But is it, technically, "capturing" at all, when it comes from a DV cam?

Isn't the firewire just a means of getting digital data from the camcorder to the computer?

And, if so, dandd995 has a good question. If USB 2 if faster, will it work better than firewire?

I don't see any way in which USB2 is preferable - the bandwidth is slighly greater but it's a lot less efficient, so the data rate is inferior. It also uses the processor to arbitrate between the devices, so the processor load is higher. That said, does it matter for video capture? The maximum data rate is limited by the camera and is well within the limits of both.

Ian G.

Allyn makes a good (and obvious...much to my chagrin) point. Camcorders currently don't use USB 2.0, so the question is moot. For now, at least.

This raises another question in my mind, however. Say I have an external drive that I can connect using either USB 2.0 or firewire. (Go ahead. Say it.)
Which is preferable?

Camcorders do use USB2.0 at least my handycam does, and I had a kind of similar question...When I looked up Screenblast on this website it didn't mention using USB2.0 to connect the camera to the PC, but that's how I do it for the editing software that it came with, should I be able to with this software?

Correction, I'm a dumbass, my camcorder uses USB1.0, but same question, should I be able to use that even though only Firewire and other things were mentioned.

>Say I have an external drive that I can connect using either USB 2.0 or firewire. (Go ahead. Say it.)

Firewire - all the tests I've seen show it comfortably outperforms USB2.

Ian G.

I'd say it's pretty unlikely USB 1 can move data quickly enough to capture from a camcorder.

Also, I'm assuming that, since you're coming in through USB, you don't have a DV cam.

Analogue video requires special hardware to capture to MJPEG-AVI for editing. (Although you may be able to pass-through a DV cam using a firewire connection.)

Back to the original question...

Yes, I've captured video using both methods from my Sony Digital 8 camcorder. The first USB2 experience was with Pixela, the software that was bundled with the camera. I was surprised and pleased that this software was capable of controlling the camera via USB. I believe that I was also able to select the USB device and capture from Pinnacle's Studio 8, without device control.

Although the captures went off without a hitch, the resulting files were of lower resolution that when using the firewire DV method.

My bottom line was this: Firewire yielded DV AVI files, which are byte-for-byte copies of the information in the camera. USB2 -- well, I don't know what is being sent over the connection, but it doesn't produce DV AVI, which is my preferred editing format.

Despite USB2's theoretical higher transfer rate, it seems that hardware and software vendors are not yet producing products capable of taking advantage of that capability. Until that happens, I'm sticking with firewire.

Here's a strange one:

My camera, a JVC, uses FireWire to transfer video back and forth, but also has a USB port to transfer digital photos from the media card and when the camera is being used as a web camera. Orange Micro makes software drivers that allow the camera to be used as a web camera over the firewire port. All seems strange to me.