Help choosing replacement laptop for insurance claim

[Breige]

Hi everyone,

I had a HP pavillion dv5-1110ea which I dropped down the stairs, I have claimed through gadget insurance and my claim has been successful however I was offered 2 different laptops as a replacement and neither has a firewire port or disc drive. When I turned these down I was asked what laptop do you want? And this is the question I need help answering.

I use my laptop to edit video which I import from a digital camera and my understanding is that the only way to do this is throuh the steady transfer rate of a firewire connection or a firewire express card adapter. The issue is I am so out of touch with recent computing developments that I have not a clue how to find a suitable replacement, I thought this would be down to the insurance company.

So basically can anyone help suggest a laptop with very similar specs to the hp dv5?

Thanks in advance

 

[Celegorm]

Firewire is not needed to transfer from a camera to a computer. At anyrate, USB is now faster than firewire anyways (https://www.hgst.com/support/faqs/w...20-usb-30-firewire-400-firewire-800-esata-and)

How important is the disk drive to you? Those are few and far between now as more and more laptops are dropping those off to save on space and weight.

 

[Breige]

Hey,

I read this which made me think firewire to usb adapters don't work.

And yeah the disc drive is kinda important, believe it or not I do still burn discs!

I am trying to find a site that lets you search by spec but non allow you to specify firewire or ExpressCard slots.

I should also mention I need it to read SD cards too

Thanks again!

 

[Breige]

I posted a reply but it had a link in it so it was blocked.

I use a sony HDR FX1 camera and according to what I've read firewire to usb adapters don't work to transfer HDV, the link was to a post that said USB transfers data as packets, while Firewire transfers data as a steady stream and thats why it doesn't work??

And yeah I do need a disc drive, I still burn video to disc occassionally, I also need an sd card reader.

Can you recommend any laptops that have an ExpressCard slot if there are any?

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Just tell them you need a laptop that has Firewire support... As for disk drives and SD cards, you can buy USB based ones.

 

[Breige]

I have told them that the replacement has to have firewire support, thats when they asked me to choose my own laptop. And I know that I can get usb based drives but that would mean me having to purchase extra things instead of having a like for like replacement as my HP DV5 was purchased specifically because it met all of these requirements.