Customer Reviews

StarTech.com 4-Port PCI 1394a FireWire Adapter Card with Digital Video Editing Kit (PCI1394_4)

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Good product if you are going to use firewire peripherials only. Or you just need a fire wire hook up for a camera or camcorder. I have windows XP and it installed flawlessly and so did my camcorder subsequently. Ulead Video studio 6 se, the program that comes with the card is good but it almost never installs from the cd correctly. Don't even try, just copy the cd to a temperary folder on your hard drive and install from there.
Then get your free effects installed and then update with the patch and you won't have any trouble. I wish someone had put this out there I would have saved 2 days of bsing.

I use this card on a windows ME system. It works great. And considering that it came with cable, it is good value for money. Only caveat is the ULead software that comes bundled - it is pretty useless. It is basic version of ulead and doesn't work properly. But the card works great. It was easy to install and came with software.

I had my doubts since best buy would end up charging me $60 at the time I bought my camera for the card and the cable, but this thing works great - just like everyone says. XP recognized it immediately, and I tried my sony DCR-HC30 and it worked the first time - no hassle at all. Don't be fooled into buying Sony's $40 firewire cable, this is the way to go. I didn't try the software, but Windows Movie Maker (included in XP) works fine for now.

I inserted this card into my P4 2.4Ghz PC running Win XP Pro and then hooked to my Sony DCR-HC40. The camcorder was recognized, however, the connection was lost after several minutes, then the connection was regained if I turn the camcorder off and back on or unplug and replug the firewire cable. I used Adobe Premiere Pro to capture video, about 100 frames were dropped during 3 minutes capturing then connection was lost for no reason. Amazon replaced my card, the new card was even worse, my camcorder was not even recognized. I bought a Belkin 1394 PCI card and a Belkin 1394 cable. Voila! No problem anymore, camcorder was immediately recognized and the connection stays for ever, and no frame was dropped at all during like 50 minutes capturing. Comparing this card and cable to Belkin ones, these are obviously cheap made and the quality is unstable. Some buyers may not have any problem at all, but I just had bad luck and got the lemons.

Amazing... Installed the board, and that's it, no driver needed. Work great, no error messages. Great value espacially it comes with a Firewire cable that fits my Sony Minidv which by itself is about $10.00). Did not install the software cause I'm using Adobe Premiere Element which I recommend strongly (better off buying it with Photoshop Premiere, they both come in one package).

Before ordering this item i was hesitating about its quality. Then I ordered anyway. Because I knew that if i do not like it I can return it and get a new one.

But after getting this card, the result was amazing. The card worked with WinXP without any difficulty. I did not need to install drivers. Because WinXP did it for me.

And also you do not need to buy a firewire cable.

Box has everything you need. And the price is very reasonable.

I use this card for transfering the video from my camcorder to the PC. And the result is excellent. No hassle at all. The quality of video in ideal without any loss of frames

I am completely satisfied.

Took me 15min to install and it's working great right out the box. The card came with Ulead software, I am using the software to transfer video from my camcorder to the PC.
Greate value and affordable card.

I recently installed this card on a system running Windows Vista Home Premium. Installing the card and included ulead version 10 software package takes less than 15 minutes.

In General

First, this is a great value for the price. The card, firewire cable and software is a great starter bundle if you need to transfer video to your computer.

Second, the video editing software is very simple to use. Just connect the firewire cable to your camcorder and your ready to rock and roll. The on-screen controls let you view, fast forward, reverse, pause, play and pause your camcorder. Users simply scan through the video to find what they want to capture, then click on Capture Video. From there you move through your miniDV tape to the next section of video, click on Capture and subsequent clips are recorded and stored in a media library on your computer.

Once you have a few clips captured, users can easily drag and drop the video clips onto a timeline, insert a handful of transitions, add titles, include background music and perform other basic editing tasks.

After the user has finished adding the effects and other touches you can export the video to formats such as mp1, mp2, vcd and so forth. The program also has a Share Online feature that will export your project to a nicely compressed .wmv file that you can upload to youtube or insert into a web page or blog.

Considerations

Hey, for the price of a complete package, there is nothing much to complain about. However, I want to point out a few things. First, I recommend that if you are using a miniDV camera that you use the cameras video controls to locate what you want to capture then pause the camera. Next, click on the Capture Video button in the program and it will start from the paused location and record until you press Stop Capture. Using the software to control a miniDV camera can be done, but, it is easy to go forward or reverse too much while waiting on the tape.

The only other issue that I have, again with the software, is that it doesn't let the user export to .FLV (Flash) or Quicktime formats. As a web developer I prefer the .FLV format since 99% of every personal computer has flash already installed.

However, if your only concern is uploading video to youtube, remember, you can upload .wmv files to youtube and it will convert them to flash files when it places them online.

The last three issues that I have are with the software and windows Vista. The software that came with the order included Ulead 10 SE. 1. When you run the program, Vista will "downgrade" your display settings (a software update should fix this). 2. I could never get the Auto Update to work. I suggest that after you install the software that you go to uleads support web site and download the updates. If your a novice computer user you may need help downloading and installing the updates from ulead's web site. If your comfortable with downloading updates and installing them, then, this should not be a problem. 3. The Ulead SE program will pop up advertisements from Ulead from time to time. From what I could tell it only did this whenever you finish exporting your final project.

In conclusion, this is a great package for the price. If you can operate a camcorder and get around in Windows you shouldn't have a problem getting started capturing, editing and exporting your projects to a DVD, the web, or for other uses.

I rated this product at 4 stars. I deducted one star for the minor inconveniences when using it with Windows Vista and for the nagging pop up ads.

This product is very nice. I bought it a long time ago at Microcenter in Minnesota. No flaws. Very easy to install, use and very nice for recording stuff from camcorder to PC. DON'T EVER UNINSTALL ULEAD AND ALLOW TO DELETE WHAT IT SAY MIGHT BE SHARED BECAUSE UNLESS YOUR COMPUTER IS BACKED UP, UNINSTALLATION WILL DELETE SYSTEM FILES AND CRASH YOUR COMPUTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111

I had a minor issue getting the card's drivers to install but was able to go into device manager and have the drivers installed. Comes with good Ulead Video editing software. Card works great, not a problem, all programs recognize my camcorder. Good value.