Fire wire

[I.C.D (Ian)]

G”Day ALL,
Firewire what is it
Firewire camera and how do they work
and is any good to use to do photographed with or is best to stay with the good old USB type camera

[Dennis]

Hi

I have Firewire DMK21 and DBK21 ccd cameras and the extent of my knowledge is that you need a 6 pin Firewire cable to connect them to your computer and a separate mains adapter (mine is a Regulated 12Vdc unit rated at 1 Amp) to provide sufficient power to these cameras. I use a PCMCIA card in my notebook computer to provide a FW connection as I do not have a native one on my 4 ½ year old IBM ThinkPad.

In the early days, I had intermittent problems in connecting the DMK but oddly enough, not the DBK. However, nowadays, both of them plug and play with no problems.

I believe that a couple of guys on the Forum have sold their Firewire DMK’s and replaced them with the USB versions for easier/more stable connectivity.

I have also read that although FW is meant to run at 400Mb/sec and USB2 at a faster 480Mb/sec, in real world applications it seems that FW actually runs faster than USB2.

Cheers

Dennis

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Originally Posted by Dennis

I have also read that although FW is meant to run at 400Mb/sec and USB2 at a faster 480Mb/sec, in real world applications it seems that FW actually runs faster than USB2.

Cheers

Dennis

That's the old IEEE1394 (FireWire) standard Dennis, it's years old. The current IEEE1394b FW runs at 800 mbps and has done for a fair while now.

I've never had a reliability issue with either FW or USB1/2.0 for any application that I've run. In m opinion though, FW external HDD's almost run as fast as an internal drive while USB has always seemed slow and sluggish - even USB2. USB's speeds are typically lower because the host processor manages the protocols, whereas with FW it's all managed by the hardware - far more efficient.

Both standards are going to be updated soon with faster versions. USB3.0 should deliver 4.8gbps (or 600 mBps). Should be out in early 2009. The newer FireWire should operate at over 6.8gbps when released - again trouncing USB speeds. Cable quality and node topology will really become important at these speeds...

[I.C.D (Ian)]

Thanks for the info fellows how do I know if my laptop is capable for firewire my laptop is a dell inspiron 1501 12 months old

[Kal (Andrew)]

You can read the manual for specifications of the notebook. The Dell Inspiron 1501 doesn't have a firewire port, however it does have 4 USB 2.0 ports

[I.C.D (Ian)]

Originally Posted by Kal

You can read the manual for specifications of the notebook. The Dell Inspiron 1501 doesn't have a firewire port, however it does have 4 USB 2.0 ports

Thanks for that Kal in my heart I was hoping I may have overlook some thing