when i capture video footage from my digital8 cam to my pc (usb connection) the quality is poor,apparently i need a firewire card.

could you give me your opinions on this one here please as i have no idea about these things.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006JIMG/o/qid=1056839118/sr=2-1/ref=sr_bt_1/202-6290396-2458210

are these compatable with all computers and are they easy to fit ?

thanks

If you have the following
"IBM or compatible PC with Pentium or faster processor
One available PCI slot
64 MBytes RAM memory
Windows 98 SE (Second Edition only), ME, 2000 or XP"
then you should be fine.

Price-wise I don't know. Just check at computer stores for similar cards and see how it compares.

Yes they are easy to fit provided you are reasonably comfortble with opening a PC case. Search in google & you'll find lots of guides (with pictures) on how to add a PCI card.

You might want to consider a USB2/Firewire combo card also. Gives you USB2 as well as firewire.

thanks m8 for the help my pc is a 1700xp,512mb ddr running windows xp so hopefully it should be ok.
i've not checked if there is a spare pci slot but i've not had anything added since i brought it so i would guess there is a spare slot.
Might be a stupid question but is there anyway i can check this other than opening the case up ?

Have a look at the back where the cables (e.g. printer, monitor) come out. You should see a number of slots covered by thin cover plates. If you have these then it's almost certain you'll have spare slots inside. The firewire card you get will slide into an IDE position on the mother board and have sockets that will replace one of the cover plates. A bit hard to describe but obvious once you open the PC.

I found this guide which may help.

http://www.ridge.com.au/pciinstall.html

All being well windows will recognise the new card when installed and install the appropriate drivers. Don't know what OS you have but the card will probably have all necessary drivers on a CD or floppy if required.

Good luck.

Oh just realised you have XP. If XP asks you for the drivers then use the CD or floppy that presumably will come with the card. XP may then tell you that the drivers are not certified (or something like that). If that happens then just OK and continue. It is not a problem - just that the card manufacturer havn't paid MS for driver certification.

fawlty,many thanks m8 for all your help.i've checked the back of my pc and it looks like there is 3 spare slots.
I also looked at the link you gave me and it seems pretty straight forward even for a novice like me.
i'm not sure if fitting one will invalidate my pc warranty so if i get one and install it i just hope it does the job intended.
i've been viewing my digital8 home movies on the pc (via usb connection)but the picture quality is poor,i was told i needed a firewire card.
The transfer rate already seems quick to me anyway,so do you think this will solve my problem m8?

Yes. Capture with firewire can be lossless (i.e. it's as good as the original). Of course what you do after that is a different story. You'll need some capture software which usually gives you an option of compressing during capture. The resulting files if not compressed will be VERY big so at some stage you'll need to convert them - but that's a different thread! My digicam came with capturing and basic editing software. Many retailers sell video packs which include the software with the firewire card. Maybe you should check them out. You can always get the software later of course.

the software that came with the cam is Pixela but i've not used it for editing or anything because like i said the quality was so poor when transferring the video.
thanks again for your help.

I've got Pixela too which came with the Sony. I don't use it now that I've got Adobe Premiere but from memory it worked fine. XP also has the MS editing software (Moviemaker?). If you get into video editing then you'll want something better like Premiere, or Pinnacle Studio, or Sonic Video factory.