just found another reason to go back to XP

[Andy]

Sony are relying on M$.. the firewire DV interface is the same on most DV
cameras and M$ have supplied a driver to support it in Vista.

Sony know their DV cameras will work using this and can't be bothered to
write a USB driver for each model as they are all different.
They also know that most people will be using firewire as it gives much
better quality of video.. it is doubtful that USB2 could stream full
resolution DV.

I don't see why you have a problem adding a firewire card to your PC.. I
know you only have two free PCI slots but there aren't many PCI cards to fit
these days.. nearly everything is available in USB2. Unless you actually
have some PCI cards you want to fit I think you are just making the problem
yourself.

I have a TV card I want to put in one PCI slot, and a 56k dialup modem in
the other - that leaves me with no slot for the firewire card :-(

why have Sony in the first place decided to put USB streaming on some of
their cameras if they think everyone will use firewire?

Andy.

 

[KickinChicken]

External serial port modem

I have a TV card I want to put in one PCI slot, and a 56k dialup modem in
the other - that leaves me with no slot for the firewire card :-(

why have Sony in the first place decided to put USB streaming on some of
their cameras if they think everyone will use firewire?

Andy.

 

[Andy]

External serial port modem

I would have to go and buy one then - why would I do that when I have a
working PCI modem? - anyway I would get a USB modem if that was the case, I
suppose I can do that as a last resort.

Andy.

 

[dennis@home]

I have a TV card I want to put in one PCI slot, and a 56k dialup modem in
the other - that leaves me with no slot for the firewire card :-(

USB modems work fine.

why have Sony in the first place decided to put USB streaming on some of
their cameras if they think everyone will use firewire?

Because it sells their cameras..
Someone (you?) will buy them because it has more features than another.

USB streaming isn't an essential feature if you have a firewire interface to
use.
Firewire is good enough that I can capture video to a firewire disk strung
in series on the same firewire port.

 

[Alias]

I would have to go and buy one then - why would I do that when I have a
working PCI modem? - anyway I would get a USB modem if that was the case, I
suppose I can do that as a last resort.

Andy.

Creative makes a good one.

 

[Ed M.]

If neither PCI socket was being used for anything, then it would not have
been a problem other than the cost of a Firewire card.. XP faced similar
issues when introduced, with intransigent hardware manufacturers refusing
to support older products.. one can't blame them as they have to generate
new sales somehow, and at the same time, development of an OS can't stand
still either..

Mike, my wife just purchased a new Sony digital camera and installed the
Sony USB Driver set (it installs with the Sony "Vista" software) and it
screwed up the install of Vista Ultimate completely. I now hang on
restart/shutdown and then bluescreen. It disabled my System Restore points
too and there is no way to get to them. They also caused several other small
issues that bug me. I dual boot with XP and now need to do a reinstall of
Vista and it is a PIA to reconfigure my dual boot configuration. I cannot
even do an 'Upgrade' install from within Vista, which would make my task
much easier. I am sure it is a problem with those Sony drivers (they are not
really needed anyway) but it is still a real pain.

Ed

 

[John Barnes]

Any time you boot into XP your delete all your Vista restore points. 1000's
of posts on the subject in Vista newsgroups

 

[DanS]

.. it is doubtful that USB2 could stream
full resolution DV.

IIRC, theoretical USB2 is 480 mbs and IEEE_1394 is 400 mbs.

So, in theory, if Firewire can, USB2 can, if there are no other USB2
devices being used.

 

[Andy]

IIRC, theoretical USB2 is 480 mbs and IEEE_1394 is 400 mbs.

So, in theory, if Firewire can, USB2 can, if there are no other USB2
devices being used.

Is the issue about speed or quality? - I thought if you used firewire the
refresh rate was better because its faster speed?

Andy.

 

[Adam Albright]

Is the issue about speed or quality? - I thought if you used firewire the
refresh rate was better because its faster speed?

Andy.

Nope, that's apples and oranges. Compression or it's bitrate a video
is compressed at determines it's quality. The higher the bitrate the
better the quality. How fast the file can be transferred over a USB or
Firewire or any interface for that matter is irrelevant to the file's
quality which remains constant regardless how fast is moves over the
interface.

So if you want good quality video always use the least compression
possible which means encoding at a higher bitrate. That's why a DVD
looks better than a CD. A typical video on a CD can't have a bitrate
much higher than 1,700,000 bps and calls for a MPEG-1 file. A DVD can
be encoded as high at 8,000,000 bps and uses a MPEG-2 file.

It can be a bit confusing since BPS also does means how fast data
moves relative to a unit of time however one second of DVD video is of
much higher quality that the same second of video X encoded at CD
bitrates with a resulting much larger file. It is similar to still
images and deciding what color depth to use. A still image encoded at
32 bit carries much more color information that the same image encoded
at 8 bit.

 

[John Barnes]

Theoretical is cute, but actual sustained rate comparisons show Firewire
much faster due to its peer to peer design vs. master/slave for USB. USB is
even slower with other USB devices being used.

 

[dennis@home]

IIRC, theoretical USB2 is 480 mbs and IEEE_1394 is 400 mbs.

So, in theory, if Firewire can, USB2 can, if there are no other USB2
devices being used.

It doesn't quite work like that though.
Even if you get a PC that can do 480Mb/s on USB you can bet that the cheapo
USB chip in the camera can't.
If anyone has actually found a combination that streams full res DV over
USB2 I would like to know what?

 

[DanS]

It doesn't quite work like that though.
Even if you get a PC that can do 480Mb/s on USB you can bet that the
cheapo USB chip in the camera can't.
If anyone has actually found a combination that streams full res DV
over USB2 I would like to know what?

There was a post here last week with someone complaining of the exact
problem. Vista no longer supports USB streaming, only IEEE1394. XP
supported it according to the poster.

 

[dennis@home]

There was a post here last week with someone complaining of the exact
problem. Vista no longer supports USB streaming, only IEEE1394. XP
supported it according to the poster.

IIRC the poster couldn't get it to work with his Sony DV.. Its Sony's driver
that doesn't work and isn't going to be updated.
Other DV cameras work with USB streaming AFAIK.
My USB camera certainly streams video to messenger or moviemaker.

 

[Andy]

There was a post here last week with someone complaining of the exact
problem. Vista no longer supports USB streaming, only IEEE1394. XP
supported it according to the poster.

Is there an actual valid useful reason or technical reason why Vista don't
support USB streaming or did they (MS) just decide that people will not want
it any more so why bother supporting it, because they didn't bother asking
people like me who would still like to see this feature in vista.

Andy.

 

[DanS]

Is there an actual valid useful reason or technical reason why Vista
don't support USB streaming or did they (MS) just decide that people
will not want it any more so why bother supporting it, because they
didn't bother asking people like me who would still like to see this
feature in vista.

Andy.

DanS is totally confused and his messages should be disregarded in this
thread.

 

[Johnny]

news:[email protected]:

So, in theory, if Firewire can, USB2 can, if there are no other USB2
devices being used.

But I thought that one of the reasons why firewire was faster than USB 2
is becuase is has a dedicated UART to manage the data flow where as USB2
has no dedicated flow control and while 400mbs is possible on paper,
these speeds are never achieved in Windows.