Not All Firewire Interfaces Are Made Equal

Firewire (IEEE-1394) is generally very easy to use and virually plug and play. Prosilica's firewire machine vision cameras will operate on any platform that is capable of meeting the full IEEE-1394A specification. Generally speaking, we recommend using firewire computer interfaces that use a "TI chipset" (Texas Instruments chipset) . These are used in the more expensive IEEE-1394 cards, but they work very well with no reported problems.

RECOMMENDED:

Unibrain Fireboard Blue (PCI card) - Available from Prosilica
ADS Tech Pyro 1394DV for notebooks (CardBus)

NOT RECOMMENDED:

There are some firewire interface cards/chipsets that are known to have problems and should be avoided when using Prosilica cameras:

Yet unconfirmed, some Adaptec firewire cards have been reported to cause some reliability and installation problems. These cards are best avoided although some customers are using these cards without any problem.

Also unconfirmed, the NEC 1394 chipset has also been reported to cause some problems. These problems were resolved by using a different firewire card based on the Texas Instruments chipset.

DO NOT USE:

ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard with Realtek PHY 8801B IEEE-1394 chipset is known to cause problems.