DV question

[J.O.N]

I don't have any experience of working with DV as I have a Marvel G400TV and more importantly no DV camera. However, for a forthcoming project I am going to shoot on a DV camera (not sure which model) and want to edit at home using Vegas Video which I know well and am familiar with.

I don't have a firewire input on my system and being a student I can't afford to buy one. However, is it possible to get the DV footage transferred onto a computer with firewire input (which I have time-restricted access to), then put those files onto a CDR, then load them into a Vegas project on my PC. Then when I have finished editing burn the resultant file onto a CDR, take it back to the computer with the firewire input and put the finished product back onto DV tape? From what I know I think it would be possible given that DirectX8.0a has a DV codec but before this all started I wanted to check it out with some experts. Or failing that, you lot.

J.O.N.

[wkulecz]

Yes it possible. The problem is if any clip or your final output gets bigger than 650-700MB that'll fit on a CD-R

You probably can't edit from the CD-R the speed just isn't there so you'll have to copy form the CD-R to your hard drive to edit.

I've seen "generic" TI 1394 chip based firewire cards for $29.95 that included a cable and Ulead Visual Studio software.

--wally.

[J.O.N]

Great. Sorry I didn't make it clear, I was planning to copy the files from CDR to the hard drive.

So what are these 'generic' cards like? What disadvantage does it have over the more expensive? I don't need the software, and the Microsoft DV codec will do for me.

Is there something as cheap in the UK or would I be best ordering from the US?

thanks,
J.O.N.

[This_Idiot]

Jon,

Buy a copy of this months Computer Video mag, available from WH Smith and other large newsagents. They've got a round up of "budget" firewire cards that should be of interest to you.

Chris
(T_I)

[Dr Mordrid]

Just make SURE that any card you buy is OHCI compliant!! Not all 1394 cards are equal and OHCI ones will give you the best results.

Dr. Mordrid

[wkulecz]

I'll go so far as to say OHCI compliant is necessary but not sufficient. You really need one with the TI 1394 chipset. NEC, Via, Advantsys all have problems, maybe not with basic DV capture but when you start adding 1394 periphs or writing back to tape you'll be sorry if you don't go with a TI chipset for your OHCI card.

SP2 for w2k did not fix the 1394 drive problems with my Orange Micro NEC 1394 card. A generic TI 1394 card works fine and has since before SP1.

--wally.

[Dr Mordrid]

I'd agree about the TI 1394 chipset in general and take it one step further:

Get a TI IEEE-1394a chipped board. It's the ONLY chipset you should consider using in your DV board.

The ADS Pyro, SIIG 1394 DV-Cam Kit (both are 3 port cards) and many other DV cards use the TI IEEE-1394a chipset. Even more upscale devices like the RT-2000 use it.

The 1394a fixed several problems with the original IEEE-1394-1995 spec, extended it even further for speed and stability and is hell-and-gone better than the other manufacturers cow-chips.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 17 May 2001).]

[Dr Mordrid]

IEEE-1394a adds the folling;

1. debounce of the cable connection.

2. standardized PHY-Link interface.

3. added PHY-Link interface features to control new arbitration enhancements.

4. added features to prepare for the even faster 1394b

5. a new standard register map

6. software control over bitfields in the Self-ID packet

7. shortened arbitrated bus reset

8. arbitration enhancements to more fully utilize the available bandwidth

9. multispeed concatenation

10. "Ping" timing for bus arbitration gap optimization

11. capability to disable individual ports

12. suspend/resume capability to manage PHY power consumption. Includes remote read/write and responses.

Most of these improve device compatability, bus stability and overall performance.

Dr. Mordrid




[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 17 May 2001).]

[wkulecz]

Agreed, but as far as I know all the $30 boards are the "old" TI chipset. My point is that it still works well enough for three DV streams -- I can open a DV file on the 1394 drive and output it back to the camcorder (one in stream and one out stream, or does OHCI do peer to peer here? meaning it'd really only be one stream from drive to camcorder instead of two from the drive to computer and from computer to camcorder). While this is going on I can open a DV file on the 1394 drive in media player and play it back (third stream) with no glitches anywhere.

Any details on these 1394a fixes would be much appreciated. For example if they affect only 1394 networking I would consider them unimportant for DV work as I see no need for 1394 instead of 100BaseTX as 1000BaseTX is on the horizon.

--wally.