help? New laptop has neither firewire or card slots. Advise needed.
 

So I got our company's newest laptop today which is a powerful machine with great editing capabilities. I knew it did not have firewire port but I did not realize that it doesn't have a card slot either! So here I am with a great editing machine and no way to capture my HDV material to it. I do shoot a lot with the 7D so that is okay, but I still use my XLH1 for a lot of the long form shoots when I am traveling and need to to be able to capture this on my laptop. I have quickly scoured the web and do not see anything that looks reliable to convert to USB ports. I am using the Adobe CS5 suite to edit and capture so it would need to work with this setup.

I know the newer Macbooks dropped the firewire ports also. I even have a small MacBook Pro myself...but it's missing firewire and a card slot too! So that will not be of assistance.

Thanks in advance for any insight into resolving this.

There's no such thing as a viable FireWire to USB solution, unfortunately.

What is your laptop, specifically? Many Dell models are still carrying 4-pin
FireWire. Back in September I bought a Latitude 6410 ATG, loaded, from
Dell Outlet with a coupon for 25% off and it was under $800. And it has a
4-pin FireWire jack that I'll never use.

I suppose you could get a disc- or Card- based recorder and either use that directly on the cam rather than tape, or use the unit as a VCR and capture from tape, and then transfer the file to the PC via USB.

Other than that, I think your only alternatives are a) a different camcorder or b) a different PC. Do you have an older PC with FW that you could capture to, and then transfer the files to the laptop?

Even faster: if your new laptop and your old PC both have eSATA ports, you could capture directly to an eSATA drive from the old PC and then plug it into the laptop. If the laptop is so equipped, a $40 eSATA card for a desktop -- any desktop, frankly -- might be the most economical solution of all.

Marty,

ALL the current MacBook Pros have Firewire 800 ports included.
What model are you talking about?

You are right! It does have FireWire 800!(my MacBook that is) So what do I need exactly to hook this to my xlh1 and will it work in my windows partition? Thanks. Maybe there is a silver lining.

Belkin 6'/1.8m FireWire 800/400 Cable (9-Pin to 6-Pin) - Apple Store (U.S.)

All you should need is a simple cable.

I also have a similar dilemna. I did some research & it seems those USB to Firewire converters are pretty useless, correct?


Anyway, I'm thinking of doing what some recommended & importing to my desktop, then via a memory card or flash drive putting the video file onto there then into the laptop. Seems like an extra step, but I had to buy a laptop in a hurry & on a budget, my HP desktop has been a nightmare & is in for it's 3rd straight repair job since they don't fix them just run diagnostics. Haven't had a computer in over a month. I don't plan on editing on my laptop much anyway, but you never know. It'd be nice to know a way in advance in case the need arises.