Sony Handycam USB Streaming & Why You Shouldn't Use It

[@snitzelll3710]

The fact you taped this tutorial means you know your stuff

[@TheOriginalCollectorA1303]

I knew USB Streaming was an option on these camcorders but I’ve never seen the actual results, it’s quite a big difference. FireWire or even just S-Video provides a better image for the tape based machines. Even if you wanted that early 2000s digital video quality, it’s easier to just use a camera that can record video from the same time period rather than a tape based camcorder since they use flash storage. Great video!

[@theprodbystish]

What are you using to record to record this video?

[@neekohah]

I love the footage!!! what camcorder did you use to record and make the vid?

[@MurteiraNabo]

Hi, could you upload the video driver (i.e. Internet Archive) and link them in the video description? Thanks in advance.

[@SyedUmar-th2sr]

i need trv285e drivers for usb streaming.if know link so pls share

[@vetrixfx9264]

Panasonic apperantly had USB streaming on their later miniDV camcorders too. I have a NV GS280 and I can capture DV quality video from it via USB. I guess that's because it uses an usb2.0 interface (which is even a bit faster than firewire400). I use it all the time for my VX2100 tapes (firstly to spare the tape mechanism in the VX, secondly because none of my firewire cards on my pc were able to capture from the camera lol)

[@rockrecordreport7136]

USB 2.0 is faster than Firewire400? I don't think so at all.

[@vetrixfx9264]

@@rockrecordreport7136 it is slightly faster in theory. USB2 can be up to 480mbit/s fast (theoretically), while FireWire400 can only reach a speed of 400mbit/s

[@Jcpineda26]

@@rockrecordreport7136google it

[@KylesVideos]

@@rockrecordreport7136usb 2.0 has a theoretical max of 480 mbps so very slightly. They’re basically identical. USB 2 and later usb 3 basically caused the death of FireWire.

[@DarkGamerA]

I have dcr-trv285e and when I plug my cam via the mini USB port to the computer it doesn't recognise and the drivers arent installing on win 7 , 10 this video explained it why thank you so much

[@rektalls4609]

same problem i have, usb is not recognize on windows 10. i dont know how can i solve this problem.

[@Chazzy499]

Try to use windows 7 through a virtual machine, or find the appropriate driver and install it

[@neekohah]

at 7:42 to 7:45 what's the main camcorder you're recording on? I want to purchase one

[@Browningate]

Lol at all those tabs being open, but recording the video on a super-old camera.

[@mrrudzin]

I stuck on drivers. There is no place where to get it. Can you share?

[@aidan9958]

I recently acquired a Sony DSR-PDX10 DVCAM, DCR-TRV740 and DCR-TRV60 in brand new condition with all accessories in the box. Is there anything I should do or check before trying to power any of these on? They are literally still on the original Sony packaging and haven't been powered on yet. Just don't want to blow them up.

[@Chazzy499]

I have dcr-trv285e, i have vcr tapes recorded back in 2005 to 2010, my dad transfer it digitally to pc but i feel quality is very bad, can you tell me how can i transfer it?, is it using firewire?, and actually i want to record the video without using vhs tape, is there any method?

[@cinnarurut]

hi I have sony dcr-trv270e handycam and got records inside cassette. as I can't find older versions of windows I wonder if there's a way to connect the camera to my pc

[@gabbaganscha]

over firewire cable and Grafik card in your computer. or you buy (what i did) and extern small recorder which record direktly on SD card. love it. (Video Grabber)

[@SnepperStepTV]

It feels like a webcam typically would look. I know that there were early zoom things in the office in those days, albeit expensive, so i wonder if that could be an intended use for the feature?

[@ColdShoulderMedia]

@3:34 You show a cable, is this a firewire mini to firewire full? I've seen some firewire to usb cables, and I'm curious if any of them actually have some form of functional conversion.

[@gabbaganscha]

i bet its a firewire to FW full

[@grdesig]

Bien explicativo el video! saludos desde Caracas Venezuela

[@ktor538]

Could you put a copy of that Sony software up on Google drive?

[@hildaarrazcaetahusien9568]

I have a 700 digital handy cam I bought so I could pay back my old tapes, it does not show the old tapes on the camera screen? But it does allow me to record recent video and it shows me the recent video that I recorded but it does not allow me to pay back my old videotapes. Do you know why?

[@stereophonicstuff]

What the exact model number of your camcorder? I have a hunch it's either Digital8 only or Video8/Hi8 only and not compatible with whatever format your old tapes are recorded in.

[@joelmulder]

What model number is the camera at around 2 minutes? you mention the names of the rest of them, but not that one.

[@rockrecordreport7136]

Would have liked to see you demo FW1394 output to PC to show us what kind of quality this camera can do when using it at it's best rather its worst output.

[@SFtheGreat]

Since it records square pixels 640x480, does it record correctly according to ITU-R REC.470 and 601?

[@BlueEyz612]

what camera did you film this on?

[@stereophonicstuff]

This was recorded using a Sony Hi8 XR Handycam.

[@jamesbitesback]

"LOCAL KINE GRINDZ" - Kine is pronounced like "kh-Y-n" lmao from Hawaii / Great vid btw!!

[@Malory-Malicious]

How do you transfer photos taken on the camera though?

[@gabbaganscha]

back then the cameras "took pictures" as split second stop video.... the foto is like a stop picture which lasts a couple of second on the tape "as a video" :P

[@andrewserich2076]

great stuff.. i am about to repair and digitise all my hi8 tapes..i remember years ago getting my SonyTRV120e dvLInk firewire 4pin working with windows xp ...i am not even going to try to get it working with Windows 10... my question is how much quality loss is there between DVlink and SVideo(generic USB composite ripping device)? many thanks from down under.

[@stereophonicstuff]

Firewire works perfectly in Windows 10. I suppose it does depend on the Firewire card you're using and its compatibility with newer OSes, but I haven't had any issues. In fact, my entire video transfer workflow is done in Windows 10, and I've just been using some no-name Firewire card I bought off eBay. I didn't even need to install drivers for it. As for the quality loss of DV/Firewire or S-Video, it seems that it depends on your source. If all you have are Digital8 tapes, transferring to your computer via Firewire is preferred since they're already digital, and you don't want to incur generational loss as a result of going from digital to analog (S-Video) and then back to digital. However, if you have analog Video8 and Hi8 tapes, the absolute best way to transfer those would be to use S-Video, since the tapes are analog, and using S-Video will avoid the chroma downsampling and lossy compression inherent with DV codec conversion (using something like the TRV120). If you want the best quality for analog 8mm tapes, I'd go the S-video route, using a lossless codec like Lagarith or Huffyuv (since the tapes are analog and thus, no compression to start with). However, I've been using a Digital8 camcorder with analog playback capabilities and just capturing the output over Firewire with no major issues. It's not something a video archivist purist would recommend, but it'll get you 95% of the way there--and it's pretty convenient.

[@andrewserich2076]

@@stereophonicstuff thank you for the detailed reply..i did buy a pcmcia firewire laptop card a while ago but my current HP no longer support an external card..Since i do not own a pc tower/desktop i purchased a USB to 4pin firewire cable...i will give this a go when it arrives and let you know the outcome.now to manually wind some hi8 8 tapes before i play them in my 120e...better safe than a jammed 30 year old tape. Peace.

[@mikeeb1129]

I just picked up a DCR TRV140 from a thrift store. I'll be sticking with a video capture card or my DVD recorder to transfer the footage. I plan on making a found footage horror short film with it. Definitely not going to use USB streaming.

[@MightyJKF]

If you have a desktop, you can just get a Firewire card.

[@joebeck0]

I'm about to purchase a ccdtrv608 - would this one be able to use a firewire to usb? Or should I utilize some other cable to transfer video to my computer?

[@stereophonicstuff]

The CCD-TRV608 has a USB jack but as I showed in the video, the quality is horrible. It doesn't have a Firewire jack, so the easiest and cheapest way would be to use an EZ-Cap. It's not the absolute highest quality you can get, but it's cheap, easy, and readily available on Amazon and eBay. Get an AV cable off eBay for the camcorder; it should have what looks like a 3.5mm headphone jack on one end and Red/White/Yellow RCA jacks on the other (just type in Sony Handycam AV cable). Then feed that into the EZ-Cap or any of the other USB video capture devices like the Dazzle and use that to transfer the videos to your computer.

[@joebeck0]

@@stereophonicstuff thanks so much!!

[@joebeck0]

@@stereophonicstuff I see one cable that has the 3.5mm on one end and one cable that has the usb type port on one end - both have red white yellow on other ends. Where does the 3.5mm headphone jack plug into?

[@stereophonicstuff]

@@joebeck0 The cable that has the USB type port on the end won't work with this Handycam. It's a newer style connector used on Sony's more recent models. This is the cable that'll connect to the camcorder's 3.5mm jack and have RCA outputs that you'll then connect to the RCA inputs of the EZ-Cap: www.ebay.com/itm/283951519603. The 3.5mm headphone style jack will plug into the port on the camcorder that's located toward the front of the camera (it's hidden behind a plastic flap), between the handstrap and Halogen spotlight.

[@joebeck0]

@@stereophonicstuff Got it. Thank you so much for the clarification. Just got the same camcorder myself and excited to use it. Do you have any recommendations for a capture device? I see a few on Amazon but they are upwards of $150!

[@poppypaxton6603]

Thank you!

[@harshitsinha98]

How to connect external mic jack to Sony handycam DCR-TRV270E/TRV285E?

[@stereophonicstuff]

Unfortunately, those models do not have an external microphone jack and there’s no way to easily add one.

[@Josuerobles11202]

So can you stream with these things?

[@gabbaganscha]

i guess no. i also tryd an figued it out. so i came to this video. and as i understand the word streaming in this context doesnt mean "live webcam streaming" its just a third way to capture from tape to computer :)

[@zeekeek]

does anyone kniw why i cant record with effects to memory stick? also the video image when recording to memory stick is stuttery, not sure if its shutter speed issues or recording... any help :)

[@stereophonicstuff]

That’s by design and a limitation of the technology, just like USB streaming.

[@bakonfreek]

Okay, so, the quality is on par with the memory stick (better resolution, but the compression is certainly the same looking). Using a long tree of dongles on my semi-modern computer (which has Thunderbolt 4) to get access to firewire is still my preferred method (surprisingly, that does actually work to get DV video recorded into the computer). Now, on the opposite end of things, I know the DV codec is about as good as you can get right out of a camera (for SD anyway), but I can't help wondering what it would look like recording "close enough to uncompressed" output from these on my Ninja V+ (out of a scaler because the Ninja is too smart for its own good--if the HDMI resolution is 480i/p or 720p, it will not record, it *HAS* to be 1080i/p or greater). I mean, there's a reason the DV codec is the gold standard for SD video, but I can't help wondering if it's possible to squeeze just a tiny bit more out of SD video (I know that solid red, green, or blue backgrounds look slightly different when using the DV codec, it's difficult to explain, but it makes sense with the color subsampling used by that codec).

[@stereophonicstuff]

I've seen a few people that have used "memory recording units" like the Sony HVR MC1 that record digitally from the Firewire jack without the need of using tapes, but bypassing the DV compression and recording uncompressed video is an interesting proposition. That would really work well with flash memory standard definition camcorders and the like that (in my opinion) all record with way too low of a bit-rate (it seems they all max out at around 9Mbps). I'm actually curious, how would you connect a Handycam or another DV camcorder up to the Ninja? Does it offer analog composite/S video inputs?

[@bakonfreek]

The Ninja will not take analog (or even anything below 1080i) directly, but I know of a few scalers that effectively do uncompressed frame grabs and scale those up (my late era Funai VCR/DVD combo recorder will do that and barf out a RGB 1080p signal over HDMI so I figure if I can record that uncompressed or "close enough to uncompressed" then scale back down to 480i or 480p, that might work). Now, I might be limited to Sony flash cameras since those actually had S-Video over that semi-proprietary connector Sony used between like 2004-2012 (I recall the Canon FS cameras only having composite over a TRRS connector), but I have plenty of SD Sony cameras (some even of the MiniDV or Digital8 persuasion with a whole S-Video plug).

[@n.park1]

lol i have a camcorder with a video of my grandma and showed it to my mum and she got all emotional 😔