Does cable quality really make a difference?

I'm wondering if the quality of the firewire cable I use coming from the Mac to the camera (deck) makes a difference when doing a Print to Video.

Occasionally, I will get a dropout on the tape when doing a Print to Video on an HDV project, and I'm curious to know if this issue could be anything other than deck related. I had a brand new head/drum assembly installed on my 5 year old Sony Z1U camera (I have 4 total), and I will occasionally get dropouts on all cameras, but now less frequently on the one with the replaced heads.

Would it be wise to go out and get the most expensive firewire cable I can find, or wouldn't that make much of a difference?

Thanks!
Casey Petersen

I wouldn't necessarily purchase the most expensive firewire cable but if you are using one of those skinny apple firewire cables I would definitely Not use it. I was once Transferring data with one of these cables and it took almost 1/3 as long as a thicker cable that I believe have better error correction as they have more wires inside.

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Dean

"When I see you floating down the gutter I'll give you a bottle of wine."
Captain Beefheart, Trout Mask Replica.

According to the Technogeek, no. Well, probably not.

He says it depends on what kind of "dropout" you are experiencing. Is it missing pixels, a big green-n-pink loss of data, or actual old-fashioned tape dropouts a la BetaSP?

Since FW is merely passing data, and not signal, there's not much it can do to affect the quality of your video. The two that would point to the cable being bad are spots of missing data, the missing pixels or the huge glitches. If it's actual dropouts like from the old days, that points to problems on the "mechanical end"

I suspect if you are confident your heads are clean and well-maintained that you may have gotten a bad batch of tape stock. Did you buy in bulk from a distributor, or buy off the shelf at a local retailer? I'd try a different batch of tape stock first.

He did suggest just trying another FW cable if it's one of the first two types of dropouts. It doesn't necessarily have to be an expensive one. Just a different one.

deb

>I believe have better error correction as they have more wires inside.

It's more like better insulation. The quality of cables doesn't make a difference to video quality, as it is a data transfer.



www.strypesinpost.com

Thanks!

The dropouts on the tape look like the video and audio pauses for a second or two and then resumes, having missed those 1-2 seconds.

I was once having a whole bunch of problems with external firewire drives and found that I had the firewire cable very close to a bunch of the transformers for those drives. When I moved the cable away from the magnetic field caused by the transformers, my problems ceased.

Maybe your firewire cable is close to some nasty electrical device?

Best

Harry.

PS. O/T sort of: I ran a recording studio a long time ago and, while we were installing the equipment, we did extensive tests on the transmission abilities of expensive shielded vs cheaper shielded cable. We were unable to find any difference at all except that braided shielding was much less prone to interference (RF) than wound shielding. The transmission was identical. These tests were done on both balanced and unbalanced lines. So don't bother with "Monster" or other absurdly expensive brands - at least for audio.