Great, thanks!

Be back soon with more questions!

I've purchased at least half a dozen 1394 cards in the past year. None were over $20, and they all worked great. Dont waste your money on expensive 1394 cards. As long as they are OHCI compliant, one should work as well as any other. Check out pricewatch.com for best prices. You'll find 1394 cards under either the serial or controller card category, on their opening page..

hmmm..you're probably correct in most cases...but my 'dazzle' 3-port 1394 gave me nothing but intermittent difficulty in that it dropped frames and camera communication disconnects...sometimes immediately, sometimes after 15 minutes. After exhausting myself on all the "tips to avoid dropped frames" (e.g. dma settings, defrags, closing programs, etc. etc. etc.) I finally purchased a new Maxtor 1394. Not a single dropped frame since/camera disconnect since, and it's been months.

Any hardware can be defective, including Maxtor. Just buy from a vendor that has a reasonable return policy. Its might not hurt to look for a name brand chipset, like Lucent or Texas instruments.

I had major problems when I started with firewire. I bought 3 different cards (all cheap ones) and could not get any of them to recognize the DV camera. Windows 2000 recognized the 1394 card, but the camera would never come up. I found that by putting the card in the first PCI slot solved the whole problem and all 3 cards worked equally well as long as they were in the first slot closest to the processor.

JAB