Don Porter
> I already have my TRV900 (love it!) and I'm
> about to buy a Firewire card too. The above list appears to omit:
> . Miro DV300
> . Canopus Raptor
> (both of which seem to get good reviews)
I could be mistaken on some points and would welcome
correction if needed, but as I understand the evolving DV capture board
competition... there are essentially (4) categories of sub-$1000 boards.
1) Those based on the IBM/Adaptec FireWire chipset:
Adaptec 8945, DPS Spark Plus, MiroDV300
2) The Canopus DV Raptor based on the Texas Instruments FireWire
chipset (works with both Premiere and Media Studio Pro by Ulead)
3) The Radius MotoDV and the Truevision DV2000... also based on
the Texas Instruments FireWire chipset... but work in the Apple Quicktime
video file format... meaning you must work in Premiere only... if you work
in Media Studio Pro by Ulead, you won't have "smart render" capability even
with the recent release of Media Studio Pro 5.2 and its QuickTime 3.0 support.
4) The Macintosh only cards by Promax and Radius
If you're a Mac person, you can use either the Promax or Radius solutions.
If you're a PC person... you need to think it through very carefully.
If you want to use Media Studio Pro by Ulead... the DV Raptor by Canopus
is the best way to go. As far as that goes, the DV Raptor by Canopus is
now the best way to go even if you use Premiere.
The IBM Adaptec boards marketed by Adaptec, Miro, DPS have the
advantage of UW SCSI, but the sensitivity of the chipset makes these
boards more prone to glitches in some systems.
Based on all of the reviews and newsgroups and mailing lists I've studied, I believe
the DV boards with the Texas Instruments FireWire chipset are the most stable
and the most compatible boards. In other words, I detect a pattern of responses
from users of the Texas Instruments FireWire chipset that indicates a superiority
of that technology over the IBM/Adaptec FireWire chipset. That isn't to say the
IBM/Adaptec chipset can't be made to work... I would say it means your chances
of having some glitches are higher with the IBM/Adaptec chipset.
So I would rank the boards in this order:
1) Canopus DV Raptor (superior Canopus codec and drivers)
2) Radius MotoDV or Truevision DV2000 (stable chipset, but QuickTime format is limiting)
These boards are for the people who would rather use a Mac if they could afford
a G3... but use a PC running Premiere software.
3) MiroDV300 (same board as those below with better drivers, support)
4) Adaptec 8945
5) DPS Spark Plus
Canopus has committed to the DV format while... at the bottom... DPS, in my view, has
developed a reputation for buggy drivers and questionable support because management
has been afraid to commit too much support to a product that may not be viable in the
future if Intel decides to include FireWire ports on motherboards as a standard feature.
Intel has missed the boat in this regard and has delayed implementation of FireWire.
So right now... Canopus is on top. Their drivers, their codec, and their commitment
to DV PCI capture boards is stellar. Even in the higher priced DV board category, their
DVRex product is kicking butt on Fast's DV Master, which has been around longer.
Yeah: Canopus is on top right now.
["Public Works - Environmental"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
On Sat, 16 Jan 1999 20:00:25 GMT, "Public Works - Environmental"
>I could be mistaken on some points and would welcome
>correction if needed, but as I understand the evolving DV capture board
>competition... there are essentially (4) categories of sub-$1000 boards.
[the rest of an excellent analysis of currently available
FireWire boards has been omitted for space reasons - go
back and read it!]
I would add that the Spark card is also available without
SCSI (maybe unneeded, since UDMA drives can be used for
mini-DV video editing), and the Spark works well (if it
works at all...;-) with both Premiere and Media Studio,
in addition, of course, to DPS's Video Action... BTW, I
am still a happy user of the DPS Spark, though I do not
disagree with your assessment of it...;-)