Vantec 2+1 FireWire 800/400 PCIe Combo Host Card (UGT-FW210)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This FireWire expansion card worked perfectly for my needs. I was able to connect my MiniDV camcorder to my computer and transfer old family movies without any issues. The card installed easily, and while it does require a power connection, that’s not a problem since most modern PCs have extra power connectors available. Once installed, it was truly plug-and-play — no driver headaches or compatibility issues. If you’re looking to digitize old camcorder footage or connect other FireWire devices, this card does the job flawlessly. Highly recommended!

I finally decided to copy the family videos to removable hard drives so that my kids will each have copies of all the Xmas/Easter/graduations/vacations/etc., videos. This began as a horrifying process. Do you know how expensive it is to send your movies off to be transferred? It can be $30 for one 60 minute video. Since I had 50 or 60, 60 minute videos, paying some company to do it was not an option. So now you decide to do it yourself, great. Do you have a camcorder or MiniDV deck to play the tapes in, I hope so because these cameras have not been made for awhile and if you don't have your original camera or it doesn't work, you will have to go online and buy a used one from a stranger that may work or not. Luckily, i still had my DV camcorder in the attic and all the wires. I also have a high 8 camcorder but that was from before the kids were born so I am not that interested on what could be on those tapes for now. I ordered a new DV head cleaner tape for the camcorder and this Vantec Firewire host card and a Firewire cable to hook the camcorder to the host card. Luckily I barely had room on my motherboard to squeeze in the Vantec card, otherwise I had also purchased a PCIe adapter/extension cable and would have had to use that. So far, so good. I believe the firewire driver software was already on my system, otherwise its a simple download after locating one online and they're probably available from Vantec I would guess. Plug the firewire cable into the back of the Vantec card and the cables other end into your camcorder output port. Now you need some transfer software. One nice thing is that the miniDV camcorder recorded your movies in digital so you don't need to convert them (conversion of anything always comes with some quality loss), just transfer the data to your computer via the Vantec card. You'll need to download a capture program to your PC that controls the transfer of the data from the camcorder, over the firewire, thru the Vantec card and into the capture program. Here's a little hiccup in the procedure. Since miniDV camcorders have been out of circulation for awhile, you will not find much in the way of Firewire capture programs around or much in the way of info either. I found a couple of online videos explaining the process and they mentioned a couple of programs. As far as i can tell, these programs are small programs that were created by individuals, not big known companies and they may not have been updated in years. There is very little info on these programs and it was hit or miss how I got them to work. I actually had quite a bit of frustration trying to transfer my movies into a usable movie file. The first program i downloaded and used, had problems with audio. So after I transferred about 10 movies and just happened to play part of one i transferred, I noticed that my voice sounded like Daffy Duck. My voice was very high pitched and cartoonish sounding while most of the other audio was fine. For some reason, the voice recorded close to the camera (from the camera operator) was modified, while the voices of people away from the camcorder mic, were fine. I searched the internet quite a bit and found some other users complaining of similar audio issues but not much in the way of help. I think i narrowed it down to how audio and video are recorded. There are different rates at which audio and video are recorded, say 30 fps versus 60 fps and somethings are recorded at a constant bit rate while other things are recorded at a variable bit rate. So I believe this was my problem. I found another transfer program and it seemed to fix my audio issues, but this program broke all my movies into multiple files. I believe this program looked for pauses on the tape and would start a new file each time it detected a recording pause. Well when a 60 minute video of Xmas is broken into 25 files, I was not happy. Getting another program to merge all the files into one movie was not pleasant and added that much more time. I had to play around a bunch before i figured out a setting that would make the transfer program ignore pauses and just transfer my movie as one file. So I kinda went off topic, but if this helps just one person skip some of the problems involved, that would be great. Wish i had something like that before i got started. Anyways, the Vantec card worked perfectly. Just remember you will need to purchase a firewire cable, one end connects to the Vantec card and will be a 800 port 9 pin or 400 port 6 pin. The Vantec end of the cable can be either, but 800 should cover anything. The other end of the cable needs to match the connector on your camcorder which will be a DV in/out connector. On my Sony MiniDV camcorder there is a Firewire 4 pin connector so that end of my cable needed to be a 4 pin connector. If you don't have info with your camera, do a search for your camcorder and find and download a user manual (my manual was a pdf file that manufacturer had hand copied/scanned to a pdf file, it sucked for trying to read it). You can also search online for firewire connectors or firewire 800 versus 400 and you will eventually find pics of the different connectors. If your camcorder has a USB output or a round pin audio/video output, or a S Video out, don't use those unless there is no firewire output. These other outputs will degrade your movie as in the case of the audio/video output is only for outputting pics, not videos. If you bought this Vantec card, i am guessing that you have firewire so use it and ignore all other camcorder options. I should make my own video on this whole process as what i found online was only partially helpful and as usual, left too many obvious questions unanswered. Good luck.

Solved a problem with this card. I have a Nikon Coolscan 9000, its firewire so kind of obsoleted. This card bridges the past to the now and I didn't even have to load a driver. Plug and Play! Easy to install and for me the power cable was unnecessary. Works with my Windows 11 Asus game computer.

I have an Asus Prime X570-P Motherboard, running Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. Even though I have Not actually tried to Capture Video yet, Windows sees the card & Adobe Premiere also does. However, See my NOTE, listed below, about getting it to work with my system. It is Not anything to do with this card, it is because of a configuration problem with my motherboard. NOTE: I also tried installing a different Firewire Card last year (another brand), it was unsuccessful too. The problem both with that Firewire card and this one, it after putting the Firewire Card into the expansion slot, the computer would not boot. After removing the card, the computer booted fine. I did an Internet Search for the problem, and finally found the problem and the solution. PROBLEM: (Para-phrasing). Some newer motherboards that use GEN4 for the PCIe slot and "Ten Bit Tag Field" are NOT compatible with some older technologies like Firewire. SOLUTION: In the BIOS, in the Advanced mode, I first went and changed the PCIe Slot (Link Speed) to "GEN 3. The next fix, was that under the Advanced Menu, in "PCIe Ten Bit Tag Field" - I changed it to "disable". Then the computer booted into Windows as normal. Windows also installed the driver for the Firewire Card. I also went into Adobe Premiere, and saw that it was there in the Video Capture window. I am glad and relieved to have this issue fixed! I am eager to start capturing my old camcorder videos!

Figured I'd let anyone curious about this card know my specs: Windows 11 on an MSI Tomahawk Z790 motherboard, running Cubase 14 Pro with two daisy-chained Presonus Firestudio Projects. Plugged and played perfectly. Absolutely recommend.

WOW! I ordered this from Amazon.com where they dispatched it on the 4th of Nov (UK Time) from their "seller facility" which I believe is in Kentucky to Austin, TX to Cincinnati, OH to East Midlands, GB to Leeds, GB to Barnsley, GB Where I received it today at 3:13 PM on the 6th of Nov (UK Time) - 2 Days!!! Now about the product: This Firewire card was purchased because the on-board FireWire port on my ageing Asus Rampage 3 Motherboard with the VIA chipset was totally useless and did not function. I did the simple install to a vacant PCIe slot and switched my system back on (Note: Vantec did include a SATA to Molex power adaptor in the box. I am using a Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit based system and this fantastic piece of hardware by Vantec was detected immediately and the drivers for the Texas Instruments chipset were installed automatically by Windows. I have tested a 17 year old Canon Mini DV Camcorder with this Vantec card and it is working flawlessly at capturing my very old videos from my very old Mini DV Tapes. The quality of this card is very high and I am very pleased to have chosen this FireWire card above all others I considered and believe me, I did my research. I could not find this card available for purchase in the UK so I opted to try my luck with Amazon.com who have totally amazed my with the speed and service provided. I highly recommend this product to anyone needing a high quality FireWire card and I also recommend Amazon.com as the place to purchase it from.

works with windows 10 and adobe premiere 2019, no issues at all.

I run Windows 10 on a 64 bit machine and have a bunch of old Mini DV tapes I wanted to transfer to the computer. My Sony DCR MiniDV Handycam has a USB connector but there is apparently no way to get Windows 10 to recognize the camcorder via the USB. The Sony also has a Firewire output. So, after reading the reviews I tried this Vantec Firewire card. Installation into the PCIx slot was simple. The directions said to connect the card's power cable to a power supply on the motherboard, but I apparently do not have the right connector on the motherboard. BUT, it turned out to be not necessary--the card appears to be working correctly without connecting any power supply. I did not install any drivers and did not see any "now installing drivers" message pop up. I just connected the Firewire cable from the Sony camcorder, then looked in the Window Device Manager, and the Sony now appears! I use Adobe Premiere Elements as my main video editor. For whatever reason, Adobe Premiere Element did not recognize the camcorder. So, thanks to a previous reviewer who mentioned this, I downloaded a free program called Scenalyzer that was developed for DV. Thanks to developer Andreas Winter who makes this available. Scenalyzer is a small download. You have to paste in the key code to remove the watermark, but the code and instructions on how to do this are provided with the software. Scenalyzer found my camcorder (calling it Microsoft DV instead of Sony, but no matter, it works). Roll tape on the camcorder, hit "Capture" on Scenalyzer, and the file is saved onto my computer. Video quality is good and I am able to edit the file in Adobe Premiere Elements. Success! Vantec should update the instructions and time will tell as far as how durable and reliable this card is, but right out of the box, it works.