Ideal length of Firewire cable
 

Hello

What should be the length of the firewire cable to capture from MicroMV and DV camcorder. Does longer cables result in loss of quality or it does't matter whatever the length is. I am planning to buy a 14' Belkin firewire cable.

Cheers
Nitin

No matter what type of cable, the rule is the shorter the better. In the case of FireWire longer cables are linked to dropped frames, increased error correction and I'm sure other issues as well.

will 6' be a better option

FirewireDirect has a nice answer to this question, which concurs with everything I've ever read on this subject:

Q: What is the maximum length a FireWire (A) cable can be?

A: The maximum cable length for connecting device to device with a 400Mbps cable is 4.5-meters (14.85ft). The Firewire specification calls for 10 meter (32ft) cables that may be used in conjunction with a repeater when it is necessary to extend FireWire cables over long distances. FirewireDirect does not offer these cables at this time because tests have shown them to be unreliable in some situations. We suggest using 4.5 meter cables and hubs when needing to extend to greater distances and don't recommend 10 meter cables (if you can find them) to our customers.

http://www.firewiredirect.com/firewi...s/cables.shtml

you got me confused

If you don't need the longer cable, a shorter cable is always best. In any case do not use a cable over 4.5 meters in length.

Right - what Jeff said.