Hello,
I'm looking to purchase an Acer Aspire 8920G laptop but I have just learned, much to my dismay, that this model comes with no firewire port. Instead it uses USB2.0. Would I be able to upload miniDV footage onto this laptop with no firewire port? Would USB2.0 work? If not, what creative methods might I have to employ to get the footage onto my computer?

Thank you for your time and information.

Regards.

You should be able to purchase a PCMICA firewire card for under $50, as long as your laptop has a slot for it. The slot is usually located on the side of the computer.

Assuming it is this machine:

Products (http://us.acer.com/acer-v2/productv.do?LanguageISOCtxParam=en&kcond61e.c2att101=36229&sp=page16e&ctx2.c2att1=25&link=ln438e&CountryISOCtxParam=US&ctx1g.c2att92=447&ctx1.att21k=1&CRC=58345684)

It looks like you will have to get a FireWire adapter card that will plug into the laptops ExpressCard/54 slot.

This link shows a good sample:

ExpressCard to FireWire | B&H Photo Video (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?ci=0&shs=ExpressCard+to+FireWire&sb=ps&pn=1&sq=desc&InitialSearch=yes&O=jsp%2FRootPage.jsp&A=search&Q=*&bhs=t)

According to this link, the narrower cards (ExpressCard/34) plug into either ExpressCard/34 or ExpressCard/54 slots.

ExpressCard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExpressCard)

Thanks for the replies, they are very informative.

Do you know if this computer can work with Avid anyway?

Do you know if this computer can work with Avid anyway?

I just assumed it would. I know some pieces of hardware are not compatible with Avid but I didn't realize entre systems can be incompatible. How would I find out?

Thank you.

You should go over to Avid's website and look up the recommended laptop system requirements for the version of Media Composer you'll be using.

Avid is very hardware and OS specific. It's a great program, but it is the pickiest of all the PC NLE's about what it needs to run.