firewire support - how useful?

[pvrdude]

Hello, I'm looking into building a new machine to try gbpvr on a core2duo motherboard. (I do have an AMD machine as well so I could use it but I like options so I would like both machines to be candidates). I was wondering how useful firewire is for building a HTPC computer.

The motherboards I am looking at are similar in many respects regarding hardware except some have firewire support and others don't. I know firewire is used for camcorders but I don't know if it is essetntial for computers which are used for recording video and used as pvr systems. What do people use firewire for and does it give me additional options I might want? If I don't need it, I will probably go for the Gigabyte GA-P965-DS3 board which is cheap(er) and has all the specs one would need for using pvr (except no firewire support). If firewire is a good option to have, I may eliminate it from the candidates.

Hopefully, a few users of core 2 duo machines will reply to comment although all comments will be helpful.

In addition, I am looking at Nvidia video cards (7600GT to 7950 series) and the Hauppauge 1600 tv tuner card so any additional comments towards that is great, too.

[madcat]

Firewire, in the context of PVR, is used by some to capture HD video coming from HD STBs. As much as I read, it's not an easy task to accomplish, and depends, to begin with, if the HD box has firewire port at all, and if it's enabled at all (some cable/sat providers will disable this port).

On the other hand, buying a PCI card with 2-3 Firewire ports cost about 10-15$...

[wtg]

I've found Firewire to be useful for two things with my HTPC: firewire recording of unencrypted HD channels from my cable box, and external harddrives.

If you don't have cable or your cable box doesn't support firewire and HD, the firewire recording obviously won't be useful.

External HDDs can use USB but you'll find almost all external disks that support firewire do so at significantly higher transfer rates than USB drives.

Finally, consider that you'll probably want this HTPC to last for a few years and what other devices may come around that support firewire. Even if you don't use it now, would you really want to buy another MB or add an extra PCI card later if you later need firewire support?

[-Oz-]

i have firewire and have yet to use it.

I've only ever used it for a DV camera, and I wouldn't be doing that on a mediapc anyway.

[nia]

For as much as external HDD's goes, I have just recently transferred about 1,5TB out and back in to my PVR/Weather Station/whatnot PC.

I used two identical 750GB WD external drives with dual interface (USB/FW), and a third pure USB drive.

Speeds are comparable between USB and FW (this being FW400) on the identical hardware, but with an approx. 10% edge on transfer speed to firewire. Also, FW were using considerable less CPU power.

There are however many other elements impacting transfer speeds, not least the number of files that needs to be transferred. Many small files takes foreveer compared to large files. Transfer speeds can be reduced to 10% of normal speed for small vs large files.

Anyway - these are my experiences on my specific setup (see tagline). YMMV.

As -OZ- mentions, video editing, that often requires FW for transfer from camera, should live on a separate (and more or less dedicated) PC. I also have that here.

But if FW is available at only slightly higher cost, i would definitely have it for flexibility.

/Niels