How to transfer your old DV/Hi8 cassettes to modern hardware - THE FULL GUIDE w/ problem solving

The most comprehensive 2021 tutorial on how to “digitize” DV and Hi8/Digital8 tapes with your old camcorders and modern hardware, almost for free. With lots of tricks and tips on how to avoid frequent mistakes and fix common errors.
Please note that I am not an expert on these formats. If you’re having trouble, don’t hesitate to ask, but also don’t expect me to know everything. If you can use professional services (and that option is financially available to you), definitely use them if you get stuck. Additionally, for all the knowledgeable people, I am simplifying quite some nerdy details for the common layperson, so don’t whine over technical correctness. If you are interested in the history of Digital Video, Hi8, or the details of these technologies, this video is not for you and I would encourage you to do your own research.
00:00 Intro, What Is DV?
01:16 Hardware: Camcorder
01:47 Hardware: Camcorder Troubleshooting
03:22 Hardware PS: Digital8/Hi8 Camcorders
04:46 Hardware: FireWire adapters (and cabling)
06:08 Software: FireWire adapters
06:53 Hardware/Software: Connecting to the Computer
07:37 Software: Using VLC
09:35 Software: Dumping DV data with VLC
12:15 Software: Troubleshooting DV dumps & audio glitches
14:09 Software: Converting to MP4 (H.264)
15:24 Software: Editing & Footage cleaning
16:33 Outro
Links:
The roller replacement fix (warning: potato quality). • Sony PC110 C:31:22 C:3...
VLC media player: www.videolan.org/vlc/
Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve: www.blackmagicdesign.com/prod...
The OpenFX Misc package, including a great deinterlacer: github.com/NatronGitHub/openf...
The camcorders featured in this video are the Sony Handycam DCR-HC24 (MiniDV camcorder) and DCR-TRV720E (Digital8 camcorder and Hi8 player), both models in the PAL version.

[@idekbro9143]

I can't believe this actually worked. I've spent the past 2 years trying every possible method, buying video converters, downloading countless software, and always to no avail. I never would have found the solution had it not been for your video. Thank you.

[@aaprods]

If your PC can see the camcorder, use WinDV or Scenalyzer for proper DV capture/transfer. Much simpler than all that hoo haa with VLC. There are quite a few camcorders, in particular the Panasonic NV-GS series, that will transfer DV over USB (the Mini B socket). This obviates the need to fluff around trying to get the Firewire connection working. They come up in Device Manager as a "Video Edit" device. If you don't have a working Firewire connection, try plugging in your USB lead and see if Windows shows the camcorder as a Video Edit. if so, capture away with WinDV or Scenalyzer.

[@Arcangel3]

the only video I could find in the whole internet explaining it , and VERY WELL (I can tell the effort put into it) , thanks! It helped!

[@user-wg4rj8di3d]

It worked like a charm with my old Canon MVX40i and a Firewire PCI card installed on a rebuilt Windows 7 32bit pc. I'm downloading about 20 miniDV tapes from 20 years ago! thank you for the perfect tutorial!!

[@dean1100110]

Bro my grandad gave me the job of importing all this stuff KILL ME

[@delizdony]

literally similar situation, uncle gave me 9 cassettes and the job of converting them all 😁😁😁

[@delizdony]

also this video is a life saver thank you !

[@tilu3303]

Thanks for this. I had a heckuva time trying to get VLC to record the DV firewire input that played just fine and it was because I didn't check the Dump Raw Input box. Other capture programs I've used permitted compressing the video on the way in and I was trying to do that.

[@scootershooter2792]

This was the only method I found that worked. The OBS method look like it should have worked but didn't VLC was the only program that actually showed an image from the camera. I thought buying the PCI card was a little extreme but it made sense. Thanks for your hard work

[@WillCarterTech]

10:31 thank you for figuring this out! That explains why i’ve been losing audio

[@EliyahuDesmond]

this is a great video. It was stupidly hard to find any relevant videos between the manual and some extremely cringe videos from 2008. You did a really good job explaining everything

[@Capturing-Memories]

Although VLC may work after tweaking the right tools for miniDV/ D8 are WinDV and Sclive, HDVsplit is for HDV. Also you can control the camcorder functions from within the app.

[@DoubleMonoLR]

VLC doesn't really require tweaking in my brief experience, but yeah WinDV etc are more suitable

[@donross7820]

On my Mac Studio Ultra Quicktime works perfectly with my Sony DV deck. I just needed Firewire to USB-C adapter cables.

[@Jennifermcintyre]

I bought the “vid box” device and it’s a simple plug and play. Incredibly easy! I’m having trouble with some tapes and not others. Starts off with the pixelization digital noise then the tape stops.. open the cassette and the tapes jammed up and crinkled. Other tapes work just fine.. they’ve all been in the same conditions over the years and all the tapes appear to be in good condition. Not sure what my options are! Thanks for this video!!

[@weaponofvoice]

Really useful. Thank you so much.

[@TheChiptuner]

The firewire cable that came with my PCIE card doesn't seem to work. Any cables confirmed to work with Sony handicams? Edit: The cable was fine, turns out my PC running Windows 11 just didn’t detect my camcorder whenever I plugged it in. I put the PCIE card into an older computer running Windows 10 and it worked flawlessly. Not sure if it was an OS issue or a motherboard issue. But I’m capturing now!

[@marmcd3309]

Excellent video, incredibly informative, thank you for creating it. I have over 100 DV mini tapes to convert but my Sony handycam won’t play them so i need to get another one. What one would you suggest I get to carry out the procedure? Its 100 tapes so needs to be hardy. And is there any other machine that would help or convert the tapes quicker? I’d be really grateful for any help you can advise. Thanks so much

[@GeekTherapyRadio]

"Good luck" is honestly the best advice on importing DV to modern computers. It is incredibly hit or miss. Older machines definitely work better for DV dumping. A machine with an iLink port for importing, and a USB port for offloading into a modern machine. Modern M1 Macs magically work well with a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 to Firewire 800 to Firewire 400 adapter chain.

[@aaprods]

Win 11 with a cheap VIA-based PCIe FW card works first time every time.

[@fabientschantz]

@@aaprodsunable to make it work 😮with windows 11. Tried everything, card is recognized but not the camera ! Worked fine with windows 10 !

[@sl5311]

@@aaprods Same quality?

[@aaprods]

@@sl5311 Yes, the PCIe Firewire card simply provides a FW/DV socket, like the old computers had. It will transfer actual, full quality DV.

[@sl5311]

@@aaprods Do you think buying an old Mac laptop with a firewire connector would work also?

[@user2d3]

This is gold!!! Thnx man!

[@michaelprovence]

This tutorial work very well for me thank you very much.. I didn't know that VLC can do all this stuff, I am still wondering if my video was downloaded in HD like it was originally recorded 13 years ago 📹👍

[@motionpicture77]

Vegas 14 pro captures interlaced DV footage without any hassle. I bought a pci 1394 card and it worked immediately. Old version of Vegas pro (Sony Vegas) in probably easy to find for download.

[@swashyhimself]

Hm how about premiere pro?

[@motionpicture77]

At least older versions. Haven't used premiere since I edited DV tapes back in the days. I use Davinci resolve Studio now. That's got really good de-interlacing for DV videos if you do settings right.@@swashyhimself

[@yyedidia]

Thank you very much very helpful. I am having trouble as my Sony is only showing under "Sound, Video and game controllers". When I use VLC for capture then press play on camera nothing showing on screen but sound does come through although it does not record it.

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

That's a driver issue. Either you can find some drivers online or use another camera; there's not much configuring possible. Maybe if you manually select another driver for the device, but I have never tried that because I never had to.

[@OkanOkul]

I have a problem, my handycam is a Sony CCD-TRV87E Video Camera Recorder. So it's a HI8 camera but this one does not have a DV port in it so I can't use firewire to upload videos to my desktop. what should I do?

[@joachimfranz]

Thanks for the very detailed video. Any Idea why my Panasonic NV-EX 3 is not recognized by my Macbook? In the Systemstatus it shows "Unknown divice recognized" on the Thunderbolt port...but no chance to transfer the DV-Stream. Tried VLC, Final Cut Pro and iVideo.......nothing works. I use the original Apple Cables as shown in your video. Frustrating. Any help is highly appreciated.

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

I'm sorry, I've only tried Sony camcorders and only on Windows and Linux. I also don't have Apple computers on hand, otherwise that would have been in the video. See if Panasonic has some original drivers (or other people re-uploaded them). If it doesn't work with default drivers, that's mostly a "too bad" situation these days, unfortunately.

[@RabbiMosheZaret]

I have been working on this. It used to work. When I look to see what the device is it always says AV to whatever, not the name of the camera. IS that ok? It actually final played on my laptop screen but how do I save it. That was a problem.

[@sharroun]

My 8mm video camera only plays in black and white. Video was recorded in color. Any potential solutions?

[@ReddRubble]

This video was awesome! Thanks so much. I'm just having issues now with converting the DV files to MP4. VLC was taking ages and giving me large file sizes (13gb to 5gb), so I used handbrake and the video looks great but the audio slowly gets out of sync. I tried using ffmpeg but the video quality seemed to be quite bad. And ideas?

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

You can set video bitrate in ffmpeg with -b:v , where is the bitrate in bits/s (not kb/s!).

[@Ajidirekt]

Thank you for sharing.

[@bodegabreath4258]

Thank you. Just subbed.

[@camilledorey5351]

Does this work for mini dv?

[@DariusBeingReal]

I have a sony hc30 camcorder but it only has a dc in port which is used for charging and a mic port. is it still possible to transfer video to digital using the dc some tiype of dc in cable?

[@DoubleMonoLR]

DC is for power/charging, it doesn't carry any data. Your camera supports firewire, but unfortunately it's one of the cameras that doesn't put the socket on the camera - you need a matching dock which has the socket on it. The manual(it's available online) will detail this.

[@toddpa-c3826]

Does this unit allow actual TBC Pass Through ??

[@vincei4252]

Thank you. And thank you for covering Linux. Every other video on this subject felt like I was being waterboarded.

[@robertjones5395]

Great video. I'm struggling with DV tape archives: what format/codec would you recommend as a work flow for converting UK PAL 720x576 (25fps Interlaced) to a modern compressed standard like MP4 container for archival purposes? I am finding that the container limits of MP4 restricts the resolution to 720x480, and whilst upscaling to 14410x1080 might be a better result to preserve fidelity/resolution, it is not perfect. how can I preserve the 720x576 format (and delinterlace) but hold in a modern container for perfect archive.?

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

I didn't actually knew that 720x576 is not possible with MPEG4/H.264, as far as I know H.264 accepts many resolutions. Have you tried using ffmpeg for conversion? It can be hard to use if you're unfamiliar with the command line but there is some good documentation online. It would allow you to set any resolution. Also, DaVinci Resolve definitely supports 720x576 (which is just SD PAL 4:3) so once you have some modern format, try deinterlacing with that. If you're struggling with H.264, try another codec like VP8, DNxHD or ProRes (ffmpeg supports all of the open-source ones and many more, and Resolve supports almost all that fit in an MP4 container).

[@at-hometechtips6116]

Try this video. Much easier, and straightforward. kzbin.info/www/bejne/m4XEZ4x_j9OMjck

[@TTVEaGMXde]

If you have Software with NTSC Fetish, you can still see if AVCHD can be switched to PAL (576x720i50). I did that with Cyberlink Powerdirector (14 MBit/s Limit). All the Software I tested could open the File as AVC or MPEG4. But I would rather wait until AV1 only masters I-Frames. Powerdirector can convert DV-AVI Type 1 (Professional) to DV-AVI Type 2 (Premiere) or reverse.

[@zakelwe]

I imported my DVs with Windows 10 Movie Maker which creates an avi file at 720x576. I then convert it using VDSC editor to mkv format H265. When you import into VSDC you can check it is still that resolution and if need be change it. When exporting finally make sure you have at least high quality setting, or if space is not an issue then Ultra quality. Custom quality setting is also available Hope this helps.

[@robertjones5395]

@@kleinesfilmroellchen thank you. Its given me a few things for review and work on.

[@TheBlueMan]

So I do everything you did,the IEEE 1394 shows up in device manager,changed it to legacy.But after i connect my camera with the firewire cable to the firewire port it doesnt show up in device manager.Know anything I can do?(I have the same sony camera like in the video)

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

That's very strange, I have no idea. I didn't change anything to "legacy".

[@decoman100]

QUESTION ...I HAVE THE SONY VIDEO CAMERA TRV620E ....IS IT POSIBLE TO CAPTURE VIDEO FROM IT TO LAPTOP ??? I HAVE ADOBE PREMIERE EDITING SOFTWARE BUT UN ABLE TO CAPTURE TO LAPTOP , I HAVE FIRE WIRE CABLE THATS IN CAMCORDER WITH THE OTHER END BEING A USB AS I ONLY HAVE USB INPUT ON LAP TOP ...THANKS ..

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

(Normal) USB to FireWire is not possible, as I have stated in the video.

[@carlossaenz8075]

i was having a problem where after I convert the video when it sounds perfectly fine when I watch it as an MP4 it has no sound any tips?

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

Try other converters or explicitly specify an audio codec, that's possible in both FFmpeg and VLC

[@Methavn]

Can you please help me! I connected my Canon mini-dv camera on my computer but it was listen as other devices in device manager and had error code 1 "This device is not configured correctly"

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

Unfortunately this would require a custom driver.

[@Methavn]

@@kleinesfilmroellchen I found the driver and now it is working

[@TEZProd]

Hi. I have an old laptop that has a FireWire 4 pin port. Will a 4pin to 4pin male to male cable work? Thanks.

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

FireWire cables are pretty much all male to male. So that should be perfectly fine.

[@anastasishav0_038]

is there a way to display the date and time too?

[@patrickcardon1643]

Or you're lucky ... and you still have an old Dell laptop with a mini Firewire connector (which is the same as the iLink cable and connector of the Handycam) ... the old software even runs on Windows 7 (haven't tried more recent Windows versions). The old Sony PMB software though doesn't seem to be able to "analyze" the HDV videos after capture while it runs fine on DV recordings (to get the EXIF data from the video)

[@DeanO418]

Ok I captured my minidv tapes using VLC Soon as I import it into Davinci resolve studio I have no sound or waveform. yet I have sound when watching them in vlc?

[@DoubleMonoLR]

Resolve is a nuisance with video compatibility in my limited experience, you may just have to resort to converting the video to a format that Resolve 'likes'. I was able to get a different format(from an analog video capture) working with resolve, but the app & settings to modify the file was far from user friendly. Like in your situation, the video was fine with all the players, only resolve had the problem. The easier method would be to just convert the video to a format that resolve handles well, but most compression involves some loss of quality.

[@CommandaInChief]

Every time I convert it, the audio doesn't work

[@tomeksloekers4602]

Ok. How can I do this at a modern Windows 11 laptop?

[@Monzy_]

How do you cut the video after dumping? I got a 3hour .dv file now which only contains 1 actual hour of footage, the rest is just a grey image. I would be a waste of time to convert it to H.264 and then cut it.

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

I use DaVinci Resolve which is free in the base version. You can just use any video editor but you need to convert to a modern format like MP4 (H.264) first.

[@DoubleMonoLR]

There's a variety of free lossless video cutting software, these are typically also vastly faster as they don't recompress the video. Just check the software supports DV video, though I guess it'll quickly become apparent when trying it - old apps are probably more likely to support it.

[@judyjohnson630]

avidemux

[@KuntalGhosh]

I had the cd that came with sony camcorder & it installed perfectly fine on windows 10 64bit computer. My dad had a 900$ pinnacle capture card from 2005 & i dropped it in my old core 2 quad pc as mine got no pci slot. It had the perfect balance of modern hardware & old hardware comparability. Runs win10 , has a gt710 that plays back video without stuttering.. gigabit ethernet to transfer the files over network to my pc & the pci slot let's me use a real period correct capture card. I could install windows 7 or vista to make it even more period correct but everything worked well on windows 10. I have about 8 hours of footage to transfer. And discovered 17 brand new mini dv tapes still in sealed pack made by sony. 1 of them are mini hdv.

[@pokemonbreakers9824]

Just a question about transfering the data, does it only make a digital copy of the tape or does it really transfer the data, leaving a blank DV cassette?

[@JOBT0]

It just copies the data, your cassette is not affected at all.

[@zakitani9085]

I have a Macbook pro from mid-2014. I just bought a firewire to thunderbolt adapter and a firewire cable. How likely will all of this work. I had first bought a firewire to USB cable but that didn't work and my camcorder kept saying "DV IN".

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

Your current solution should work. As I'm saying, it is absolutely not generally possible to adapt FireWire to USB and any adaptors are probably limited to certain device classes.

[@DoubleMonoLR]

The cheap new "firewire to USB cables" are sold dishonestly, they will never work and are quite dangerous as it's entirely possible for them to cause damage. The vast majority sold are just cables, there's no circuitry/conversion in them at all. USB and firewire aren't compatible at all, without conversion. The only ones I now of that work are some older USB Pinnacle capture devices that have a firewire socket as well as analog inputs, I have one myself. Other brands may have made something similar though. Apples firewire to Thunderbolt convertors also have circuitry inside.

[@diecubo]

I think i will use and old ibook g4 from 2004 to transfer.

[@Monzy_]

There's a better solution for this, which automatically stores the individual clips into their own files. It's called WinDV and although it was last updated in 2003 in miraculously still works perfectly.

[@zakelwe]

Or even easier use WIndows MovieMaker ..... that is simplest of all.

[@stevewright286]

Yes, I still have this software and it does the jobwithout complications. My initial runaround (for over a year) was the fact that the firewire sockets were broken. I didn't realise this. I could use S-Video fine, but wanted Firewire.

[@maxmustardman298]

And if you dont find drivers anymore, theres probably a backup copy on the internet archive for that

[@Dutch_G]

Hey just wanna say, amazing video. I am still struggling tho. I have a firewire 400 to 800 cable to the apple adapter from firewire to thunderbolt 2 and tb2 to tb3. However I get nothing on my computer. Is there something am missing? I have a sony handycam

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

I'm sorry, I have no idea if macOS still has FW drivers

[@Dutch_G]

@@kleinesfilmroellchen I have windows but I think my FW to thunderbolt 2 adapter is faulty

[@DoubleMonoLR]

@@Dutch_G Your computer must support Thunderbolt 3 for your Apple devices to work, not all USB3 / USB-C sockets support Thunderbolt unfortunately.

[@Dutch_G]

@@DoubleMonoLR I have a thunderbolt supported socket but I am afraid one of the adapters is broken

[@delpicsla65]

Hey man, thanks so much for the video. I have a problem with my camcorder I was hoping maybe you can give advice. I had stored it in my basement for years so I’m not surprised that both battery’s were dead and the indicator was not showing any light. I tried charging it externally, without any batteries and just the charger, and I also bought replacement batteries, new external batteries, and a new charger, but the camera still doesn’t charge and does not turn on. Do you have any idea what could be wrong?

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

I'm not sure but I've read and seen that not all brands support running the camcorder on external power exclusively, so you'll have to check whether your camcorder does. I know that almost all Sony camcorders do, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. If it even doesn't work with new batteries that are confirmed good, it's probably your camcorder's fault. Get a cheap replacement if you can (and only do so if you don't have LP recordings which aren't really intercompatible).

[@mamaman59]

vielen dank!

[@mullertalattad6686]

can this also work with memory stick into my computer?

[@DoubleMonoLR]

The memory sticks are typically only used for still photos anyway, and even if can be used for storing video, almost certainly at a much lower quality. I'm almost certain memory sticks in camcorders that support it, are copied via USB, I don't think any camcorders support copying to/from memory sticks over firewire. USB is likely to be much easier anyway fortunately.

[@Twenteen2]

Think i did something wrong with vlc.... hadnt finished watching the video but now my entire 40 minutes of footage has horizontal lines across it and no audio. is there any fix for this or have i f*ked myself

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

That seems like a tape problem. There's a section on how to fix missing audio, it's a little fickle. If the audio is fine in normal playback on the camera, it should work.

[@gpowerdragon9852]

If your camcorder got HDMI and you have HDMI capture game device i think that's a whole lot of easier except for video 8 there is only Yellow RCA Plug on it

[@fusion-music]

Thorough tutorial on dv archiving. Davinci Resolve is only slow if you have an unpaid version. The studio version uses all cores and GPU, - (CPU & graphics card).

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

That's true on some systems, it actually runs fine on mine. But I don't feel comfortable recommending paid tools to people, regardless of whether I have them. "Throw money at the problem" is not something I like to do or advocate for.

[@gabrielv.4358]

I have only 4 cores, so it would use 2 cores.... so bad... lol

[@fusion-music]

@@kleinesfilmroellchen Yes. You make a good point. I have thrown money at problems and found it doesn't fix them. I've also taken advice, based on others experience and find they also didn't know what they were talking about. Since making my comment, I find that I bought a 8GB AMD graphics card which isn't fast in Resolve because it uses a different rendering process. Nvidia are the cards for Resolve. I don't regret buying g Resolve though. Great software and it supports the people who design it and continually make it better & I'm in a position to at least do that. Sometimes we are not in that position & Black Magic kindly make it free. There are many reasons as to why PC go slow. It's not just hardware.

[@DoubleMonoLR]

ie: It's fast if you have a paid version *and* a powerful computer. Although I'm pretty sure older free versions are likely to be considerably faster(for general use) than the current version, and will be more compatible with slower computers. On my previous computer, every time I upgraded the software it got slower and problems started popping up.

[@stevewright286]

@@DoubleMonoLR I think that's a valid comment and good reason to keep older versions of Resolve available. I had to stop using a recent version as it was causing crashes, but the version since that works fine.

[@monte0682]

Hello, I did everything as you said but when I select Start in VLC it plays the video but no record button appears?

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

I don't exactly know what you mean. There is no record button, there is just the menu options for saving the DV stream or converting it into H.264 (MP4).

[@DoubleMonoLR]

Personally I wouldn't use VLC unless other apps don't work, it's quite awkward for captures. WinDV is easiest, Virtualdub next.

[@spoons4904]

Does it matter what FireWire pcie care you use?

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

It should not, as long as it doesn't do "weird" things. What I mean is that the OS's standard drivers should be able to pick it up and use it, because good luck getting third-party drivers to work for just your interface card.

[@spoons4904]

@@kleinesfilmroellchen thanks for the reply I hope it works too it’s coming today

[@HeXadorek]

@@spoons4904it work?

[@spoons4904]

@@HeXadorek yup

[@HeXadorek]

@@spoons4904 ty!

[@Blackmind0]

..puh..kompliziert...hab ich ein Glück, ich hab eine sony handycam aus 2006 gekauft, die kann Mini DV und Sony memory stick pro...den bringe ich gottseidank direkt an den pc... lg BM

[@richardd3663]

I thought great, I'm going to be able to transfer the footage I recorded today of some 8mm cine film. But then you got all tech on me! Is there no way with all those sockets I can just buy the right cable and simply transfer onto my laptop?

[@kleinesfilmroellchen]

Film is 10x more complicated than this, please consult someone else as I've never done that

[@terencemcculloch3294]

He's talking video not film. Check out vids on transfering film elsewhere. Either professionally or using a wolverine scanner for instance. Lots of help out there.

[@DoubleMonoLR]

Almost no modern computers have a firewire socket, and firewire to USB convertors(which work for DV for camcorders, but probably not for other firewire devices) are uncommon unfortunately. If you can get a suitable firewire connection(such as a PCIE card in a desktop computer, or an old laptop with firewire builtin), I'd recommend using the free WinDV software to copy the video to your computer, it's very easy and works with many version of Windows including Windows 11.

[@Begioo]

Man I’m interested on this stuff well u know the FireWire r lil bit missing on this year or non of this shitty shops send this kind of wire on my location (Austria) so I was wondering if I can transfer the data via av cable on my pc cuz I’m really struggling with this shit rn thx 4 the video u amazing

[@Begioo]

@LITTLEDANCERSADHU bro ty 4 the info finally I get my footage with av wire and obs

[@Begioo]

@LITTLEDANCERSADHU FACTS 🫂🗣️

[@gabrielv.4358]

I never ever seen thunderbolt in my life, and PCI E.... At least I have some old computers that could do the trick, but it would take one month to record it...

[@DoubleMonoLR]

If you have a genuinely old desktop pc it's likely to actually be *easier*, older pci (not pcie) firewire cards are easy to find, and older versions of Windows are likely to generally have less compatibility problems. It doesn't require powerful hardware, as the normal method is to copy the video from the camera exactly as it is on the tape, without any compression. People were doing this in the mid to late 1990s :) PCIE is newer and much faster, but the extra speed won't be used for firewire(which already ran at full speed with an old PCI card), and the footage can only be copied off at the same speed as the tape plays anyway.

[@gorjnjch]

It’s more difficult to transfer video from a miniDV cassette to a modern one, with a powerful processor and a powerful video card, but a very stupid laptop, without a 1394 connector. And a modern USB Type-C with support for Thunderbolt 3 will not always help you. Since you, in addition to adapters from Apple , you will also need an expensive Thunderbolt 3 Dock unit. These guys from Silicon Valley are doing everything to make our lives difficult and take our money.

[@proproxy]

First

[@rheadog9546]

I wish what he says was true. But it's not. Most at least NTSC version Sony hi8 camcorders did not come with firewire. I see his Sony is a PAL maybe that is different? Dunno? but it is not easy to find a camera that has a DV out and has HI8. If anyone has model #'s and can list a few that wont break the bank this would be handy.

[@BigWheelRally]

He is using a "Digital 8" camcorder that can play Digital 8, Hi-8, and regular Video 8 tapes. Those camcorders will have the Firewire connector on them. Here's a few model numbers (these all have the Firewire IEEE 1394 connector, plus they support Analog to Digital Pass Through, which means you can connect your old VCR up to them and pass the analog video in and have it come out as digital on the Firewire. They also have Time Base Corrector (TBC) to stabilize that analog video. Handy for capturing full size VHS tapes): Sony DCR-TRV120 Sony DCR-TRV320 Sony DCR-TRV520 Sony DCR-TRV525 Sony DCR-TRV720 Sony DCR-TRV820 Sony DCR-TRV230 Sony DCR-TRV330 Sony DCR-TRV530 Sony DCR-TRV240 Sony DCR-TRV340 Sony DCR-TRV740 Sony DCR-TRV840 Sony DCR-TRV350 Sony DCR-TRV351 Sony DCR-TRV460 Sony DCR-TRV480

[@cyn9534]

I gave up halfway.