I would like to make a film library out of my old canon DV tapes. My new imac does not recognize the camera. I was using a HDMI cable to USB-c connection to imac. any suggestions?
iMac, OS X 10.11
Those cables are USB and are for transferring stills/jpegs to Mac.
For capturing your HDV/DV from tape you need FireWire.
Your old Mac has both 6 pin and 9 pin FireWire ports.
If you have not already got a FireWire cable then I would suggest you get the 4 pin to 9 pin FireWire cable which will set you back only a few £$.
The cable will look like this.
The 4 pin end goes into the DV/HDV port on the cam just above the HDMI outlet,under the cover. The 4 pin end is quite small so don't force it into the cam' the wrong way round.
What iMovie version do you have on the old Mac and what OS ?
Once you have captured the footage onto old Mac you may want to transfer it over to new Mac.
Those cables are USB and are for transferring stills/jpegs to Mac.
For capturing your HDV/DV from tape you need FireWire.
Your old Mac has both 6 pin and 9 pin FireWire ports.
If you have not already got a FireWire cable then I would suggest you get the 4 pin to 9 pin FireWire cable which will set you back only a few £$.
The cable will look like this.
The 4 pin end goes into the DV/HDV port on the cam just above the HDMI outlet,under the cover. The 4 pin end is quite small so don't force it into the cam' the wrong way round.
What iMovie version do you have on the old Mac and what OS ?
Once you have captured the footage onto old Mac you may want to transfer it over to new Mac.
If you still want to pursue the FireWire route you will need 2 adaptors as well as the FireWire cable.
This link describes the FireWire cable and the 2 adaptors. You need the extra second adaptor as your Mac has the Thunderbolt 3 which is the USB-c connector.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251304950
You will see in that link mention of having better success with an older Mac.
To Ian
Ian, what is the latest OS that you have been able to capture HDV ( iMovie or FCPX ) on your HV 20 , and if adaptors were required was it 1 or 2 ?
Thanks
I read the link to another thread , and it suggested using an older imac. I do have a 2008 imac that has firewire and USB. perhaps this will be a good solution to my dilemma.
What do you think?
Kris
Using your 2008 iMac and the normal FW cable that came with your camera would be the perfect solution.
You do not need to buy anything else if you have that original cable.
Your camera also has a USB cable but that is purely for getting any photos you have taken on the memory card into your computer. It cannot be used for video.
Alternatively you may be able to use a video converter that attaches to the composite output of your camera.
I have no experience with these, so I do not know how well they work.
I would imagine that the finished result would not be as good as coming via FireWire as there will be quality losses during the conversion.
What you need is the one that I described in the link , that is a 4 pin to 9 pin FireWire Cable.
These can be obtained quite cheaply from Amazon, or even cheaper on Ebay.
This is NOT called A FireWire to USB cable, so DO NOT buy one of these.
It is unlikely that a FireWire to USB cable was supplied with your Canon camcorder.
If you buy any cables from Canon they won't be cheap, so don't.
"there was a mention of the TB-3 and USB-c. can these be used interchangeably? "
You had better Google that for the full story .
However the cables in the link are the ones that should work. Just bear in mind that some have success , some don't .
The 2 adaptors from Apple aren't cheap either but I don't think any body else does them.
Just seen your comment about your 2008 Mac with FireWire.
Can you take a picture of the FireWire connector on the Mac and then I can tell you what cable you need.
Don't worry about a picture, it looks as though it has 6 pin and 9 pin FireWire ports.
Did you get a FireWire cable with the camcorder. ? If so what type? PICTURE?
Yes I checked before posting the difference in price of the 9 to 4 and the 6 to 4 and hardly any difference but the 9 to 4 was more obtainable.
The main reason I suggested the 9 to 4 was if the OP wanted to later try the FireWire cable with the 2 adaptors on the newer Mac then the other one would be no good, as the adaptor from FireWire to thunderbolt is 9 pin .
You don't have to buy a 9 to 4 pin FW cable. . . . you could get a 6 to 4 pin one which may be cheaper and uses the original FireWire 1 socket on your computer.
Video transfer speeds will not be affected as you are limited to real time playback of the tapes.
You need to consider how you are going to get your captured video onto your 10TB.
I don't know anything about Raid storage but normally an external drive would be formatted to OS Extended ( Journaled).
You might want to research this before getting too far in.
When you capture your tape it would be ideal to capture straight onto the external drive. This way you just take your drive over from the old Mac to the new Mac.
This is quite straightforward to do. You just need to consider the cables needed to connect the drive to the Mac.
As you have a new Mac you will have iMovie ver 10 on it.
Depending on what OS your old Mac is running ( Mavericks or later ) you may be able to download iMovie 10 on that older Mac, or you may have it on there already of course . If you do not have it already get back here for more info.
The reason you may prefer to capture to iMovie 10 on your old Mac rather than say iMovie 8 or 9 on your old Mac is that the format it captures in is different , assuming that you have recorded in HDV rather than DV.
iMovie versions 8 and 9 capture HDV in what is called Apple Intermediate Codec. In other words what is on the tape is transcoded. This is not a problem as it is still high quality but this has to happen in order for these versions to edit.
In iMovie 10 transcoding does not take place on capture, what is captured is basically a copy of what is on the tape ( MPEG).
This version of iMovie can edit this native format. It can also edit Apple Intermediate Codec files if these are imported.
If you can run iMovie 10 on your old Mac AND capture your HDV in this version then it would make sense to use this version , and transfer the files over to your new Mac if you want to.
Another benefit is that the native MPEG takes up less storage than AIC .
If you cannot use version 10, on old Mac, then you can use the AIC import from 8 or 9 in your version of 10 on the new Mac.
Or you may decide to use the captured AIC from 8 or 9 in 8 or 9 directly, and edit there.
Let us know what versions of iMovie you have on the old Mac and the OS.
This is the cable I found on the canon website for the HV30:
Interface Cable IFC-400PCU. Canon says it works on Macs.
Thanks again for the help!
Kris
The last time I used it was a few months ago when I wrote about it in the FCP forum.
Somebody said I would probably find it too inconvenient and they were correct!
Memory cards make you lazy.
I must have done my capturing on my 2012 Mac mini that has a FW2 socket as I have not got any adapters for my 2017 iMac.
I can't remember the OS but it was probably Mojave.
Thank you all for the input. I am getting the canon HV30 original FireWire to USB cable that came with the camera. Would this work to download the video?
i also noted FW has a 9 to 4 or 6 pin. Do you know what the correct pin combination is?
thank you again
Kris
thank you so much, it would have taken me forever to figure this all out. I will get the FW 9/4 pin cable. I do not have the one that came with the camera.
I am not sure what the imovie version is so will check on the OS and version of imovie.
I have decades of video to transfer, never had time when the kids were little. So this will be a big help.
I think that there are probably 200 hours of video. I did buy a 10 TB raid system to store the data on.
Thank you again for your great help.
Kris
Just checked on Amazon UK and the prices are pretty much the same at around £4
You can pay more but I have bought numerous "bargain-basement" FireWire, USB, and HDMI etc. cables over the last 3 decades and never had a dud.
Don't believe all the advertising guff about gold plating and other magical ingredients that can boost the price tenfold or more.
thank you for the help.
canon vixia HV30 unable to transfer video to 2019 imac OS 10.14.6
