What is the difference between S-Video, Firewire and USB for cameras?

What is the difference between those types of cameras which can output with:

S-Video interface
Firewire interface
USB 2.0 interface

S-Video or Firewire take a lot of bandwidth compared to USB cameras. But does it mean S-Video camera is the best one?

But, on the other hand, a tiny iPhone camera almost gives a better quality, speed, sharpness and looks excellent too. Does this mean that S-Video/FireWire/USB cameras are some kind of business tricks?

Can this all be done in a tiny iPhone camera too? Does size not matter in this chapter?

YumYumYum

Posted 2011-07-20T21:28:57.887

Reputation: 1 399

I case you missed it: S-Video is TV-out and is NOT useful for transferring video directly to a computer; firewire and USB are for transferring files to a computer, and have limited utility (without special TV support) for displaying a video from your camera directly to a TV. – horatio – 2011-07-20T21:54:24.807

The best part of the iPhone (or other camera phone) camera is that it's always with you. If your camera phone has better video quality than your separate camera, it's probably quite a bit older and/or cheaper. – Rich Homolka – 2011-07-20T22:43:00.323

Answers

The question isn't particularly on-topic here.

Still, to address your points:

S-Video is an analogue transmission method
Firewire and USB are digital transmission methods

You can not compare these. You can't just say they "take more bandwidth".

S-Video is used to transfer an analogue video signal to a TV or some other device. It isn't that useful for transferring a video to a computer, as analogue transmission always leads to noise, crosstalk between channels, etc. and you would need to convert the video back to digital again.

Firewire and USB on the other hand enable you to capture the video from the camera as it is without a loss of quality.

S-Video or Firewire take a lot of bandwidth compared to USB cameras

That is wrong. Who said that? Where did you read it? If you want to compare, you should compare Firewire and USB, because they are digital (see above). But let's assume that you transfer the exact same video, then they both take up the same bandwidth.

What you might have meant was Firewire's theoretical bandwidth of 800 MBit/s and USB 2.0's 480 MBit/s

a tiny iPhone camera almost gives a better quality, speed, sharpness and looks excellent too

That is also absolutely wrong without taking into account the camera you are comparing the iPhone to. If it's a cheap Nokia phone camera from 2004, then yes. If it's a RED 4k camera, then absolutely no.

Does size not matter in this chapter?

Yes, because – simply put – with a bigger sensor size and bigger lenses, you will get more details out of the image (spatial resolution) as well as better light-efficiency. One could write a book about this though.

slhck

Posted 2011-07-20T21:28:57.887

Reputation: 182 472

When did S-Video became analogue? Do you mean JVC systems all were analogue? Are we sure? – YumYumYum – 2011-07-21T06:38:26.277

1S-Video has always been analogue. A 100% sure. It is just as analogue as composite video (the yellow RCA connector) and component video (red/green/blue RCA connectors). – slhck – 2011-07-21T06:40:25.917

1The thing you should take from my answer probably is: It does not matter what connection is supported. There's no marketing scheme behind it. At all. These days you will of course use the digital transmission method. It seems you've rather fallen for Apple's marketing schemes when the iPhone camera is the holy grail for you :) – slhck – 2011-07-21T06:41:24.247

This means they are not digital but claiming they do HD which is wrong because there output is S-Video (RCA jack) e.g: http://www.mingricctv.com/en/detail.asp?id=253

– YumYumYum – 2011-07-21T06:46:13.010

1Well this particular camera seems to have no digital output at all. Remember that with S-Video you have to convert the video to a digital format yourself, using a PCI capture card. This product also does not claim it delivers HD video. It even says: "SD video conference camera". – slhck – 2011-07-21T07:12:10.330

This question is actually requires a few different answers.

What is the difference between USB 2.0, Firewire, and S-Video? Cameras that use USB and Firewire for transfers shoot digital video. Most higher end cameras use Firewire due to the higher sustained file transfer speed (although this might change with USB 3.0).

S-Video cables do not have the bandwidth to support HD, and they need a capture card to convert from analog to digital formats.

Why is my iPhone camera better than my other camera? To be blunt, because your video camera sucks. A decent camera should be able to capture much better than an iPhone.

I have no idea why linux is tagged though. What are you asking about it?

MikeKusold

Posted 2011-07-20T21:28:57.887

Reputation: 245