DV Firewire import utility?

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Level 1

26 points

DV Firewire import utility?

Sorry this is a bit off topic, but i thought here would be best anyway.

I once stumbled on a small utility on OS X that will just import Firewire DV easily. Yea, I know I could just use iMovie like everyone else, but I want to mess with the big files. With another program, and I don't want to open iMovie, import my files, wait 2 years for them to export and finally work on them.

I just can't find this utility anymore. Googling any word combination always list iMovie related works, or the like.

Thanks.

Mac Pro Quad-Core @ 2.66Ghz 7GB!, Mac OS X (10.5.5)

Posted on Jan 10, 2010 8:43 AM

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Answer 1

Armaguy Author

Level 1

26 points

Jan 10, 2010 9:42 AM in response to Armaguy

Never mind. I finally fount it, it's called quite creatively AVCVideoCap and it's from the Firewire SDK, from Apple. You need to be a Developper connection member, but it's free, then you can download the SDK and access this small utility.

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Answer 2

Jan 10, 2010 9:59 AM in response to Armaguy

Armaguy wrote:
... wait 2 years for them to export and finally work on them.

after import (you have to import with both tools), ctrl-click on iM's project-file, choose 'show package', open Media-folder => there's your import for further usage ..

no need to be a Dev ... 😉

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Answer 3

Armaguy Author

Level 1

26 points

Jan 10, 2010 10:18 AM in response to Karsten Schlüter

That is so true, I completely forgot about this!

Since iMovie can automatically cut the scene when it detects a scene change, I might as well use iMovie. Although AVCVideoCap is nice and does the job very well, I'll give a try with iMovie. In fact AVCVideoCap is the underlying base of iMovie I think, as mentionned in the SDK.

Also, I was disappointed by Quicktime for capturing from DV until I realised I can ask to capture raw information (instead of converting on the fly like it did to H.264, which resulted in wierd aspect ratio error for my camera).

Thanks for the help.

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