How to Connect Firewire Camcorder to Laptop without firewire port

Question

I Have a Sony Camcorder w/ a 4-pin firewire output. I have HP laptop I want to use it with, but the laptop, does not have a firewire port, just VGA, HDMI, USB, ESATA, Ethernet, and Modem. In addition, It doesn't have a PC Card slot for adding a Firewire card. Googling for "Firewire to USB adapter" returns a lot of hits, but no product that seems to do what I want. I assume I need a USB dongle that gives a firewire port and has drivers so that the PC sees it as a regular firewire port. Thanks for any recommendations

Answer 1

I had the same problem last year trying to connect a firewire camera to a laptop with no firewire. I tried searching for a firewire to USB converter (recognizing that such a device would be a protocol converter, not just physical adapter). Also looked for PCI to USB converter, thinking if there was such a thing, I might put a PCI firewire card in it.

Note though that if your laptop has a PCM-CIA slot (mine doesn't), you can get a firewire card to go in there. PCM-CIA slots are also called PC-card slots, and are where you would have put a wireless adapter on a laptop with no internal wireless circa 2003/04, before USB wireless dongles became more common. However, like firewire, PCM-CIA slots are also fading out of popularity on new laptops.

In the end I found nothing and had to just get my hands on another laptop that already had firewire. Pretty unsatisfactory answer, I know.

Answer 2

You're not likely to find anything that doesn't come in a really expensive box. If you do have a desktop, your better off getting a PCI or PCI express card to at least get the video off the camcorder. USB and Firewire use completely different protocols, not to mention clock speeds and voltages.