Recommended Firewire card for MiniDV?

[Cortez]

Hello guys,
i got some new gear. I targeted the favorites from the recommended section here:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...ing-guide.html

20210614_124442.jpg

JVC HR-S9600EU
Panasonic NV-FS200EG
for VHS capturing. I still don't know in that thread what means the bold font. As i yesterday brought home the JVC i found an S9850 on the second hand market. Is it better or identical to the 9600? It doesn't have Dynamic Drum so it cannot get broken but as i read in the threads the Dynamic Drum can better tracking tapes that recorded with another VCRs. Also the 9850 is a final product of the era so maybe it is not so well built. Should i go for it?

I also bought two miniDV camcorders:
Panasonic NV-DS29
Sony DCR-HC14E

There wasn't so much exceptations just transfer the digital signal to the computer. My capture PC has a firewire card from Startech (this was the only card that i can buy new). Is it okay for transfering? I didn't find any recommendation on the forum for firewire card like for analog capturing the ATI All-in-Wonder + Turtle Beach Santa Cruz combo. I hope this card will do the job. If you think otherwise and have bad experience with it or good one with others, please share with me.

Kind Regards,
Cortez

[VideoMine]

I have been using a Startech firewire card for a while now and never had a problem.

As to a analogue capture card I use a Pro Capture HDMI http://www.magewell.com/products/pro-capture-hdmi as it allows capture from Component+audio, Composite+audio, S-video+audio as well as HDMI+embedded audio. Not the cheapest around but does the job well.

[dpalomaki]

Firewire (aka: IEEE1394 & iLink) cards either work, or they don't - it is a digital data stream you are copying. Quality of transfer is not an issue as it is with A/D capture devices.

Firewire has been essentially abandon by current PCs. It is a legacy of the DV and HDV era. Some gear tends to prefer cards using the TI chip. Some systems need the so called "legacy" IEEE1394 driver to work reliably. The legacy driver came with XP, was distributed with Win 7 but was not installed as the default driver; however, it was not distributed with Win8 or Win10. It can be downloaded for Win8 and that can be installed with Win10 as well. Installation can be tricky for many people.

Keep in mind that firewire is not truly hot-swap, people have fried gear trying to make connections with powered up gear. Also, some gear may be fussy about the sequence of powering up; i.e., make the connection with everything turned off, then power the PC before the camcorder (or maybe the camcorder first). Some gear claims it can be powered by the firewire adapter; however, this is not always the case because some firewire ports have weak power supplies behind them.

Since you already have the card, give it a try.

[Cavemandude]

I've been "hot-swapping" firewire cables for 24 years, never had a port get fried. Today has been spent transferring 4 videotapes at the same time on 4 firewire-based transfer stations. 2 for MiniDV/HDV tapes and 2 for Video8/Hi8/Digital8 tapes.

[dpalomaki]

Quote:

I've been "hot-swapping" firewire cables for 24 years, never had a port get fried.

Good. Most people have no problem most of the time. But when it happens it happens and some gear may well be more susceptible than other gear.

[London]

Syba SD-PEX30009 PCI-E card - uses the Texas Instruments chipset and is very reliable. As others have mentioned, install the FireWire 1394 Legacy Driver (detailed instructions are on the Startech website). WinDV software is free and great for transferring DV.

[BW37]

I've had good luck with the "Adaptec - Dell" firewire cards that use an LSI chip. They don't seem to need the legacy driver so are a bit less fussy to get working. Win 10 just loads the driver... Lots of them "used" on eBay (US) for cheap!