firewire versus usb2

[brianluce]

i plan on skipping p2 and recording dvcpro50 and hd to a laptop with an external hard drive. question: is there an advantage to using firewire over usb? i realize firewire is a bigger pipe but usb can handle 200mb and hi def is a 100mb stream so does firewire offer a real world advantage?

 

[MovieSwede]

Im not expert but both seems to do fine. The real question is the lenght of the cable.

 

[brianluce]

wait, i just read the hvx has no firewire out. that true?

 

[Neil Rowe]

usb2.0 is 480 mbps
Firewire 800 is 800 mbps

either will work fine for initial capture, but your going to want the faster 800 mbps rate for editing or transferring to your main NLE machine if your doing either of those. the pricing is relatively the same anyway. and you can get a drive with all connections including USB2.0 and FW 400 and FW800 for about the same cost per GB ratio as well. that way your always sure to have an open connection on whatever machine you want to work with.

 

[Neil Rowe]

..and no thats not true.. where are you reading this? just go to panasonics site and read on the specs if you want to know whats up. its all there in black and white

http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webap...d=14571&modelNo=AG-HVX200&surfModel=AG-HVX200

 

[jochem]

I actually don't think you will have a choice though. I initially understood that in the HVX200, the usb2.0 is used for the P2 cards to show as HD's and the firewire is for outputting to an NLE or Firestore. I might be wrong though, :huh:

 

[smelni]

I think you can only capture video via firewire - usb is for the p2 card.

I think this is because usb is burstable data and firewire is a constant rate of data which guarantees a fixed constant data rate

 

[Neil Rowe]

i plan on skipping p2 and recording dvcpro50 and hd to a laptop with an external hard drive.

guys.. he is recording to a latop with some form of capture software.. take your pick. and just using the drive for storage.

 

[jochem]

Yeah, and that is just my (our) point, probably only firewire will spit out what he wants.

 

[brianluce]

thanks guys. btw, after a cursory check at comp usa, it seems most laptops don't have firewire.

 

[Neil Rowe]

well.. actually almost all newer laptops have firewire.. they just have the little 4 pin FW400 port is all. your going to want to buy a PCMCIA 6 pin 1394b card to run a FW800 drive so you dont need an external power supply. or if youve got a desktop processor laptop liek tha new alienware you'll likely have 6 pin ports already.

 

[Loki]

USB 2.0 can have a sustained data rate of approx. 12MB/sec... it's peak throughput is 480Mbps (60MB/sec). But USB 2.0 delivers things in burst modes which sends a lot of data on an interval, which is not good for realtime capture.

FireWire 400 has a throughput of 400Mbps(50MB/sec) and has a sustained rate of 33MB/sec. Quite a bit higher than the USB 2.0 connection.

FireWire 800 runs at 800Mbps(100MB/sec), with a sustained data rate of 75MB/sec (can be upwards of 90MB/sec)

 

[Neil Rowe]

Yeah, and that is just my (our) point, probably only firewire will spit out what he wants.

hmm, im not really sure you knowwhat hes asking about ..hes not really asking about what port on the camera is going to output the video stream.. hes asking what type of external HDD for the laptop will handle ingesting a DVCPRO HD stream from the capture utility.. Its a given that the HVX will be running into the laptop via FW since that is the only way possible. but as far as storing the data off the capture utility on the laptop to an external drive, any USB2.0 or FW 400/800 drive will work. but if hes going to use the same drive for editing and data transfer and such he should get the fastest of them which is the FW 800.:beer: