jjohnsen0's Full Review: A D S PYRO BasicDV (API-310) Video Capture
I bought a digital camcorder recently and the two options to transfer the video to computer were USB and firewire (IEEE1394). I was warned up front that USB was not fast enough to handle the video and the transfer would loose a little bit of quality. My computer did not have firewire, so I bought the cheapest card I found figuring if it didn't work I could settle for USB.
I installed this card using the step-by-step guide that came with it. I'm not a beginner when it comes to installing hardware, but I'm also not an expert. The installation guide was great, full of pictures and diagrams that made the setup very simple. Windows XP recognized my card as an IEEE1394 card right away and installed the necessary software.
I plugged in my video camera and immediately started to play around with downloading video from my camera. No need for instructions, it showed up on my computer and using video editing software I downloaded it easily.
I have been using it for months now and there hasn't been a hitch. I even re-installed Windows on my computer and had no problems getting the firewire card to work properly. The only negative? The included software would not install. I don't know if it was incompatible with Windows XP or if I had a damaged disk, but my computer would not even recognize the programs on the included cd. It didn't make a difference to me because I was using other programs anyway, but make sure yours works before you install the card in case you need to return it. I did check the package and it says not XP compatible. This might be referring to the software because the card worked great for me.
I was very suprised that this card worked so well. Usually I would say you get what you pay for, but in this case I feel I got a real bargain.
This is the technical information.
Requirements:
Win98 SE, Windows ME, Win2000, MAC OS 9.0 or later
Pentium II 333 MHz, AMD K6 or equal processor
Available PCI slot ver. 2.1
Includes:
PYRO 1394 Host card w/ 3 1394 ports (3 external)
6 pin x 4 pin 1394 cable (6 ft. long) – for digital camcorders
CD Containing:
Video Studio 4 Basic (Win98, Win98SE or Win2000)
Photo Explorer 6.0 (Win98, Win98SE or Win2000)
Camcorder drivers (Win98, Win98SE or Win2000)
HTML Link to Apple 1394 extensions
HTML Link to Apple’s iMovie application
Hardware installation Guide
FireWire/1394 Technical Facts:
Serial Bus Speed: 100, 200 and 400 Mbits/sec.
Number of Devices: 63
Number of hops in a chain: 16
Distance between devices: 4.5 meters
PYRO PYRO PCI 64 is one of the few Avid-Approved DV in/out PCI cards for your computer. The OHCI-compliant card and cable work flawlessly with Avid Xp...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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