Laptop - No firewire, no PCMCIA, no capture?

[benwilhelm]

OK, so I recommended to a friend to buy this laptop for video editing.

Well I didn't look close enough. It has no PCMCIA slot and no internal Firewire port. Soooo, I can't think of ANY option to do capture from a DV device via firewire!

Doing an analog capture over usb would work, but quality would suffer. As far as I know there is no FW to USB converter. And without PCMCIA, that really limits options. I also thought, well FW is a cousin to a network adapter and a cousin to a scsi device, but can't think of any helpful options along those avenues.

Other than capturing with a separate machine, I think the only option is returning the laptop.

Any outside the box thoughts, or someone out there to tell me all about devices I never knew existed...?

Thanks,

Ben

[kbob]

many video cameras do allow for capture via usb, though they're generally slower than most firewire solutions. It's usually on the software disc you didn't really look at when you got the camera (something I learned the hard way).

Also, there are quite a few usb based analog capture solutions-make sure if you end up having to go that route to get a usb 2-High Speed (not just compatible) based adapter-the differences in compression are very noticeable between a 12 mb and 400 mb feed. I've not got any currently shipping recommendations-and if you end up stuck with this route, know that you're likely to be stuck with using the capture solution that comes with the adapter, as most of the third party hardware doesn't play nice with Premiere et al.

[benwilhelm]

Yea, we're gonna have to be talking about firewire as an interface. We're talking about XL1s. And in terms of external capture devices, we'd be talking about doing it via analog and we'll see a noticable cut in quality

[benwilhelm]

OK, so I see a device like this, but it doesn't explicitly say it'll convert firewire to USB. I'd assume it'll only do analog capture through either firewire or USB. But unless I hear first hand info that it'll work, I wouldn't trust to buy it or recommend it.

[[Director] Joseph B]

if you can return it, return it and get one with firewire. That will be by far the simplest solution (in my opinion)

I've got this one:
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSit...)/PCTV+Pro+USB

Brand new in a box. You can try it out. If you like it you can send me a donation. If not, just send it back....