You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
I have found an old family digital camcorder which had a DV port. My 2015 Macbook only has a USB-C port (but I have a dongle with HDMI and USB ports). Is there a way I can import the movies into my macbook. I have tried speaking to cable companies but they say they have nothing suitable.
Thanks for any help you can provide :)
Jan
Yes, JerryKanAB (Jan) I can sure help you on this one. Depending on the maker and model of the digital camcorder, which I don't know....It may be FireWire (of a kind). Sony called theirs iLink. it was a little rectangular thing on the side of the camcorder. You'd need a 4 pin firewire cable to FireWire 800 , and from there, firewire to usb-c adapter, which Apple makes. IMovie used to be included for free with all Macs (along with the rest of the iWork Suite, including iDVD, which made this sort of thing not too hard,
Nowadays, you have to buy iMovie. There's probably something else that'll let you import video and save it, and then clean it up and burn it onto a dvd, but that's probably a 2nd app.
You'd also have to make sure the camcorder is in playback mode, plugged in, or charged up, and the video output is switched to iLink or whatever they call it. Again, I don't know the maker and model of the camcorder, so couldn't really say about what it can or can't do, and what connections it has. Usually it comes with a manual or some instructions or a user guide of some kind. If you can look on the outside of the camcorder, you should see a maker and model number, and it might be worth it to look it up online. The part about switching the video output and the rest of it has to be done on the camcorder itself.
you might also need to run a cleaning tape through the camcorder as needs dictate, if you have one, and you think it might do some good. For me, iMovie was ideal. You plugged in the camcorder, iMovie recognized it via Firewire, put the tape in the camcorder, pressed play, after making sure it was set to Firewire output, and that was it. IMovie started right up, and started importing the video right away. Of course, it was all in real time, so that a 1 hour tape would take 1 hour to import, etc
anyways, good luck to you and if you have any further questions, let us know
thanks
john b
Yes, JerryKanAB (Jan) I can sure help you on this one. Depending on the maker and model of the digital camcorder, which I don't know....It may be FireWire (of a kind). Sony called theirs iLink. it was a little rectangular thing on the side of the camcorder. You'd need a 4 pin firewire cable to FireWire 800 , and from there, firewire to usb-c adapter, which Apple makes. IMovie used to be included for free with all Macs (along with the rest of the iWork Suite, including iDVD, which made this sort of thing not too hard,
Nowadays, you have to buy iMovie. There's probably something else that'll let you import video and save it, and then clean it up and burn it onto a dvd, but that's probably a 2nd app.
You'd also have to make sure the camcorder is in playback mode, plugged in, or charged up, and the video output is switched to iLink or whatever they call it. Again, I don't know the maker and model of the camcorder, so couldn't really say about what it can or can't do, and what connections it has. Usually it comes with a manual or some instructions or a user guide of some kind. If you can look on the outside of the camcorder, you should see a maker and model number, and it might be worth it to look it up online. The part about switching the video output and the rest of it has to be done on the camcorder itself.
you might also need to run a cleaning tape through the camcorder as needs dictate, if you have one, and you think it might do some good. For me, iMovie was ideal. You plugged in the camcorder, iMovie recognized it via Firewire, put the tape in the camcorder, pressed play, after making sure it was set to Firewire output, and that was it. IMovie started right up, and started importing the video right away. Of course, it was all in real time, so that a 1 hour tape would take 1 hour to import, etc
anyways, good luck to you and if you have any further questions, let us know
thanks
john b
Technically, the Apple adapter has a USB-C type of plug but it is intended to be uses as a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter. Unfortunately the the USB-C port on the 12" Retina MacBook is not Thunderbolt capable, so it won't function properly as a Thunderbolt to Firewire conversion. The OP would need a MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air that has USB-C ports that are Thunderbolt compliant.
****, Lanny...looks like you’re right. Dunno if the lack of thunderbolt 3 compatibility ( or any thunderbolt) would mess things up totally. In that case, 4 pin firewire to 6 pin or firewire 800 to usb-a. Usb -a cable to usb a,, .... then usb-a to c adapter which should do it...or just find a friend with an older Mac or MacBook pro
john b
The USB-C port on the 12" Retina MacBook is only capable of USB3 speeds, 5 Gbps, no Thunderbolt capability, even Thunderbolt 1 is twice as fast as USB3.
import movies from camcorder dv port to macbook usb-c
