After only five months of trying, I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can feed in digital video to my PC. Apple users would simply plug in their Firewire(tm) cables to their Imacs and be off and running in 10 seconds. But nooooooooo, I have to do it the Linux Way(tm).
I bought the card from Intrex back in December with the thought of putting fresh digital videos up on the web. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the version of Windows I run at home (Win98 1st edition) doesn’t support IEEE 1394. A little websurfing found what looked like a compatible driver, so I installed that and held my breath.
Video appeared on the screen. I shreiked with glee. And then it went blank.
Seems the driver I stuck on my PC wasn’t enough to make Win98 happy. After that fiasco, I put the card at the bottom of my list of to-do’s, occasionally returning to it with no success.
Last month, I began to research drivers for Linux, since that’s what I usually run on my desktop. I would get tantalizingly close, but still hadn’t solved it. About one try in 20 were successful in capturing video – all others encountered bus resets every second. Exasperated, I nearly gave it up.
Yesterday, the tide turned in my battle. I was in the Intrex store and noticed that the 1394 cards they now sold had an updated chip on them, though the manufacturer and part number were the same. Then I looked up the chip on the Internet that night and found that it had some features missing from my current card. “This might work,” I guessed, and made plans to return to the store to swap my older-but-still-like-new card for the updated version.
Around 11:00, I arrive at the Intrex store. I had bought a Creative Labs Audigy the day before, thinking its 1394 port might work better than my old card. So, I had two cards in my hand.
“Can I return this one and swap this one?” I asked the pony-tailed sales dude.
“That one, sold yesterday, yeah. That one from December, no can do,” he replied.
“It’s the same part number as the one on the shelf,” I said. “And it’s like new. Couldn’t you just swap it for the new one?”
“I’m not allowed to make that return,” was the reply, “but I can get my manager.”
“That’d be great,” I answered, proceeding to browse the store while the manager came to the front.
I got the same speil from the manager, though he did offer to test it for me. I heartily suggested he do so, explaining my problems with it. He took it to the back room and went to work.
About 20 minutes later, he returns with the card. “Works fine. Windows loaded up the drivers and it checks out fine.”
“Did you actually feed digital video into it?” I asked. He told me they didn’t have any DV devices to test it with.
I offered to bring in my digital video camera before he suggested that we try a Firewire hard drive instead. I told him I’d be happy to wait again, and so I did.
About 30 minutes later, he calls me back to the back room. I’m watching their tech copy files to the Firewire drive. Their test machine is running Windows 98 Second Edition.
Aha! That’s why mine didn’t work. I thanked them for their time in checking it out and bought the newer card on my way out.
A ten second job turned into five months of nothing, followed by an hour of waiting in a computer store. Sheesh!
All’s well that ends well, however, as the new card works fine, just like I guessed. In the Land of Linux, one little chip part number can make a huge difference in performance.
