transfering mini-dv cassette from camcorder to a laptop

Firewire cards are now a problem on Windows 10 ... just had to pull mine out of the PC as it was stuffing up the update ... in all honesty, if I were doing this today I'd find someone who does transfers as a service and get them to do it for you ...
 
Five years ago I bought a couple of DSR-1800's for this purpose on eBay for less than $200 each with the optional SDI boards installed (which were still available as new parts, for $1300 each!). These were the full size broadcast DVCAM decks that sold for $12K in their day. What's interesting is that the smaller prosumer DVCAM decks like the DSR11's have maintained more value, perhaps because of their convenient size and desktop popularity, but the 1800 and the player-only 1600 models were significantly more full featured. The key is the SDI board--this lets you use any SDI compatible input device like the Blackmagic Intensity Recorder for a simple connection into the computer, without having to do the D to A to D conversions described in threads above and thus losing image quality. As a bonus this will also let you connect any other legacy analog gear to the recorder as it functions as a composite to digital converter (SD to SD-SDI). I am now using it as the main interface to my system for any of the legacy gear like VHS decks (still in the years-long process of copying over old tapes...sigh).

Looking at eBay, I still see these going for roughly the same price today. Worth looking into. These are as rugged and high-end as it gets, so will surely outlast a legacy DV camcorder as a feeder source (and gentler on the tapes as well, which is an important consideration as these tapes age).
 
mcbob said:
Those DSR-1800's are inexpensive enough now, I could get 2 and return to 2-deck editing!
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Haha! wouldn't THAT be fun. Just thinking about going back to tape-to-tape at this point would be insane. There were good lessons to be learned from it (making more thoughtful choices etc). To this day I still surprise editors that I work with how precise I can be when I ask them to cut 7 frames off a clip, but that came with the territory back then.
 
mcbob said:
Those DSR-1800's are inexpensive enough now, I could get 2 and return to 2-deck editing!
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Ha! Yeah right! I certainly don't miss the days of "insert" or "assembly" editing. But that does make me remember an old friend from my TV station days... whose jobs it was to "black" the 3/4" tapes - so that the editors (us camera ops) could cut together the b-roll shots after the reporter had "A-rolled" the story.
 
CharlesPapert said:
There were good lessons to be learned from it (making more thoughtful choices etc). To this day I still surprise editors that I work with how precise I can be when I ask them to cut 7 frames off a clip, but that came with the territory back then.
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Totally agree with this. I learned more about "telling a story" visually - from having to go out & shoot and then edit my crappy footage from deck to deck without any of those fancy transitions at immediate disposal - usually under about a 2 hour deadline - if I was lucky (often less). Also really helped teach me pacing & cutting to music, voice, etc.
Ok. Enough from this "old-timer".
 
laverdir said:
Difference between analog (s-video or composite) and digital (firewire) captured material is night and day.

20 year old computer can be bought for peanuts and handle DV through firewire with no sweat.

Hook it up to your network through Gbps card and capture to network drive.

Use the best software for DV capture: Scenelyzer Live, which is free now.

If the material you are capturing has value to invest in restoration, Video Enhance AI will have de-interlace implemented by the end of the year.
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De-interlace is implemented, see examples on product page.
 
I still get those wavy lines when I transfer miniDV using Apple QuickTime player to transfer.
 
thefilmaddict said:
This is how I transferred my old tapes. Not sure if this would work for you, but every other way I tried was a nightmare.
https://youtu.be/1l4h_iv56KY
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Thanks! I'll try it. Baby sitting other programs and apps has been awful. Quicktime stops every few minutes sometimes, and after a few tapes, I couldn't do it anymore. I have about 300 tapes (aka 300hrs)
 
Another way way to look at this. I recently wanted footage from HDV, DV and VHS-C. Using a modern Pro Res Recorder was super easy once I had the right converters to get footage into HDMI. There are really cheap RCA to HDMI upscalers which look quite good. I used a Convergent Design 7Q to record all the miniDV tapes to 720. You need to use RCA upscaler if you are using miniDV camera, I found Sony Clamshell HDV Decks are cheap now a days and play both HDV and miniDV of all flavors and offer HDMI output.

Once you get video into HDMI format there are lots of cheap ways to capture HDMI in a modern video format.
 
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I have a couple old imacs with built in fw. Might be easier and cheaper for you to buy one on ebay for $100 and then plug a USB drive and copy the footage from there.
 
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