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WHAT IS A FIREWIRE CABLE MAC
WHAT IS A FIREWIRE CABLE WINDOWS

If you’ve never added an expansion card to a desktop computer, don’t worry it’s not hard and desktops were meant to be expanded. What Type Of Firewire Card Is Compatible With A Desktop Computer? The good news is most desktop PCs today should have at least 1 expansion slot on the motherboard of the computer that is cable of adding a firewire card to, and it’s not that difficult if you find the right card.

WHAT IS A FIREWIRE CABLE WINDOWS

Windows Desktops: Most desktop computers never came with firewire unless you bought a custom-built tower or bought it from someone that edits a video. Or if it came installed with Windows XP or Windows 7.īelow is a 4-pin firewire port on an older Windows laptop. Windows Laptops: this is a ballpark/rule of thumb but if your laptop is old enough that it has a DVD drive still built it, there’s a good chance it has firewire as well as it was still popular enough at the time. If you see a section like below that says IEEE-1394 host controller then you already have firewire installed. Windows ComputersĪ quick and easy way to check if you have firewire installed on your Windows computer is to type “device manager” in the search box next to the Windows icon on the tasks bar.Ī window will pop-up showing all devices installed on your computer.

If purchasing one I recommend making sure it is the right type of thunderbolt that fits your Mac, and it is a genuine Apple product. Since then Apple and Intel have developed iterations of a technology called Thunderbolt, which does have an adapter to firewire allowing it to connect to firewire devices. How Do I Know If My Computer has FireWire?Īpple Products: as stated earlier, most Macbook (Laptop) and iMac (Desktop) models built in the 1990s to 2000 were built with integrated firewire ports.

Control: Since firewire is a bi-directional communication, your computer can control your camcorder, so you can forward/rewind/stop your camcorder from your computers editing softwareīy far the most important benefit is getting that digital video off the tape into your computer within the best quality format, which firewire is a clear winner.

Scene Detection: Because the computer can detect when a clip changes from one scene to the next based on the timecode of the digital video, it can automatically split each clip into its own file as it transfers to the computer.

Meta Info: The video retains its meta information like the date and time the clip was shot.

Uncompressed Video: The video transfers uncompressed from the camcorder to your computer, meaning the video that gets stored on your computer is the exact same quality of the video that is on the digital tape.

Firewire has 4 main benefits over a USB video converter when transferring digital video over firewire: Sony called it their i.LINK connector, but it was essentially firewire.įirewire was also popular with external devices like hard drives, where you could daisy-chain several drives together yet only use 1 port on your computer.įirewire has changed over the years with Firewire 400 which used 4 and 6 pin connectors, and the newer and faster Firewire 800 that uses 8 pin connectors. When digital camcorders were developed they needed a way to transfer the digital signal they were recording onto tapes into a computer without any quality loss, including meta info like date and time of recording.įirewire was the solution for all digital camcorders at the time, they virtually all came equipped with a 4-pin firewire connection.

WHAT IS A FIREWIRE CABLE MAC

Most Mac computers developed from 2000-2010 came integrated with firewire, but most PCs did not have integrated firewire thus the need for firewire cards. The original version of firewire called Firewire 400 allowed transfer speeds up to 400 MPs, as well as audio and video transfer (Wikipedia). What is Firewire and Does My Computer Already Have It?įirewire, or IEEE-1394, was popular technology back in the 1990s and 2000s developed by Apple to replace older high-speed technologies like SCSI. The high speed of data transfer allows for lossless video transfer from digital camcorders to computers.īut firewire is a less popular technology now and it may be harder to know if you can add a firewire card to your computer. If you are thinking of transferring video from your Digital8 or MiniDV tapes to your computer you might have heard the term “firewire card” and been confused as to what it is and why you should use it.Ī Firewire card is an add-on card for desktop or laptop pcs that enables communication with firewire-capable devices like hard drives and digital camcorders.