Question about USB 2 v Firwire

hockalees wrote on 11/18/2004, 4:50 PM

Greetings,

I am new to the whole video editing thing. I just bought Vegas on the recommendation of a friend. I have a question about I/O cards.

My DV camera is the Panasonic PV-DV203. It comes with a USB cable and software that allows you to transfer it to your PC. It also has the iLink port, but my PC currently doesn't have Firewire, only USB 2.0.

What are the pros/cons of using either USB or Firewire? Does Vegas require Firewire? It mentions it in the manual.

Thanks in advance.

Comments

Sab wrote on 11/18/2004, 5:00 PM

In short, do NOT use USB2 for video capture. Firewire capture cards are readily available and are inexpensive. Try a search on this forum about firewire cards for excellent information on the subject. Some are way more compatible than others. We use the SIIG cards with excellent success for example.

Mike

Chienworks wrote on 11/18/2004, 5:02 PM

Vegas will only communicate with your camera through firewire, so there's a good reason to get it right there.

If you do use USB with the camera's software you'll be getting a low resolution highly-compressed signal. It won't be anywhere near as good as the DV signal through firewire. It probably won't be much better than a typical webcam. The USB port and software are mainly there for hobbiests who use video cameras as a play toy rather than a serious piece of equipment.