IEEE-1394 v. USB 2.0

[sallen817]

Is I3E-1394 better than USB 2.0 for capturing? I have a Mini-DV Samsung SCD103 and I’m producing a short infommercial for my wife’s cpr/first aid training business. However, when toying around with Ulead Media Studio 8, I notice that capturing video looks pixelated. I currently use USB to stream the video and have a few questions:

1 – Should I switch to IEEE-1394 for a better picture?
2 – Does my camera suck that bad?
3 – What settings/plugins/any other configurations should be applied for the best picture.

Also, the final production is for our website and dvd. Thanks.

[FredGinsburg]

I have always captured via firewire IEEE-1394 rather than USB. However, that is going into AVID Liquid or even Casablanca.

[Anonymous]

A great deal of camcorder are equipped with both USB and FireWire. If that happens to be your case, I suggest opting for FireWire as the USB port might be introducing some level of compression to move the video in this way. With DV25 video (such as the Samsung SCD103 Mini DV based camcorder that you have) you shouldn’t see too much compression within the pixels using the FireWire port. This would be more ideal for distribution via DVD and even your web videos might look better in the end.

Mark

[brandon0409]

Basically… BASICALLY, Firewire is rated at a constant speed of at least 500 Mbps (I think it went up recently with new versions). USB is a flucuating 200-480 Mbps.

USB is mostly only good for transfering pics from camera or using video camera as web cam.

Almost no one uses USB to download video.

[Tin_Man]

ditto all that has been said,

although i will add, yes use the Firewire as the standard, but make sure your importing an AVI file. your USB may be importing your file into a mpeg file with lower resolution and loosing frames as a part of your import.

also make sure you check your import settings so they import AVI. after importing to AVI and saving to folder, then import this file into your editing program. this should be the purest form to edit from.

if your software doesn’t do this, try WinDv, it is one of the best basic importers and interfaces nice with miniDV cameras. http://windv.mourek.cz/

best of luck

Tin Man

[brandon0409]

I was going to mention WinDV as well.

I use Final Cut Pro and it has a very good DV download manager built in. Video logging and everything.

Sometimes, rarely, I have had an issue with a bad tape with messed up sections. For those, I go to my Windows machine and use WinDV. It downloads everything and even splits up the file to your prespecified file size.

It is what I always used before I got my MAC.

I have never used the built in download utilities that come with the editing software. Adobe, Pinnacle, etc. They all suck.

[sallen817]

Thanks to all! I’m in the process now of making the video.

Thanks Again

[Author]

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