I have an old JVC camcorder which recorded video on DVD mini tapes. Formerly I was able to output recordings via a small jack-plug in the camcorder using a cable that has three RCA male terminals coloured red, white and yellow that I was able to connect to a PC.
How can I now connect to my iMac?
iMac 27″, macOS 13.2
Ok, so mini DV is digital, but by outputting through these rca plugs you are converting to analog.
To keep the original source in digital format (DV), you need to output via the camera Firewire output.
To get this into a current mac with Thunderbolt 3 or 4, you need three pieces:
1) A Firewire cable (4-pin on the camera side, 9-pin “Firewire 800” on the other side)
2) A Thinderbolt 2-Firewire adapter
3) A Thunderbolt 3-Thunderbolt 2 adapter
I have Sony TRV320E D8 camcorder that the dealer had unEUterized and drilled two holes to its remote to reveal its hidden Rec buttons to re-enable analog-in and analog-to-DV passthrough. I used it to convert my old VHS tapes to (Hi8)/D8 tapes (same format as mini-DV but a different tape) ...and later used ffmpeg to encode that archived ~lossless .dv exported from iMovie 1.0.2-6.0.3 (bob-deinterlaced to 50 fps PAL) .mp4 when tapes and optical media such as iDVD video-DVDs became obsolete. 20+ years ago there was a silly EU tax for devices that could record analog-in. Oh, those were the days.
You now have to decide how valuable are the videos on your DV tapes and how much you are prepared to spend.
The connecters that Luis mentioned are quite pricey . . . exorbitantly so because they are Apple and there is no guarantee they will work. Judging by reports from users their success rate is rather patchy.
As it sounds as though you have been quite content with the analogue video in the past you might well make use of one of the cheap converters I mentioned.
Decisions, decisions! Nothing is simple, especially when dealing with obsolete equipment and Macs . . . or any other type of modern computer.
Thank you, this has all been so useful for me and I'm glad to have had the help of the Apple Community for all these useful directions.
I shall now try and source the connecting cables and hopefully be able to import some old videos into the Final Cut program for editing and then burn some discs in order to preserve some memories.
Thank you everyone for your help.
Peter
I think most of us would advise you not to create any DVDs as they are considered obsolete and certainly by the end of the decade they will have gone the way of Betamax and VHS.
You should instead turn your movies into .mp4 files which can be stored on hard drives, memory cards or memory sticks and played on computers, mobile phones, tablets and TVs.
The .mp4 videos retain all the quality and are universally playable on almost anything.
What is even better is that they cost nothing to make and you don't need to buy DVDs or have a DVD player.
You can also upload them to the cloud so that your friends and relations can download them at any time from anywhere in the world completely free of charge, except for the electricity your device uses!
It wouldn't be digital through a 3.5mm jack.
In those days you had to use Firewire.
Here is another photo of the other side of the camcorder:
DV in/out is the one that I have been talking about.
Yes, Luis you are correct; I have now located the other ports
+1
Importing video from a mini DVD camcorder that outputs through a cable with 3 X RCA sockets.
