I have captured to the USB 2.0 drive with no dropped frames (not HD). It was an accidient that I did it but I had capture about 30 minutes before I realized I was on the USB drive. Like I said no issues. I have edited reading off the USB drive and it wasn't all that bad. Preview mode is the best I could do when watching the output and that was sometimes difficult if I had a few FX applied. I have rendered to the USB drive as well and I do not see where it added that much time to the render. I have not timed it but it was not anything over 15 minutes or so (if that).

Both will work fine. I use both. My everyday drive is USB 2. I was leary about this, but I have to tell you it is just as fast and reliable as Firewire.

CC

Spot-
I only use my desktop for all video editing currently. Don't have Firewire or enough drive space to edit on my laptop. Finally thought about a USB external drive to solve both problems (with video capture on desktop and transferred over). Good way to utilize otherwise dead time.

I'm willing to fork over the money to buy a Firewire PCMCIA card, though, if the performance warrants it. Have to get one with 2+ ports, though, so I could input video via Firewire and capture back to HD via Firewire.

Brian

I'm one of those who has had nothing but success with USB drives - and bouts of unreliable results with Firewire. So I stick to USB.

Last week I was capturing some seminars live via two laptops with attached USB drives. The cameras were hooked up to the firewire port. Vidcap was capturing direct to the USB drives. Not a dropped frame all day.

I've got three external USB/Firewire drives into which I have removeable drive trays. This allows me to have great fliexibility in moving my projects around from one editing system to another very quickly. I have 24 video drives that I can easily slide in/out of the drives in moments (following safe-removal practices).

EDIT - all this is assuming you have USB2 in that laptop (it's quite unusual to find a laptop that doesn't have firewire these days.. so just making sure that your laptop really does have USB2).

It can't be as reliable, although potentially as fast, simply because the USB requires CPU processing whereas Firewire doesn't.
I do have success with capture on a USB drive with my newest laptop, IF I use an Adaptec USB 2 PCM card. But if I use the USB 2 slots on the computer, I drop frames on capture. Go figure.

Liam- I've got to laugh, but yes, I do have USB 2.0. Unfortunately that's a prudent question, as I'm sure some folks are still trying to make 1.1 work for heavy tasks.

Any concerns about the speed of my system for capturing? It's a Pentium M 1.5Ghz with 768 MB ram. Obviously I wouldn't perform any other tasks, would disable the screensaver, and wouldn't breathe on it while capturing ...

Any problems with the (internal) hard drive in an (external) enclosure overheating due to the load?

Brian

I've used both with no problems. The reason I have to use both is I have a hard time daisy chaining my camera AND the hard drive with firewire. Sometimes I can....most times I can't. I get one or the other. So I go camera to laptop by firewire...laptop (or desktop for that matter) to hard drive via USB. This has been the most stable for me.

I'd experiment myself and just see which works best for your situation. If you want firewire on your laptop, you can pick up an inexpensive PCMIA firewire card at Best Buy, Circuit City or the likes.

Good luck.

It can't be as reliable

I agree that is what everyone says... but I know I am not the only person who has had problems with Firewire attached drives... and never any problems with USB. That's my bit of reality that I take with me... and share with others when asked.

Sometimes theory is fine... other times you have to look at what actually happens (to you) and go with that.

Over the past 2 years I've been using external USB drives across three different laptops... ranging from Toshiba (1.7Ghz) through to Dell Inspiron... and now a Sony Vaio K37. Never had any issues with any of them using the in-built USB2.

Alright, I'll put it differently. Look at your CPU cycles. You can see a difference when using a USB drive, or at least my laptop shows a difference in cycles.
I'm not saying USB is bad. What I *am* saying is that USB uses resources (by Intel design) that Firewire doesn't. Because it relies on the CPU, it can't be as stable, and even Intel submits it likely isn't.
I too, have a K37, and it will not consistently capture long files without dropping frames in DV. If I try to do HDV over the USB 2 port, it is very stilted. But Firewire works. That's curious we've got the same laptop but significantly different performance.

Very curious indeed... especially as I captured 7 hours using it (the K37) last week in a live direct to disk recording.

All my drives are Firewire/USB so I have the choice anyways.. just never found a situation where I have needed to "go back" to using Firewire.

The problems I experienced with Firewire drives have occurred both on desktop and laptop configurations. The problems ranged from drive disappearing... to the dreaded "write failure" from the O/S... to dropped frames when capturing.

On the laptop perhaps the biggest issue was with the single internal firewire port (Camera -> External Drive -> Laptop) - although I did purchase a firewire card for the laptop and that didn't seem to resolve it to my satisfaction (still had my drives disappear at odd times).

Switching to USB... problems went away... so no need to chase down the firewire issues any further. Perhaps there was another solution waiting for me to find it... but in the end... I just went with what I found to work for me.

Thanks for the experienced info, guys. I already have a USB external enclosure (for data backup), so I'll have to check it out sometime. Will add a Firewire card later to see how capture to my USB goes, then look to get a Firewire enclosure if the USB gives me trouble.

Good to know anything is possible (both good & bad, it sounds like).