Extended length Firewire..

Help...

Need some clairification on firewire usage.

Which is true??
- Firewire can go ~50 feet without a repeater.
- Firewire can go 15 feet max.

Have a panasonic gs-300 and a firewire port that came with soundblaster card.

I purchased a 20meter firewire cable it was 6-6 so I got an 4 adapter for one of the ends. The computer doesn't see the camera with the longer cable.

Thanks,
~Donavon

IEEE 1394 supports a maximum cable distance between devices of 4.5 meters.

The newer IEEE 1394b "Firewire 800" was supposed to increase that limit for some devices, but that would not increase the distance with MiniDV camcorders as they are 1394 or 1394a.

There are Firewire repeaters, but I don't know if they work with camcorders.

I have read that some people claim to have run longer cables at lower speeds (100 Mbps) with no problems. Camcorders only need about 30 Mbps. But I have never verified it. But I do not think you would get 20 meters.



Rich