THAT kind of hookup. Who cares?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 09-15-2003, 02:09 AM:

Lots of people.

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 09-15-2003, 03:53 AM:

Oh! Oh! I am always misconstrued.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 09-15-2003, 03:22 PM:

Let me know when either Firewire or USB catches up to gigabit ethernet. [Smile]

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 09-15-2003, 05:46 PM:

But Daryl, the ethernet jack is just too big to be hooked up to tiny-ass camcorders and the such! The jack is bigger than the camcorder itself. Remember, smaller is better... soon cameras and cell phones will be no larger than 4 atoms combined.

My computer has gigabit ethernet. Let's run a crossover cable from Denver all the way to Canada so we can transfer some files FAST!