reliability of a 30ft firewire cable

[Ike615]

I don't have any P2 cards at the moment and I'm having trouble finding rental places in the area that have P2 cards relatively cheap. The 48 Hour Film project is coming up pretty soon and I still want to shoot in HD so I've decided to just record straight to my 17" G4 powerbook. To do this though I'll need a pretty lengthy firewire cable.

My question is: Will the length of a firewire cable affect the transfer speeds and if so can I still manage to capture 720p and 1080i footage from the HVX200 with aroud a 30ft firewire cable?

Thanks,
Isaac

[SurJones]

I am not sure but I think a fire signal can last to 50ft or 100ft.

Why not create a rig so you can have the laptop under the tripod?

[Ike615]

Good idea. I could make one pretty cheap by getting materials at Home Depot. I'll be using the Glidecam 4000 pro from some shots though so I'll need a pretty lengthy cable for that.

[SurJones]

Here is A 70 foot.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=284904&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

I the 4 pin coming out of the camera, you just would need to be careful, maybe some gaffers tape for some security

[erdiaz]

No, you can not send DVCPro 50 or 100 over a longer than 15 or 20 feet (as my xperience, I have to made one) fire wire cable.
Look here (and entire thread to learn about DVCRack):

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=54629&page=18

[Ike615]

Thanks Ernesto. Yesterday I went searching for a long firewire cable but wasn't able to find one. After reading what you wrote I'm glad I didn't end up wasting a bunch of money on one. I ended up renting two 8gig P2 cards instead for my shoot which will work a lot better considering I'll be using a glidecam 4000 for some of my shots.

I think I'll end up buying a 15 foot firewire cable and using my 17" powerbook for more stationary jobs though.

[erdiaz]

OK!

:thumbsup: May the force be with you!!!