USB Connection vs Firewire

[Alan Mills]

It's a well known fact that Firewire should be used to connect a Mini-Dv camcorder to a PC for video transfer in order to preserve quality. I've read a number fo posts in these forums where the first reply is of the form 'use a firewire ratehr than USB'.

I use firewire myself to conenct my Sony DCR-TRV33 but was just wondering if the saem rule-of-thumb applied to a USB2 connection.

Has anyone tried video transfer through a USB2 connection? What are the results?

I'm just curious because USB2 is actually faster than firewire so there should be no degradation in quality.

Perhaps it's just that the the USB port at the camera end is ty[ically USB1.1 (intended for still transfer typically) and not USB2.

Comments anyone?

Alan

[Marc Peters]

All that the DV/firewire capture does is use AVI as a "wrapper" for the video - so the data isn't strictly speaking encoded from one format to another. Now it's my understanding that this is NOT the case with a USB connection - and more specifically, although it the datarate of USB makes this theoretically possible, I've never heard of a USB2 compatible cam. I guess it would be too much of a headache to switch to this platform - there's too much scope for tech support calls from people that don't have USB2 compatible mobos!

I'm just waiting to be corrected on this , but my general rule of thumb is that firewire is the best way to go - you know what you're getting

[Alan Mills]

I wasn't trying to imply that USB2 should be better. Certainly, everything I understand of the business is that firewire is the way to go too.

Was just curious whether anyone had actually tried it with a USB2 port and did they get better results than through a USB1.1 port.

From what you've said Marc, the bottleneck is at the camera end, with the camera sending it;s data at USB1 rates.

No doubt I couldn't take control of my camer from Premiere through a USB line either, like I can through the firewire link.

Cheers

Alan