# Firewire vs. USB 2



## Bogy (Mar 23, 2002)

I've got a question that some of you guys should have the answer to. I recently purchased a new computer, and a new digital camcorder. I actually bought the new camcorder first, to take videos of myself preaching to send to interested churches. (We bought our old one about 13 years ago, and it was getting a little long in the tooth.) I have already used it to dub some video tapes. Now however I have a new computer complete with DVD burner. Today I finally downloaded some video of todays sermon. I used the USB 2 port, since I had USB cables available. However, I was disappointed in the quality that I got. I have not actually burned a DVD yet, just watched the file on the computer monitor. On just a 17" LCD monitor I was very disappointed. The camera documentation states that using firewire will give you the best image possible. I don't necessarily doubt that, because even though the official specs on USB 2 and firewire are very close, real world tests I have seen show that Firewire still has a pretty good edge. I am planning on getting a firewire cable tomorrow, so I will see for myself, but for those of you who have been doing this for a while, what kind of improvement can I expect to see? 

Second question. Anybody have any comments on the necessity of spending the most money possible on a firewire cable? We have had these discussions concerning other types of cables, but I have spent a little time online tonite and find cables available in local stores that range in price from $8.95 to $60. Is there a real good reason not to spend $9 on this cable.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

For downloading video doesn't matter what port USB 2.0 or IEEE1394 (Apple's FireWire) you're using. Yes, sustain speed for 1394 is higher, but a quality will be same. 

What camera model is it ? What tape is that ?

$9 cable is OK - that's DIGITAL cable.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Firewire vs. USB 2.0

I use both for video work.

But- there are certain rules I must follow and each has it's specialty-

1.Firewire AKA IEEE1394, AKA I-Link for video transfer allows deck control, USB2.0 does not. For taking video off the camcorder FW is the way to do this.
2. When transferring video clips from drive to drive USB2.0, USB 1.1(much slower) is just as good as FW.
3. When viewing video from an external hard drive where you must not suffer dropped frames and need to watch at for full 29.97 video frame rate, FW will operate at the sustained 400Mbs rate while USB2.0 even at 480Mbs can sometimes suffer slowdowns and appear as "skips" in viewing. FW is the preferred transfer method for this reason by video professionals with DV and DVCAM, AVI and QT video files. I don't believe you have a choice here as there are no USB2.0 camcorders due to other limitations of the video transfer protocol.
4. This is most likely the most important rule to follow for video when needing to view at full 29.97 fps rate. Always work wirth your video files on an external or physically separate hard drive. Always use 7200RPM drives minimum. Never access video files from the C drive or from any drive where the operational software is also resident. Hard drive sector access just cannont be sustained at video rates with a single drive between OS and video files.

These rules are necessary to insure full sustained 29.97 FPS video. 

Personally, I do not have a problem viewing video at full 29.97 fps with USB2.0 on computers with speeds higher than 1.8Ghz. Some people do so it is a general rule in engineering video servers.

Cables- I don't concern myself with the cost and will use cheap or expensive ones as they are available. Most of mine are cheap ones. I just added a studio to studio link firewire cable using a $20 35ft cable ordered online. It works fine and the application is from an analog to digital converter box being fed with YUVcomponent Betacam SP source deck to a computer's FW input in the next room. I have digitized 30 minute TV shows from beta SP masters to the hard drive with 0 dropped frames on this system. The analog to digital box offers RS422 deck control so Firewire control signals are sent and converted to RS422 deck control for batch digitizing. USB2.0 doesn't even have this option so it isn't an option on the equipment.

edit-
One more FW advantage for me is I can daisy chain FW while USB requires a hub. My main video server has had 8 FW drives daisy chained once for a project. Tghe same server only has 2 USB2.0 ports but I have also connected some USB2.0 drives to these as well and video rate works fine from both banks of drives. Just that FW drives seem easier to work with in the long run.


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## Bogy (Mar 23, 2002)

Thanks guys. I have a Sony Handycam DCR-HC40 using Sony MiniDV tape. The computer is a HP Pavilion a830n, with a P4 3.2 processor. 

Don, just to clarify one of the things you said, I was assuming that the USB port on the camcorder was USB2, although I can't find a spec that says so. You stated that there are no USB2 camcorders, which would make a difference. Unless I am misunderstanding what you meant. If the camcorder port is USB1.1 that would make quite a difference.

The other aspect of what you said also makes sense and may be my problem, that of not recording on drive C. I've got my old ATA HDs that I've been using as external drives since the new box uses SATA. I'll try recording on one of those and see what happens.


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## HappyGoLucky (Jan 11, 2004)

It would likely be OK to record to the C: drive as long as you weren't also trying to do other things at the same time. Having the least number of other programs running would be important.

I have a DVD burner that can connect via USB or Firewire. It can use USB 1.1 or 2.0. I've tried connecting with both the USB2.0 and Firewire and get far better results with the Firewire. The only time this burner has made "coasters" (failed burns) is when connected via USB2.0. With the Firewire connection I can still do other things, including very intensive things like video transcoding, while burning a disc and it just works perfectly. With the USB2.0 I couldn't do anything, even reading an email caused it to falter.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Bogy, you could check the connection type in Device Manager while the Handycam stay connecting.


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## Bogy (Mar 23, 2002)

P Smith said:


> Bogy, you could check the connection type in Device Manager while the Handycam stay connecting.


That is what I was just doing. From what I can tell my external HD is connected at USB2, but the Handycam must be connected at 1.1. It doesn't specify a number, so that would be my guess. Firewire would have to be an improvement.


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## AllieVi (Apr 10, 2002)

HappyGoLucky said:


> It would likely be OK to record to the C: drive as long as you weren't also trying to do other things at the same time. Having the least number of other programs running would be important.


It's not just other programs. Windows itself occasionally reads from or writes to the c: disk for one reason or another (that's what Don was referring to). When it does, the video stream won't be maintained.


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## Bogy (Mar 23, 2002)

I finally read some directions  and found that the Imagemixer program I have will capture video from my camcorder, but ONLY if I use the firewire connection. The program will provide the deck control options Don mentioned earlier. So its off to the store to buy a cable. (Drawers full of cables, but not one of those.  )


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## Mike123abc (Jul 19, 2002)

If you have to capture to drive C, make sure you turn off the preview while doing it. I use windows movie maker to do the capture over firewire. I like how it will automatically find all the time segments, I will read in a section, use it to write out the individual time segments, then use Adobe Premier to actually do all the editing.

I have a separate drive I use for all the editing on a different computer. I just like doing the capture on the single drive computer because it has a front panel firewire. The editing computer has the firewire in the rear and it is a pain to crawl around behind there!


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## AllieVi (Apr 10, 2002)

Mike123abc said:


> I have a separate drive I use for all the editing on a different computer. I just like doing the capture on the single drive computer because it has a front panel firewire. The editing computer has the firewire in the rear and it is a pain to crawl around behind there!


Have you considered just leaving a cable permanently plugged into that connector and leaving the other end accessible? I've done that at times and it makes life a lot easier.


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## Mike123abc (Jul 19, 2002)

AllieVi said:


> Have you considered just leaving a cable permanently plugged into that connector and leaving the other end accessible? I've done that at times and it makes life a lot easier.


Well I did have a cable back there leading up to a desktop A to D converter (a great product by dazzle that took video/S-Video in and made it 720x480 MJPEG, looked just like a DV camera) that had 2 firewire ports on it. It was very convient, but of course it was too convient and my brother borrowed it almost a year ago now (to convert all his Hi8 to DVD)... I guess I need to lean on him some to send it back, but now my brother in law wants to convert all his videos...


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## MarkA (Mar 23, 2002)

FireWire is the video standard, and is much faster than USB2.0 (though that won't affect video). I can't guarantee your quality will be better, but I'd still highly suggest using FireWire. If you're gentle on it, buy the cheapest cable possible.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

The USB port in this particular camcorder may be for memory stick image transfer, not AV/C which has historically been reserved to 1394 or the I-Link protocol. Now that I said that, technology has made a habit over the years of doing what was previously not possible.  All I can say here is that when working with video _FROM_ hard drive to system software and back to hard drive, BOTH work equally well, ie USB2.0 and IEEE1394. I use both in that capacity without problems here. When working from Camcorder to system or hard drives and from hard drives back to camcorder tape, only IEEE1394 has been able to handle the task primarily due to transport control needs. Like I said that is the standard but this new DCR HC40 with USB may be something new I have not heard of. I did research the specs and only could find the fact that "USB" was listed as one of the I/Os. I would just refer to your manual to see if that applies to tape and memory stick or just to the memory stick content as it has been done in the past. If it applies to both, I wonder what sort of access control software uses this as video capture software I know of is pretty much IEEE1394 only as the standard. Some professional edit packages also offer RS422 deck and timecode control via an RS232c port but that is very professional stuff you won't see on consumer camcorders.

MarkA- Technically, USB2.0 is slightly faster than IEEE1394 for file transfer. I have never tested USB2.0 for digitizing because I don't have any equipment that will do that. Don't know that it exists. The problem is that the least little snafu in USB2.0, it slows down and backs out to 1.1 spec speed. ( This would also cause the transfer rate to not keep up with 29.97 FPS of video during digitizing. ) IEEE1394 works a tad differently in that it won't slow down but rather when there are those snafu problems, it just chops the file or in the case of digitizing will drop frames. Bottom line is 1394 just quits when it can't maintain the CRC and loses the error checks, USB2.0 drops back in speed. My software actuall exhibits an error message something like:
"Too many dropped frames during digitizing, transfer halted. Please check 1394 connections, system loading, and your hard drive speed, defragment, etc. etc."

The reason why USB can be used for memory stick transfer is because these files do not have to maintain the 29.97 FPS rate that the tape transport requires.

One more thing- The idea that you can digitize to the system drive because no other applications are running is just not true. You want trouble, go ahead. The ideal system is to have all software on your C drive and reserve a physically separate firewire drive OR USB2.0 drive for the video files. Hope this did not confuse you, let me explain- When you do want to use a hard drive that is USB2.0 you can but the video camcorder connection still must be 1394 to the computer. However, the previous discussion still applies and that is the least little snafu will cripple the USB drive from accepting that file at the video rate. So, the most ideal system uses all 1394 drives and camcorder connections. I use USB 2.0 drives as I said but I recognize the vulnerability and sometimes get nailed by it.


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## HappyGoLucky (Jan 11, 2004)

AllieVi said:


> It's not just other programs. Windows itself occasionally reads from or writes to the c: disk for one reason or another (that's what Don was referring to). When it does, the video stream won't be maintained.


Really? Wow! I'd never have thought of that. Nobody during my education to obtain a doctorate in computer science ever mentioned any of that. And of course, all the video and audio I've captured over the years to various devices, including my system drive, must have been just a fluke. Amazing. Thank you for correcting my mistake.

On a reasonably maintained newer computer (especially if the drives are SATA), capturing video to the system drive should NOT be a problem as long as reasonable precautions to not otherwise tax the system (beyond the normal use by the Windows OS itself) occurs. If capturing is to be done regularly and extensively, of course it would be better to have another drive for that purpose.


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## Tusk (Nov 14, 2002)

> Originally Posted by *AllieVi* _
> It's not just other programs. Windows itself occasionally reads from or writes to the c: disk for one reason or another (that's what Don was referring to). When it does, the video stream won't be maintained._


Intelligent, polite response.



HappyGoLucky said:


> Really? Wow! I'd never have thought of that. Nobody during my education to obtain a doctorate in computer science ever mentioned any of that. And of course, all the video and audio I've captured over the years to various devices, including my system drive, must have been just a fluke. Amazing. Thank you for correcting my mistake.


Typical Happy overreaction.


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## ntexasdude (Jan 23, 2005)

Uh......when you're surfing the net using I.E. doesn't WINDOWS write stuff in your temp folders? Isn't I.E. an integral part of Windows that can't be seperated out. Isn't that what Bill claimed in court?

I use some really high powered engineering software to design machines. One thing we have to do is set the virtual page file to a really high number to reduce hard disk pages. It improves speed and stability.


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## AllieVi (Apr 10, 2002)

HappyGoLucky said:


> Thank you for correcting my mistake.


Glad to be of help.


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## MarkA (Mar 23, 2002)

"MarkA- Technically, USB2.0 is slightly faster than IEEE1394 for file transfer."

In theory. In reality FireWire 400 is about twice as fast as USB2.0

But I do have a USB2.0 hard drive because it was cheap and works fine for video capture (from miniDV), but it's a little slow for basic system tasks - FireWire doesn't have that. Benchmarks put FireWire400 from 50-100% faster than USB 2.0.


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## Bogy (Mar 23, 2002)

DonLandis said:


> The USB port in this particular camcorder may be for memory stick image transfer, not AV/C which has historically been reserved to 1394 or the I-Link protocol. Now that I said that, technology has made a habit over the years of doing what was previously not possible.  All I can say here is that when working with video _FROM_ hard drive to system software and back to hard drive, BOTH work equally well, ie USB2.0 and IEEE1394. I use both in that capacity without problems here. When working from Camcorder to system or hard drives and from hard drives back to camcorder tape, only IEEE1394 has been able to handle the task primarily due to transport control needs. Like I said that is the standard but this new DCR HC40 with USB may be something new I have not heard of. I did research the specs and only could find the fact that "USB" was listed as one of the I/Os. I would just refer to your manual to see if that applies to tape and memory stick or just to the memory stick content as it has been done in the past. If it applies to both, I wonder what sort of access control software uses this as video capture software I know of is pretty much IEEE1394 only as the standard. Some professional edit packages also offer RS422 deck and timecode control via an RS232c port but that is very professional stuff you won't see on consumer camcorders.


The USB connection can be used to transfer the still pictures off the memory card, although I think I would transfer still pictures directly off the card using the card reader on the computer. It can also be used to download tape, but apparently primarily to burn video CDs. Sony provides Picture Package with the camcorder, which does not have a DVD option that I can find. The Pixela Imagemixer software that came with my Sony still camera reads the camcorder when attached with firewire, but not with USB. With firewire it provides the control deck and will capture the video.

With the USB connection Intervideo WinDVD and Windows Movie Maker will capture the video, but at much lower rates. Windows Movie maker captures at a bit rate of 512 Kbps, a display size of 320 x 240 pixels, and at 30 fps, with each minute of video consuming 3 mb.

With the Firewire connection Windows Movie Maker captures at a bit rate of 2.1 Mbps, a display size of 640 x 480, at 30 fps, consuming 14 meg each second.

So the UBS CAN be used to capture video, but at a much lower quality level. Obviously, as you said Don, capturing stills from the memory stick is much less intensive, especially when the stills are only at a one megapixel level.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

DV is actually 720x486 pixels with a 0.89 Pixel AR. When seen on a square pixel monitor it looks to be 640x486. Kind of confusing but image AR and pixel AR are two different animals!

The USB video download you describbed is very similar to what I have with my Canon G3 still camera that does video but at the reduced resolution of 320x240. I agree that the best transfer is when you take the memory stick and put it in a card reader although I have yet to try a camera with USB2.0.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

MarkA--
I'll have to try my own bench mark here sometime to satisfy my curiosity. I make a habit of doing file transfers, typically 20G at a time so the transfer is a sustained time period. I could do the transfer using the same model drives but using 1394 one time and USB2.0 another. I do this all the time and simply set up the transfer and go do something else so I've never really paid any attention to which one was the winner. No matter what the theories are, I make my profits by maximizing my time so this would be a good thing to know. It's why I typically work 4-6 computers at a time. With video editing, the rendering process can tie up a system for hours. I have a double chroma key 30 minute TV show with lots of effects and that one is on a 3.4 Ghz machine rendering since 3 PM today. It's about 60% done. I could have networked rendered the show as my editor supports network rendering but then my other machines are also tied up. In this case, file transfer speed doesn't matter much, it's the processor speed.


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## Bogy (Mar 23, 2002)

I've been trying the various programs I mentioned above, to determine which I like best, from a quality standpoint and a ease of use standpoint. The video I have been working with is of my sermon last Sunday morning. I had not directly hooked up the camera to a TV and taken a look at it until last night, when I needed to run off a tape to send to a church. (I had considered sending them a DVD, but I don't need to send a church a DVD and have it be a format their player can't see.) Then I realized that some of the dissatisfaction I had about the quality I was getting from the download was due to the quality of the taped image. Actually, the camcorder is doing a good job, considering what it has to work with, but the "tech guy" at this church said in a meeting that the front of the sanctuary only has a candlepower of 12 lumens, and that they would have problems it they want to do any taping or televising. It looks fairly well lit up, but obviously isn't to good. I need to tape something outside in the sunlight and see what kind of image I get that way.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Bogy- The typical Church lighting environment has two problems- 1. low levels which will cause a grainy/noisy looking image. In a ddition the second problem is the color temperature is predominatly yellow to orange, lacking in blues. As most consumer camcorders today are white preset (indoor setting) to 3200 K the church light being 2100 K will cause the video to look reddish, especially in skin tones. Professional cameras have a continuoue white adjust from 1800K to as high as 9000 K plus we have other matrix settings for Flourescents, stage lighting, and saturated colored lights. You have one solution- use more light! Doesn't mean you need to light your church like a department store, but you can get creative here. Suggestion you use some focused spots, two on either side of you at your station. For a nice 3D effect on your head, put one additional spot behind you aimed down at the back of your head. This will give you the classic 3 point lighting system from the text books. I would suggest using some small 75 watt spots. Don't know your setup to offer how to mount them but with this, you can create a nice effect for your audience as well as look great for your camera. Keep all the lights high aimed down for a natural look.


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## Bogy (Mar 23, 2002)

Don, you are correct that in most churches the lighting is pitiful. I have griped about this in every church I have served, and this one is not only not an exception, it is a textbook example of the problem. This sanctuary is a very big box. The ceiling is as high as the width of the church, at least half as high as the length. The lighting is provided by a generous supply of floodlights on the ceiling. However, the light is well dissipated before it reaches the floor. Three sides of the sanctuary are solid walls, no windows at all, with a row of colored glass windows facing north. Why church architects want to promote a perpetual candlelight service atmosphere I don't know. Then we expect people to read hymnals and bulletins in light better suited for a romantic dinner. The extra lighting in the front of the church consists of one extra flood above the alter.

Most churches I have served have done a better job of lighting up the front, but never a great job. I'll only be here for another month. I'll hope my next permanent church has a better setup, or is willing to make changes.


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## MarkA (Mar 23, 2002)

At the church I go to Bogy we use somewhat color temperature corrected (with 1/2 and 1/4 CTB filters on lights we want to be white) quartz-halogen theatrical lighting (mainly a mix of ellipsoidal spots and fresnels with a few PAR cans to provide background wash). It works very well for video. Just a setup to consider. We use ETC controls (both an Express board and a Unison architectural controller) and dimmers (Sensor), but I'm not very happy with ETC so I might suggest looking at what Strand has to offer.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Many of the chruches around here do have good lighting because they are involved with television evangelism as well as produce videos for distribution to their members who are unable to attend Sunday service. I might have mentioned before, I do a series of videos, mostly sold to other ministers around the world on various subject matter. Stuff like how to council people with particular problems like terminal disease, them or a family member. However, the location where I shot those several years ago, had to be outfitted with my light kit for the production. The organization (not a church) is about ready to embark on redoing some of the older series I did back in the 90's. I am not doing it this time due to my own scheduling problems but the company that won the bid is planning to shoot in a TV studio. I wonder why they decided against their church.


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## Bogy (Mar 23, 2002)

In my mother's community the church services are taped and during the week they are all shown on the cable public access channel. Her church also runs a closed circuit to the related nursing home across the street. The next time I'm there I will have to look and see what kind of a lighting setup they have. 

As a sidenote, when the church began a contemporary service the people running the equipment forgot to turn of the signal to the nursing home at the end of the traditional service. About half way through they realized the loud music was being sent across the street. They quickly shut it off and hoped there wouldn't be to many complaints. Sure enough, on Monday morning the church office got complaints. The old people called to complain about how they lost the signal halfway through the service they were enjoying.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

I'll bet "loud Music" was sounding normal. 

Good idea to check out their lighting setup but do compare to the look of the video to make sure it is clean. 

BTW, Bogy, Pro cameramen use tow way to check lighting on a field shoot. Pro cameras have a screen in the viewfinder called "Zebra" The simple setting is for 100 IRE zebra. We increase the light until the Zebra just appears on bright white and then back off a bit as it just disappears. I prefer a more engineering approach and carry a Hamlet Waveform / Vectorscope attached to my HiRes field monitor. Using either will insure you have the proper light for a quality video. If your light is too low it will get you what you observed and if you go too hot, it can be equally bad as the hot areas wikll wash out and you will lose all color, giving the speaker a look like he was just nuked! Lighting is both a science and an art. Getting it right is simple science I can teach anyone in a minute, but the art is creating the moods demanded by a good director. You want the proper light for good technical quality but also I'm sure you want the right mood for your appearance. That may be the tricky part, especially because you have to maintain the decor of the sanctuary, right?


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## Bogy (Mar 23, 2002)

I haven't used pro cameras since about 1988. I was part of a team from 12 conferences who taped our national meeting that year. The cameras we used were on the low price end, but I did spend some time teamed up with a guy from our Communications Office who had the real thing. Mostly I was his pack mule, but he did let me try out the camera and gave me some tips. Its a good thing it was toward the end of the meeting, because I really missed that camera when I had to go back to ours. :lol:


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