Grand 1394 FireWire Card

IEEE 1394 is an emerging IEEE bus interface standard for linking portable and desktop computing environments. The standard describes a serial bus driven by an advanced communication protocol, which is designed for low system cost while providing a very high data transfer rate. FireWire is a trademark of Apple Corporation, which originally developed this technology, which is now known by its IEEE designation.

IEEE 1394 appears to have displaced USB 2.0, which has been omitted by Microsoft in its forthcoming Windows XP operating system. It offers a possibil ity of becoming a "home" connectivity standard, enabling a PC to program home appliances and devices. Today, the standard offers speeds up to 400 Mbit/s, but the next version, 1394b will offer 800 Mbit/s and ultimately 3200 Mbit/s.

Firewire is 40 times faster than USB 1.1, the current USB implementation, hence it is used to transfer digital video from a camera to a PC and vice versa. The Grand 1394 is a solution consisting of a Firewire PCI card with four outlets, MGI Video Wave III SE software, and a 4-pin to 6-pin cable.
It can be used with Windows 2000, Windows 98SE and Windows ME. The documentation covers the card and the software.

In Use

Installation of the Grand 1394 card was simply a matter of opening up the PC, inserting the card in a PCI slot, and switching on the PC. Windows ME recognised it as a 1394 card and installed the required driver. The supplied 6-pin to 4-pin cable was just right for hooking up the PC to my Panasonic NV-DS25 digital video camera. I was a little annoyed with the camera's literature because one can easily miss the brief mention of the 1394 connector. It was just as well that the Grand 1394 package comes with the correct cable, as my camera did not.

MGI VideoWave III SE

MGI VideoWave III SE Version 3.5 is also easy to install. It enables you to control your camera, so I was able to capture some of my home video and save it as .AVI files to disk. I also played saving to the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 formats.

You can split a video clip into smaller parts or crop unwanted footage with frame-by-frame precision. You can export audio and video tracks to separate files. It is easy to add audio clips such as music, narration, or other sound files. The Darkroom enables you to adjust brightness, contrast, and colour. You can apply video effects, such as making a movie swirl or break into pieces and then transition to another video clip segment by bringing the mosaic back together. Text controls give you the ability to overlay text onto the video or to create background title effects.

After editing and assembling all the video clips into the desired sequence, you can build the project into a single video file. This final video file can be saved onto and replayed from the hard disk or CD-R.

Conclusion

The Grand 1394 package represents a low-cost way to get started in digital video capture and editing. It is priced $122 as a special deal for PC Update readers. Be sure to mention this magazine.

Supplier

Nucleus Computer Services Pty Ltd
9B Morton Ave
Carnegie VIC 3163
Australia
Phone: 61 3 9569 1388
Fax: 61 3 9569 1540
sales@nucleuscomputer.com.au
http://www.nucleuscomputer.com.au

Reprinted from the September 2001 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia