Belkin Firewire Cable

I use a mini DV (digital video) camera, and a PC to edit my footage, so needed a way of getting the raw footage off of the tape and onto hard disk -- firewire (IEEE1394 digital standard) being the best (and typically, fastest) solution. Firewire offers data transfer many times faster than that of standard USB, so is ideal for getting large amounts of data onto your PC.

This cable itself is ideal, long enough to mean reach is unlikely to be an issue, and of excellent quality. Transfer speeds are consistently high, though the speed of computer hard discs and other hardware is also a factor. I've had no problems with this cable at all; it fits snugly into the ports of my PC and the DV output of my camcorder, and is also very tough and long lasting. You can't ask much more of a data transfer cable.

Good cable

Not a lot you can say about a cable, but it does its job and is very cheap compared with high street prices.

Can someone help me please? (Ignore the rating)

I bought a Sony Handycam (DCR-HC27E) and then read a review saying you could get a firewire cable and transfer your videos to PC - Great! So I get hold of a firewire cable and it doesn't seem to attach to my camcorder; very strange as someone reviewing the camcorder said that their's does just that.

Anyhow, can anyone tell me what I need to get hold of to transfer my videos? Maybe I need a firewire card?

Any help much appreciated

no worries

Arrived, plugged in adapter which is a block with 13A plug integrated, fired up and everything works fine. It looks cool, it runs cool and its small enough to sit on the desk.Enough power to run everything I use, Scanner, graphic pad, modem, two printers and a pair of Logitech speakers.

Excellent

I've just bought this from Amazon. It is working very well, allowing me to use multiple firewire devices on my Mac at the same time. No more plugging and unplugging for me! Wish I'd had this a long time ago.

Hardware good, software not!

I have read the other reviews on this product and can see why people are not happy. However, I ran the software on Vista with duo core processor and 2gb ram and managed, after a long while, to get it to run just fine and had no stability problems.

However, be warned.....
Belkin hardware seems to work Ok but the software is far from user friendly
I took video from my VCR Scart and audio directly from VCR. Initially this caused a sync issue but it resolved itself thankfully
Software defaulted to 'NTSC' input despite asking for feed format during set up, where I put in PAL! Somewhat confusing
Preview screen didn't reproduce sound... spent an age trying to resolve this before realising that my test captures, when played through Windows Media Player, did have sound, oncemore very confusing
The software gives the impression that frames are being dropped while it captures but on playback this is not the case, its fine
Beware - software provides no 'help' for Vista users

I ended up spending most of my time tweaking the sound, AV and capture settings but eventually ironed out all the problems. Don't bother trying to find help... its a nightmare.

However it now works, just took an age to configure without help.

Brooko

Super Item.

Hmmm interesting to see all PC users having problems with this hub! Having to temporarily suffer Vista while waiting for my new Mac I can only say that the PC is probably the problem!! I have been using my Belkin hub with Mac OS X for 4 trouble free years on both iBooks and a G4. It simply works! Moral of the story is buy a Mac :-)

Top quality

I bought this cable about 8 months ago and have used it regularly since.
I couldn'd believe the build-quality (if that's the word for cable construction!) for the price.
Never had any problems with it over the last 8 months.
If 4-pin to 4-pin is what you need (e.g. camcorder to DV-in on a DVD Recorder), I would have no hesitation in recommending this cable.

More information for buyers!!!

I am sorry but I just don't recognize the problem the other reviewer had I found the cables entirely adequate for the job in hand.This product is great for adding connectivity to a mac mini as ,certainly for the early ones like mine, this is a weakness.
One thing that is missing from the product overview but is in the instructions in the box is that if your mac mini is running USB 1.1 ports the extension ports will be limited to that too. The USB ports are soldered to the mother board on the mac mini so you cannot upgrade them to USB 2!