Posted by Ray S on 02/14/07 19:37

Gene wrote:
> I got a Belkin F5U503 PCI card in the mail a few days ago,
> and replaced an old VT6306 (VIA chip) PCI firewire card.
>
> I took a 1.5hr LP MiniDV tape & my old Sony PC100 camcorder,
> as well as two Sony D8 camcorders at 1.5hr LP and captured
> about 20 or so hours to disk with the Belkin F5U503 PCI card.
> I had "ZERO" freezes, hang-up, etc. It was a 100% success.
> With the old VIA card, it was constant crash.
>
> All of the programs like Roxio 9, Sony 7, Nero, etc. worked
> without incident. Zero problems. (I'm SURE some of these programs
> have bugs, but I did not find any during the tests.) With the VIA
> chip, I usually froze with all of these programs during capture to hard
> drive via the firewire cable.
>
>
>
> To make a long story short:
>
> If you are trying to get Sony camcorder data into a hard drive file
> on a PC with firewire (DV , iLink) and you THINK it's your software and/or
> a cheap iLink (DV or firewire) cable - it may NOT be that at all.
> It may be the logic in the firewire chip on your motherboard, or
> bus card. The logic in the PC VIA chip may be having a timing
> problem, etc. with the Sony camcorder logic chip(s).
>
> I SOLVED my capture problem by simply buying two used :
> Belkin F5U503 PCI cards on eBay for a whopping $0.99/USD
> each, plus shipping. That's two cards for < $17 total :-)
>
> BTW: I purposely chose a really cheap, and long firewire cable for the
> tests. I ended up using a 3' Belkin, but they ALL worked just fine.
> Additionally, I did not need any additional drivers, or software - my
> Windows XP Pro recognized the TI chip & all was well - just plug
> the PCI card in & re-boot.
>
> CAUTION: I would ONLY get the Belkin F5U503 PCI card, and no other
> card - not even another Belkin model. The Belkin F5U503 PCI card
> is the only one that I KNOW works, otherwise, YMMV. It is not
> 800, but I think the Sonys are only 100, so no big deal.
>
> LOL - hope this helps someone, and that you do not accept the "all firewire
> chips are the same" nonsense , as I initially did:-)
>
> Gene
>
>

A well stated cautionary tale.

While it is true that 'generally' PCI firewire cards are
interchangeable, there will always be instances where one of the nearly
infinite combination of hardware, drivers, software and devices will
produce the most annoying conflicts.

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