Connecting Sony Handycam CCD-TRV57 to Mac

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Level 1

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Connecting Sony Handycam CCD-TRV57 to Mac

Okay, so someone wants me to put their video footage on a DVD for them...

The camcorder is an 8mm Sony Handycam model CCD-TRV57... I looked in the product guide that came with the camera, and it says that I need a 4-pin to 6-pin firewire/IEEE cable to connect it (but that I should check the PC, in this case, Mac for compatibility)...

So I did that, and of course my MacBook Pro has a 6-pin firewire... Great, right?

Wrong... because I cannot, for the life of me, find where to connect it on the CAMERA... Others have looked at it as well, with no luck... is it possible that this model isn't compatible?

And if it's not, CAN I, or HOW do I connect it to my computer... I've found the Audio and video jacks for hooking it up to the TV, no problem, but I absolutely can't see any other jacks...

Help please!!

15 in. MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on Aug 24, 2007 4:28 PM

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Answer 1

PieroF

Level 5

4,283 points

Aug 25, 2007 7:28 AM in response to lila.amb

I don't know this camera, but from a quick search on Google (...right?) it turns out that this camera is analog, and doesn't have FW OUT. I'm not sure why the product guide that comes with the camera says the opposite: see also the CCD-TRV57 manuals.

Than the only way is to use a A/D converter or another digital MiniDV camera with DV/Firewire/iLink connector to use as A/D converter: then you can connect the analog output of the CCD-TRV57 to the analog input of the converter/digital-camera, and then the DV/Firewire/iLink of the converter/digital-camera to the firewire (6-pin) of your Mac.

If you don't use a converter, make sure you use a MiniDV camera, which always have (as far as know) a 4-pin firewire connector. Other HDD or DVD digital cameras do not have firewire. In addition it's quite convenient to use a camera with pass-through functionality from analog to DV; otherwise you'll have to first record the analog input to MiniDV tape and then play it back to the Mac: possible, no loss of quality but it takes a double time.

Piero

BTW: if you don't need to edit the video (using iMovie or FCE/FCP) you can also use a consumer DVD recorder to connect directly to the analog camera output.

Message was edited by: PieroF

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