USB or Firewire?

[GilchrestThink13]

i have a USB cord only because i dont have a firewire port...all my friends have firwires and they use some of the same editing programs as i do but there video captures in a more clear quality...is this because im using a USB cord or is my computer just messed up?

[Ienjoiskating]

firewire helps alot

[d_n_b_and_d_u_b]

dude, computer help please.

[Vivica]

firewire does = better quality...

firewire drops less data packets than usb, etc etc etc.... and firewire is better in almost every way...BUT, it really shouldn't matter for home video editing unless its a really low quality camera you won't notice much difference, any frankly your montors could be the reason it looks different!

it could be anything, USB is fine in my books...

[ryan]

I guess this would be more of a question for Vivica, but if anyone else knows the answer of course feel free to answer.

Is firewire faster then USB?

[Vivica]

put simply... firewire...

but for really small amounts of data it REALLY does not matter in the slightest!

firewire uses a p2p style of transfer and drops very few packets, and because of the way it transfers its pretty fast and safe.
usb 2.0 uses more of a master-slave style of transfer, anybody who's played around with different hdd configurations will already know that if you have multiple master drives instead of a master and a slave it'll be alot faster, same deal with USB2.0 and firewire.

[Vivica]

i've just looked up the read/write stats...


Read and write tests to the same IDE hard drive connected using FireWire and then Hi-Speed USB 2.0 show:

Read Test:

* 5000 files (300 MB total) FireWire was 33% faster than USB 2.0
* 160 files (650MB total) FireWire was 70% faster than USB 2.0

Write Test:

* 5000 files (300 MB total) FireWire was 16% faster than USB 2.0
* 160 files (650MB total) FireWire was 48% faster than USB 2.0



sums it up pretty nicely, and shows that really, for small amounts of data (for example a picture taken from a digital camera) it isn't a difference thats worth worrying about.

[St. Jimmy]

Firewire, 400-800 mbps
USB, 480 mbps
Do the math.

[ryan]

Thanks.... i should have just googled... but hey. :p

[St. Jimmy]

Thanks.... i should have just googled... but hey. :p

no problem, I know that right off the top of my head. weird, huh?

[Vivica]

hahaha, St.Jimmy always made me laugh... firewire is often slower than USB2.0, 480 is higher than 400 after all... but yea, it all depends on a bunch of stuff.

and no, its not weird you just know that... go away.