DV Camcorder and IEEE 1394

Burn AVI to DVD

What is 1394 digital link standard (FireWire)?

The 1394 digital link standard was conceived in 1986 by technologists at Apple Computer, who chose the trademark 'FireWire', in reference to its speeds of operation. FireWire, the ultra-fast computer interface has become the official IEEE 1394 industry standard. Boasting incredible transfer speeds of up to 400Mbps, FireWire enables simple, low-cost, high-bandwidth isochronous (real-time) data interfacing between computers, peripherals, and consumer electronics products such as camcorders, VCRs, printers, PCs, TVs, and digital cameras. With IEEE 1394-compatible products and systems, users can transfer video or still images from a camera or camcorder to a printer, PC, or television, with no image degradation.

Applications that benefit from IEEE 1394 include nonlinear (digital) video presentation and editing, desktop and commercial publishing, document imaging, home multimedia, and personal computing. The low overhead, high data rates of 1394, the ability to mix real-time and asynchronous data on a single connection, and the ability to mix low speed and high speed devices on the same network provides a truly universal connection for almost any consumer, computer, or peripheral application.

How to digitize your video?

There used to be a debate among many people when deciding what kind of video recorder to purchase or whether to digitize their videos. But now, the trend is clear: most people select to digitize their videos and save them on video CDs or DVDs.

Analog videos are in the form of magnetic tape used in High-8, 8 mm, VHS, and S-VHS. A digital video signal is actually a pattern of 1's and 0's that represent the video image. With a digital video signal, there is no variation in the original signal once it is captured on to computer disc. Therefore, the quality of digital video doesn't diminish over time. It always remains its original sharpness and clarity.

There are many reasons to digitize video. Digital video can be processed in many ways that analog video cannot. Digital video can also be played over and over without any degradation, whereas analog videos loose their quality over time and in poor storage conditions.

An analog video can be very similar to the original video copied, but it is not identical. The magnetic tape of a VHS video wears away with repeated play. Eventually, the magnetic tape becomes thinner and thinner until the video cannot be played at all. Digitization also extends a video's life span and allows you to enhance its original sound and picture quality.

The purpose of digitizing video is to convert analog video to digital video. To make digital video from analog video, one needs a VCR, a computer, and digitizing and editing software. Digitizing can be done personally, or many companies provide this service for a fee. Thanks to advances in technology, it is possible for almost anyone to do some digital video editing works such as creating desktop video productions at home.

Digital technology allows for easy editing and enhancing of videos. Storage of the analog video tapes is much more cumbersome than digital video CDs.

For this reason, many videos of important memories are digitized. Videos of weddings and anniversaries are commonly digitized in order to ensure the quality of the video and because of digital video's editing capabilities. Many people have videos of their children digitized as gifts for relatives or to insert in a family website.

However, one should be aware of some factors that affect digital video's size and quality. Frame rate, color, compression, and data rate all can influence the quality and size of the video after digitizing. This is particularly important to consider when digitizing video to be placed in a website.