Firewire to PCI

[Zeppelin456]

Just a quick question here, if I want to add firewire compatibility to my computer, will buying a firewire port that plugs into a PCI slot work for fairly heavy recording (most likely using all 8 inputs on an 896). Is there any discernible difference between recording into a direct firewire port and recording to a PCI firewire converter?

 

[dwillis45]

I would check with MOTU technical support if you can get through to them. Yo can also look at their online tech support articles and you might want to post at Unicornation, the MOTU user's BBS:

http://www.motu.com/english/techsupport/index.html

was interested in a similar issue and ran across the following gem at MOTU tech support:

There's an incompatibility between the NEC chip found in some Firewire cards and the motu firewire line of interface. If the firewire installer warns you that you're running a Firewire card with the NEC chip, you should replace said card with a card that uses the TI (Texas Instruments) or Lucent chip. Keyspan, Sonnet and ADS are a few of the many brands using the TI or Lucent firewire chips. Please check with the manufacturer of the firewire card before purchasing it to ensure it has the TI or Lucent chip

 

[Darkstar]

I have no problem recording from an M-Audio Firewire 410 directly into a 3 port firewire PCI card I bought. Never any latency issues.

Although, I did have to look at a specific list of Firewire PCI cards M-Audio listed on their website as compatible with the 410 (a short list).

So, in short, PCI FW ports should be fine (was in my case) just contact your interface's manufacturer and make sure you buy a compatible card.

I'm only using 2 inputs at a time though, so get more opinions on your 8-in-at-once situation.