Using the two FIREWIRE ports TOGETHER

asafb wrote on 2/10/2002, 8:14 PM
Dear Forum Users:

I have a Maxtor IEEE-1394 card which gives me *two* IEEE-1394 ports. On one of them I have the amazing Cobra+ FireWire 80GB Hard drive, and on the other, I've got my DV camcorder plugged in. Then I use VV3's capture program to capture my video.

Here's the Question: Will I get less bandwidth by using the two at the same time ? (They are NOT daisy chained; using two dedicated ports here)

Any help would greatly be appreciated!

Ab2k2*2

Comments

Rahl wrote on 2/10/2002, 8:22 PM
There shouldn't be any problems with loss of bandwith as you mention. From what I read, Firewire is similar to USB (with USB you can connect 127 devices), Firewire can support up to 63 devices using cable lengths up to 14 feet. So I wouldn't see no problem there... I have yet to try it though

-André Barriault
Rahl wrote on 2/10/2002, 8:37 PM
From what I read, you can also have up to 16 devices linked, or daisy chained, in any one branch and a total of 63 devices connected.

-André Barriault
Cheesehole wrote on 2/10/2002, 8:51 PM
Firewire is 400Mbps that's mega-BITS not bytes. that comes out to about 50 Mega-BYTES per second.

i'm not sure that is per-port or per-adapter, but in any case it should be plenty for DV purposes, such as capturing over the firewire to a firewire drive.
briand wrote on 2/11/2002, 10:23 AM
Depends on the card. You might go check the specs on your particular card, since it's certainly within PCI bandwidth to have every port with it's own 400Mb pipe. USB only has 12Mb/400Mb(USB2.0) per controller, so on a 2 or 4 port card you only get the total bandwidth across the whole card, shared per port. Firewire may do everything completely different...

It probably won't be an issue though. Firewire devices tune their bandwidth usage based on traffic, and generally do a good job of sharing.
Wayne wrote on 2/11/2002, 9:01 PM
Has anyone used the dual ports to input from two capture devices. I have tried connect both my Camcorder and Canopus ADVC-100, one on each port. I have also tried to connect the camcorder through through the Canopus. When I do, I do not seem to have control of the camcorder. I also don't understand how I select it from within VV3 capture.

I gave up and swap the firewire cable between the two devices as needed.