Product Description

This 3 Port PCMCIA IEEE 1394 FireWire 400 Laptop Adapter Card allows you to connect FireWire/i.LINK devices such as iPods or DV (digital video) camcorders to your laptop computer through a CardBus slot. Compatible with both PC and Mac laptop computers, the adapter card supports hot-swapping FireWire device connections, allowing you to unplug and swap peripherals with ease. The adapter card includes a 5ft FireWire cable as well as a copy of ULEAD's VideoStudio SE Basic video editing software, making it easy to capture and edit video on your notebook computer, directly from your digital video camcorder. Lifetime warranty and free lifetime tech support.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3291 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: StarTech
• Model: CB1394
• Platform: Windows XP
• Format: CD
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 7.00" h x 4.00" w x 10.00" l, .49 pounds
• Networking: CardBus

Features

• Easily add 3 FireWire ports to your laptop computer
• A fun and easy way to make and edit your own home movies
• Comes complete with a 5 foot FireWire cable (4-6 Pin M/M) and ULEAD VideoStudio SE Basic video editing softwar
• Hot Plug-and-Play feature allows the devices to be connected or disconnected without turning off the notebook
• Dongle-less design for ease of use

From the Manufacturer
Need FireWire capability on your notebook computer? Connect FireWire and i.link devices such as portable drives, digital camcorders, scanners and printers to your notebook computer with StarTech.com's 3 port IEEE-1394 FireWire card. This product includes video editing software and a 6 foot cable, making it easy to begin capturing and editing video from your digital video camcorder.

The CB1394 DV Editing kit comes complete with a 6ft 4 to 6 pin FireWire cable and Ulead Video Studio editing software. This card is guaranteed to work with any notebook PC running Windows XP, 2000, ME or 98SE and is easy to install thanks to a step-by-step instruction manual and its Plug-and-Play connectivity. This card transfers data at super-fast speeds of up to 400 Mbps, ensuring that connected hardware runs at peak performance. Unlike other notebook FireWire cards, the CB1394 is dongleless, meaning you won't accidentally interrupt the connection to your FireWire Peripherals. On top of this, all StarTech.com FireWire cards feature a lifetime warranty that ensures its continued operation as long as you need it.

The StarTech.com Advantage

• Complete kit includes 3 port CardBus card, DV editing software and camera connection cable.
• A fun and easy way to make and edit your own home movies.
• Compatible with most DV camcorders including Sony, Canon, Panasonic, JVC, Samsung and many others.
• Also supports hard disk drives, DVD drives, CD-R/RW drives, printers, etc.

Customer Reviews

Powered Firewire is possible
One of the reviews above states that this adapter won't provide power to devices such as the Apple iPod. You actually can power these devices by plugging an external power adapter into the card. This feature appears to be undocumented, but the plug is clearly visible to the left of the 1394 ports.

I phoned the Startech customer support, and they said that you can use any generic DC adapter, with the following settings: 12 volt DC, 3 amp, and a plug with positive (+) in the centre.

Hope it helps.

PCMCIA cards WILL NOT POWER IPODS!
Some people are rating this card down incorrecty. To set the matter straight:

The PCMCIA bus specification does not provide enough power to allow the PCMCIA cards to power external devices. Therefore, the PCMCIA Firewire cards do not provide enough power to the Firewire bus.

NO PCMCIA firewire cards can charge an ipod by itself (using the laptop's battery). PCI firewire cards (the kind for you desktop) CAN, but PCMCIA cards (the ones for you laptop) CANNOT. It is not a "feature" that this card lacks.

HOWEVER: Some PCMCIA cards come with an input for an external power adaptor, including this Startech card (as another reviewer mentioned). So basically, you plug an external adapter into the port (which you can see in the picture) and the external adapter will then power the firewire card, letting it charge your ipod. As far as I can tell, this feature isn't available on a lot of cheaper models. But you WILL have to have an external power adapter to use this feature.

So again, NO PCMCIA cards can self power an ipod while charging. Don't rate a product down for something that's not possible.

Works great with my iPod!
I bought this to transfer music to my new 10gig iPod. Installation was very easy on my laptop (running Windows 2000 Pro, SP 3.) Windows installed the drivers as soon as I plugged the card into the laptop and the iPod synced up just as easily. I didn't need the video editing software that came with this card (Ulead's Video Studio SE) so I can't comment on its usefulness.

I haven't used Firewire before since I work with PCs mostly so I was amazed at how fast the transfer is with Firewire. I transferred 9gigs of music (2750 files) to the iPod in 40 minutes. I have an old mp3 player that works with USB 1.1 and it takes 40 minutes to transfer 30 songs!

You should be careful to always use Windows' "Unplug or Eject Hardware" utility to disable the iPod and/or Startech card before diconnecting them from the laptop; I forgot once and had to reboot the laptop but I didn't have problems with the iPod (thank goodness!) Good product for a reasonable price. Not as cheap as the PCI cards at Compusa, but the best price I could find for a PCMCIA version. And it works great!