I having problems with my usb 2 pcmcia card and I was wondering if anyone has successfully captured video using this firewire setup.

I know the firewire port on my computer works so I was going to buy a firewire hub and connect both the camcorder and the external drive (or I guess the camcorder and hard drive could be daisy chained together). Will I be able to capture directly to the external drive using this setup?

The only reason I think this will not work is because data will have to flow in both directions simulaneously through the firewire cable.

Thanks,
Reed

I can't speak specifically to your PC, but Daisy Chaining FireWire devices poses no problem on Macs. In fact I do it on a Powerbook with a 4200rpm drive without problems. The PCMCIA connection might actually be a bottleneck for the data and part of the problem. USB 2 should have no problem either.

I've been doing that successfully on an ancient laptop and an external firewire hard drive. Works great hasn't dropped a frame yet.

But I do notice that when I use the USB port that I can lose the firewire connection - I have to restart the drive if I hot plug my digital camera.

Specs:
Maxtor 1394 PCMCIA card
ADS Pyro case
7200 rpm Western Digital Drive
Dell Laptop - Pentium II Celeron (ouch)
Win 2K

Oh, and I daisy chain the video cameras through the back of the firewire drive, no problems capturing hours of video.

Thanks for your help.

One more question. Is 5400 RPM enough for capturing dv video or should I go for an external drive with 7200 RPM?

Reed

7200 RPM drives are CHEAP. No brainer.