Posted by Gene on 02/14/07 19:41

LOL - not a tale, just the absolute facts in my case :-)

Gene


"Ray S" <mail@mail.com> wrote in message
news:2yJAh.2935$G23.2638@newsreading01.news.tds.net...
> 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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