adding firewire to Hp DV5-1150us

I apologize in advance for my lack of knowledge on this subject. I am trying to add fire wire to an Hp dv5-1150us laptop. It has an express card slot. My ultimate goal is to be able to connect my SONY dcr-hc52 which uses mini dv tapes to my laptop to transfer the videos.

I found a post saying to use a Belkin Firewire 800 but found another post saying it would not work but did not say what would work.

Can anyone tell me what i should be using to accomplish my task?

Here is a link to the specs for my laptop.
HP FS026UA Pavilion dv5-1150us Entertainment 15.4" Notebook PC Review and Information

Here is a link to my video camera

Sony Handycam DCR-HC52 specs and Digital Camcorder specifications - CNET Reviews


Thanks in advance.

 

You might be happier with a firewire/USB dongle/cable. Plenty of those available, bing is your friend.

There are also plenty of express card fireware adapters.

In my mind, the upside of a firewire/USB cable/dongle is that you would be able to use it on just about any computer that has a USB connection.

express card firewire adapters have this huge bulge on the outside meaning that you will probably have to pull it out of the laptop when you're not using it.

I'm finding that most express card adapters are using the USB portion of the express card slot NOT the available PCI hookups. If an express card adapter you are looking at works this way, it will transfer data/video no faster than a firewire/USB dongle cable.

 

firewire/USB cable/dongles are NOT the answer as they don't have enough bandwidth to keep up. An express card fireware card is the only viable option on a laptop as it's the only way to keep the bandwidth high enough to prevent dropping frames like crazy.

 

This is a concern ONLY if your laptop has USB bandwidth problems AND your firewire device is pushing data fast enough to overwhelm the USB connection and/or the chipset.

If the bandwidth problem is in the chipset of the laptop, the connection will not matter. This is why people who actually use firewire on laotops look high and low for machines that have native firewire using the TI firewire support chips.

An express card can help solve this but ONLY if the firewire card in question is an actual PCI express card and not an express card that make its actual connection via the USB inside of the express card slot.

The next exercise is to find a firewire express card that is in fact PCI connect and NOT USB connect.

 

When we tried a usb/firewire dongle on my L305 to capture video from a Panasonic DVR we dropped frames like mad. A Firewire Express card didn't which is why I stated what I did.

 

How do I know if there is a bandwidth problem? Is there a benchmark program to check it?

Thanks for all the information. Makes me realize I need to study up bit.