Firewire 400 or 800: Does it matter?
 

I got a Cannon XL2 and will be transfering video to my ibook. I should buy a cable that connects the camera to the computer via my firewire 400 or 800 port? Or does it not matter? I would assume that 800 would be faster, but I'm new to this game. I have also have a hard drive that has both 400 and 800.

thanks,

BO'B

I'm pretty sure the Canon IEEE 1394 output is FW400.

I'm not sure if it would even work on the FW 800 input, but if it did, you would't see a speed difference from using the FW400.

The hard drive, on the other hand, if it is a FW800 drive will benefit from plugging it into the FW 800 input.

yea, I did some more looking around and it appears - like you said - it won't matter since the camera only *speaks* 400.

That said, 800 is backwards compatible, so I figure I'll grab a 4 pin to 9 pin (800) firewire cable anway. I think it'll git er done in the short term and maybe come in handy down the road.

BO'B