What is the difference between those types of cameras which can output with:
- S-Video interface
- Firewire interface
- USB 2.0 interface
S-Video or Firewire take a lot of bandwidth compared to USB cameras. But does it mean S-Video camera is the best one?
But, on the other hand, a tiny iPhone camera almost gives a better quality, speed, sharpness and looks excellent too. Does this mean that S-Video/FireWire/USB cameras are some kind of business tricks?
Can this all be done in a tiny iPhone camera too? Does size not matter in this chapter?
22 Answers
The question isn't particularly on-topic here.
Still, to address your points:
- S-Video is an analogue transmission method
- Firewire and USB are digital transmission methods
You can not compare these. You can't just say they "take more bandwidth".
S-Video is used to transfer an analogue video signal to a TV or some other device. It isn't that useful for transferring a video to a computer, as analogue transmission always leads to noise, crosstalk between channels, etc. and you would need to convert the video back to digital again.
Firewire and USB on the other hand enable you to capture the video from the camera as it is without a loss of quality.
S-Video or Firewire take a lot of bandwidth compared to USB cameras
That is wrong. Who said that? Where did you read it? If you want to compare, you should compare Firewire and USB, because they are digital (see above). But let's assume that you transfer the exact same video, then they both take up the same bandwidth.
What you might have meant was Firewire's theoretical bandwidth of 800 MBit/s and USB 2.0's 480 MBit/s
a tiny iPhone camera almost gives a better quality, speed, sharpness and looks excellent too
That is also absolutely wrong without taking into account the camera you are comparing the iPhone to. If it's a cheap Nokia phone camera from 2004, then yes. If it's a RED 4k camera, then absolutely no.
Does size not matter in this chapter?
Yes, because – simply put – with a bigger sensor size and bigger lenses, you will get more details out of the image (spatial resolution) as well as better light-efficiency. One could write a book about this though.
5This question is actually requires a few different answers.
What is the difference between USB 2.0, Firewire, and S-Video? Cameras that use USB and Firewire for transfers shoot digital video. Most higher end cameras use Firewire due to the higher sustained file transfer speed (although this might change with USB 3.0).
S-Video cables do not have the bandwidth to support HD, and they need a capture card to convert from analog to digital formats.
Why is my iPhone camera better than my other camera? To be blunt, because your video camera sucks. A decent camera should be able to capture much better than an iPhone.
I have no idea why linux is tagged though. What are you asking about it?
