CAMCORDERS: Was there ever a Protocol to offload MiniDV recordings to a SDHC (in camera feature)?

demoboy

demoboy

Well-known member
I'm wondering if there was ever a model for cameras that had MiniDV and SDHC. I own a HVR-HD1000. It's specially modded and excited to use it soon. Also, I have a box of MiniDV tapes that I need archive. I have various cables from FW800 to FW400 to mini connections vise versa etc. I'm more than sure my cables are fine as they work for others devices too. So I'm having a hard time getting my iMac 2008 model to recognize the HVR-HD1000. I remember with Quicktime you can select a device to capture. In any port be it FW800 or FW400 from the HD1000 to the iMac it never gets recognized. Luckily I also have legacy Pentium 4 laptops that I used to use back in the day, that I keep stored in the closet. It still has Windows XP, so whenever I plug the HD1000 to a legacy Inspiron 5100 (running Windows XP) the computer's driver chimes as it recognizes a device. I also see no error issue with the Firewire controllers in either the iMac or Inspiron. I'm assuming it might be the camera, but its playback functionality is fine as well as the iLink options etc. I don't want to pay for extra adapters to go from Firewire to Thunderbolt 2 and another Adapter from Thunderbolt 2 to a Thunberbolt 3 adapter for modern port entry. If I have to I will, but is it common for the errors or troubleshooting with legacy devices and the HD1000? I read some forums that there were some issues? any thoughts?
 
As far as I know, there was never a camcorder (even in those final years) that supported video on the SDHC card slot (if it had one); it was for photos or firmware (some of them had MicroSDHC) or MAYBE some low-resolution proxy-like video clips.

When I was playing around with older cameras and also had to archive tapes, I couldn't get FCP to recognize them but QT did through a chain of FW/TB/USB adapters (but the quality wasn't as good as I wanted).

Easiest way for me was running the camera through a little convertor box (Amazon) into an external video recorder (Blackmagic).
 
NorBro said:
As far as I know, there was never a camcorder (even in those final years) that supported video on the SDHC card slot (if it had one); it was for photos or firmware (some of them had MicroSDHC) or MAYBE some low-resolution proxy-like video clips.

When I was playing around with older cameras and also had to archive tapes, I couldn't get FCP to recognize them but QT did through a chain of FW/TB/USB adapters (but the quality wasn't as good as I wanted).

Easiest way for me was running the camera through a little convertor box (Amazon) into an external video recorder (Blackmagic).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. With the HVR-HD1000 you can record SD 480/576p (PAL) video to SDHC, but for 1080i (HDV) it goes to tape. My brother in law (whom lives in Norway) told me has the legacy firewire adapters to Thunderbolt 2 and even TB2 to TB3. I guess I must wait since the archiving isn't a priority. You'd be surprised how pricey these legacy FW to TB cost, let alone TB2 to TB3 (USB C). lol. thanks!
 
NorBro.

I think you may be thinking of the Sony HVR-MRC1 Compact Flash memory recorder that could be attached directly to some model cameras and also used with a Firewire cable if the recorder was on a cold shoe or magic arm. It ran Compact Flash cards.

Saying that. If you fed a FireWire input into it and played back a tape from a Firewire (1394) connected camera you could indeed record that played back DV signal to the HVR-MRC1 in its original DV digital stream mode without quality loss. There was also the HVR-DR60 hard drive standalone recorder that could also record from a Firewire input. They could record DV and HDV. The HVR-DR60 could also record RAW DV files. These files are compatible with Quicktime. You then just transferred your files from the Compact Flash cards if using the HVR-MRC1. If using the HVR-DR60 you just connected it to your PC and transferred the files. In fact, seems like a century ago now, I owned both of these units. To brush up on their capabilities you can check out the specs on both these recorders at the following link.

https://www.auvida.com/images/Sony HVR-MRC1K_DR60 Brochure.pdf

Another unit Sony made was the DSR-DU1 V-Mount dockable Firewire recorder for the DSR family of tape cameras. Again I had one of these!

https://www.adcom.it/public/images/pdf/dsr-du1-s.pdf

The biggest drawback was that they were FAT32 units. FAT32 having a 4GB maximum file size. So long recordings were split into 4GB pieces. You needed an NLE software that could intelligently join the files together seamlessly otherwise you ended up with a 12 frame, in PAL at any rate, audio mute spot where the files joined together. There were a number of free Apps around that were DV joiners where you could just dump in a bunch of files. And if the files had contiguous time code at the file split points the Apps would 'join' the files correctly to make one large full recording length file without audio glitches at the join points. No transcoding involved so no quality loss.
Good luck!

If I had to grab one of these units to recover DV tape archives I would go for the HVR-MRC1 as it takes Compact Flash cards which makes the ingest of files much easier as most operating systems from Windows and Apple still handle card readers.

Come to think of it I think I may still have some of those "DV Joiner" Apps for PC hanging around on one of my archive drives.

The Sony Z280 is the only model camera I know that can record SD DVCAM, not DV to its cards and then 'offload' its files to a plugged in HD or SSD afterwards. I have a Z280 but never tried it.

Chris Young
 
I wasn't thinking of it, never done that, seen that (or maybe you meant OP was thinking of it)...but it's good to know, that's a cool feature!
 
I've never come across one which lets you transfer tape to card. Some do have native card recording, but the quality was usually very poor in comparison.

There's nothing wrong with using the old XP machine if it works. I quite often use my Windows XP/7 machines for DV stuff. What is the actual issue you're having? The main issue I've encountered with HDV cameras is forgetting whether the output is DV or HDV, as some software only works with one. 'WinDV' only records DV. 'HDV Split' only records HDV. But 'dvgrab' on Linux will automatically record either.

NorBro said:
Easiest way for me was running the camera through a little convertor box (Amazon) into an external video recorder (Blackmagic).
Click to expand...
What converter did you use?

A lot of people like to moan and whinge on the internet about people doing analogue captures from digital camcorders, but sometimes it is the simplest option. But the quality of some devices is very variable. I watched a demo the other day of a BlackMagic Analogue to SDI converter. I couldn't make my mind up whether it was good or not. I *think* it was OK, its just that it was recording the output of an ancient 8mm camera and the rest of the video was HD :).
 
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