firewire and video capture cards

[LAmind]

Someone please tell me what the hell the difference is between firewire cards and video capture cards! I'm pretty confused.

Is one better than the other. What kind of wire plugs into a video capture card? Can a firewire go int it?

Which one is better?

-Ivan

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"A place for everything and everything in it's place".

[sn-films]

LAMind:
Video capture cards are dedicated boards that plug into an empty PCI slot on your computer's motherboard. Their sole purpose in life is to take a signal from your camcorder, VCR, etc. and put it onto your computer (either as MPEG or AVI) to allow you to edit. Most capture cards come packaged with basic editing software that allows you to capture, edit, and export footage.

Firewire cards are more like USB ports... they are generic interfaces that can be used for all types of stuff. Almost all digital camcorders support firewire, along with most editing software. Programs like Premiere and Media Studio Pro, etc. allow you to use firewire cards as capture cards. However, more companies are starting to develop products that support firewire (DVD writers, storage devices... the list goes on).

As for which one is better... well that depends on what you want to do. Capture Cards will often give you more options for input (composite, s-video, etc.), but firewire cards will allow you to connect different hardware devices to your PC.

Hope this helps.


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www.sn-films.com

[Alex]

This is a great question.

Firewire is probably the single most efficient, cost effective, high-quality data transfer port ever made.

However, there are capture cards that cost 5 thousand dollars and MORE!

These Capture Cards handle a diverse amount of both analog and digital signals, including serial digital, which is considered superior to Firewire.

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Alex