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General discussion

Help with Mini DV cable connection to PC

May 2, 2006 5:41AM PDT

I recently purchased a Panasonic PV-GS 300 MiniDV camcorder and dutifully read the user's manual but am confused by what I have read. Panasonic provides a USB 2 cable with accessories, but if you want to use the DV connection using a Firewire IEEE 1394 cable it must be purchased separately. I do want to be able to use the Firewire connection, but the cable that Panasonic sells for this camera is a 4 pin to 4 pin cable. My Compaq PC has a 6 pin input port.

My question is - will the 4 (camcorder) to 6 pin (PC) connection work satisfactorily or must the two connections be the same for the transfer to occur?

Thanks for any input

Discussion is locked

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My Compaq PC has a 6 pin input port.
May 2, 2006 6:50AM PDT

As long as this is a firewire port your OK.
Firewire has two sizes of connectors like USB has, A is the big one and B is the small one. You need a firewire cable that has a "A" plug and a "B" plug.John


http://www.timwerx.net/odds/pcfile.htm

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4 to 6
May 2, 2006 12:19PM PDT

This is what I got:
3.0 Meter FireWire, 4 Pin to 6Pin (FW046-C)from dcables.com
http://dcables.com/

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Help with Mini DV cable connection to PC
May 2, 2006 9:15PM PDT

Thanks for the responses, jcrobso and Alan. Your input was helpful

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FIrewire
May 3, 2006 1:07AM PDT

I hope you don't discover the same problem I have--I have a fairly new (not even a year old)laptop computer, ordered specifically for use with cameras and camcorders--I too can not connect my brand new Panasonic AG DVC30 to "download" my videos and I now am told there is no way it will work. My great computer with all the whistles and bells and camcorder with all the whistles and bells have one major difference--the camcorder will only attach to a Firewire connection, my computer does not have one, it has a normal USB port. I am now in search of an external DVD burner with firewire capabilites (which I already have one that is computer friendly) that will accept the camcorder--the seems to be nearly impossible at this time. I hope you get your answer, perhaps it will help me too.

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Firewire
May 3, 2006 1:16AM PDT

Sorry to hear that you got caught up in our perplexing world of PC and digital camcorder formats and technologies.

Fortunately I lucked out and my Compaq desktop pc has two Firewire ports which hopefully will work with my MiniDV camcorder. I was unaware of the different pin configurations and was unsure whether I could transfer video from the camcorder to the pc with a 4 pin connection at the camcorder and a 6 pin connection on the pc, but it appears that a 4 pin to 6 pin connection will work.

Good luck with your problem.

Frank