Topic: S-Video to Firewire (Read 1031 times)

NJAntman · « **on:** November 03, 2006, 11:41:21 am »

Anybody out there know of an adapter or way (if its even possible) to get a camcorder s-video and seperate a/v audio output jacks to send to an IEEE 1394 Firewire input port?

The reason I ask is that I currently send the camcorders composite A/V signal to the desktop TV capture card A/V inputs to do tape to DVD recordings, but the desktop is an old 1 GHz Athlon with 768K ram and as such leaves visual artifacts when dubbing since it can't quite make the necessary speed. The wife's new laptop is an newer Sempron with 512K ram and a Firewire port so I figure it may be able to handle the dubbing without leaving artifacts. Problem is how to get either S-Video and a composite audio or an all composite A/V signal translated into that Firewire port.

Google runs me in circles from site to site, and even Belkin, which had a good cable wizard, is now useless.

Sirgod · « **Reply #1 on:** November 04, 2006, 05:27:31 am »

I had never even heard of such a switch. I'd suggest a trip to radio shack, or If you have the time, I'll ask some friends over at PC Club about this. I'll be going there either today or Monday, so I'll see what I can find out for ya.

stephen

NJAntman · « **Reply #2 on:** November 05, 2006, 10:31:25 pm »

Thanks for the effort SG. It always good to have someone look at the problem from a different angle.

Just plain old Punisher · « **Reply #3 on:** November 08, 2006, 08:20:44 pm »

No it isn't possible. S-Video is a standard analog video output (Video only, not audio), and firewire is a computer data transferr standard.

You would need some fairly heavy duty computer processing to translate all the different signals into the digital format used by firewire.

NJAntman · « **Reply #4 on:** November 09, 2006, 09:14:34 am »

Ouch. Thanks for the explanation; it crushed my hopes but at least it set me down the right path.

Abandonded the search for the easy solution and did a little more digging. Turns out there is a "converter" starting at about $200 for the simplest http://dv411.com/advc100.html, but then again the cheapest DV camcorder with firewire start at that price range also.

I think the best solution may be waiting till the old desktop dies and then putting the old video capture card in a new desktop. Hopefully PCI slots won't die off before then.

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