October 28th, 2008
FireWire-to-USB cable, Windows-only for now
In Apple’s drive to differentiate its professional and less-professional notebook lines, the company left out support for FireWire on its new Aluminum MacBook. While some Mac sites are pointing to composite video-transfer boxes as a way to get video from a camera to the MacBook, there is at least one FireWire-to-USB bridge cable on the market for transferring video. The bummer is that it’s currently supported only on Windows.
The adapter is the Firewire to USB 2.0 DV Transfer Cable from Pixela. It costs about $119.
The company says:
The DV to USB 2.0 Transfer Cable is designed to provide superior image quality and blazing fast transfer times. It’s patented micro chip technology within the cable module ensures that data is preserved from its original format.
However, it’s hard to tell whether the DV camera can be mounted on the Windows desktop or whether it must be imported into the bundled ImageMixer application. The site says that the cable bundle doesn’t support Windows Vista. So owners of new aluminum MacBooks can run Boot Camp to use this cable.
However, I bet that a Mac version will be offered soon. The Mac market didn’t need such an adapter since Macs all came with FireWire. But now it’s an opportunity for third-party vendors.
If none of this sounds appetizing, Jeff Carlson on TidBITS points to a number of cheaper analog-to-digital video converter boxes.
David Morgenstern has covered the Mac market and other technology segments for 20 years. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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