It is getting harder and harder to get DV footage onto a Mac. When Adobe drops support, you know you are getting to the end of the line.
I have the Apple Adapters, and iMovie still works, but what are other options -especially hardware - since Apple no longer sells the TB1 to FW adapter.
I will take the responses and turn them into a user tip.
iMac 24âł, macOS 14.2
Alchroma wrote:
My 2 cents worth is to keep an older Mac that has the necessary firewire connections to camera and external drive; then attach the drive to a newer Mac.
Hah! That would be my trusty 2009 24" iMac with Firewire, QT Pro, FCE HD 4.1, MPEG Streamclip and plugins from Piero Fiorani & Patrick Sheffield!
And these older Macs are still available on the used Mac market at very reasonable prices.
Alchroma wrote:
My 2 cents worth is to keep an older Mac that has the necessary firewire connections to camera and external drive; then attach the drive to a newer Mac.
Hah! That would be my trusty 2009 24" iMac with Firewire, QT Pro, FCE HD 4.1, MPEG Streamclip and plugins from Piero Fiorani & Patrick Sheffield!
And these older Macs are still available on the used Mac market at very reasonable prices.
In my experience the only way to capture all digital from DV/HDV is via Firewire. Even the DV cams that included a USB-out could only transfer stills via USB. Maybe there were some high end HDV cams that could record DV/HDV to an SD card, but I don't recall ever seeing one.
There are some devices on the market that will convert video and transfer to a computer via USB (Vidbox being one of them) but every one I know of requires analog a/v input. Worse, most use composite video as input, not S-video or component video (composite is lowest quality but if it's all you have, it's what you have to use).
Blackmagic used to have a converter called the Intensity Shuttle, which could connect to a Mac via USB or Thunderbolt, but it was discontinued some years ago ... it had both HDMI & analog video in (composite, S-video & component). But although HDMI is a digital input, there is no way to use it for DV, so you were still stuck with analog in.
My suggestion for people who do not have the necessary Firewire capabilities is to use a video transfer service. Most charge around $15/DV tape (1 hour video) to transfer to DVD or hi-res MP4. Some services even offer a range of different codecs & formats for conversion.
Hello Keith,
My 2 cents worth is to keep an older Mac that has the necessary firewire connections to camera and external drive; then attach the drive to a newer Mac.
Al
It will probably be dropped sometime in the future but for now it still works in current macOS. You need those adapters and in Sonoma you need to activate âlegacy supportâ, as explained in this support document:
Matti Haveri wrote:
> Can FinalCut import DV via firewire?
Yes.
DV import to Sonoma still works - Apple Community
I have a 2001 vintage Nikon slide scanner that I connect to my M1 MBP on Sonoma using the original firewire cable with a 4-9 pin adapter and an Apple Thunderbolt 2-3 adapter similar to what you describe in that other linked post. I had to buy software to get it to work but it works perfectly. So firewire lives on.
"I think the answer must be no as there are only Thunderbolt sockets on modern Macs."
At one time OWC had a firewire port in a TB3 dock.
I thought there might be other third party solutions. I know the USB to firewire is probably snake oil for DV.
(I already have all the adapters, I am just trying to do some due diligence for my User Tip)
Ian R. Brown wrote:
I haven't tested the USB device that I posted but I suspect that the results will not be drastically inferior to importing DV via FW.
Remember that we used to make VHS copies from our DV tapes which were quite watchable. I used Super VHS as well but could never see much difference between it and standard VHS.
At that price it might be worth experimenting to find out.
I agree.
Though one would be turning the original DV material into analog, and then digitizing it back, it would be a cheap way to get that content, albeit at a lower quality.
Of course, the cheapest way of all would be to have an older mac lying around for these transfers, and keep the quality. It can even be quite old, it really does not matter. If one has such an old mac, or has a fried from whom to borrow one, great.
> Can FinalCut import DV via firewire?
Yes.
DV import to Sonoma still works - Apple Community
> What would be a good modern format to save the imported footage as for general "family" (i.e., not pro) archival storage?
Rectangular pixel to square pixel deinterlaced (optionally double frame rate "bob" deinterlaced) H.264 or H.265 video and AAC audio wrapped as .mp4.
http://web.archive.org/web/20140218044518/http://lipas.uwasa.fi/~f76998/video/conversion/
Optionally add date, GPS, title, description, keyword metadata with GraphicConverter 12 or exiftool so that info is preserved for later generations.
Movie dates and Photos.app - Apple Community
I think the answer must be no as there are only Thunderbolt sockets on modern Macs.
As mentioned elsewhere you can use a USB video capture card but it will not be quite as good as using Firewire.
FWIW, here is some background about DV and Firewire that may be of interest & use to readers.
The DV & Firewire specifications were seemingly co-developed (for example, the data packet structure of both is virtually identical) and, as far as I know, all DV implementations were based on Firewire. There are undoubtedly many reasons for that, but chief among them was that USB was unsuitable for tape-based transfer because USB is an asynchronous protocol that is easily interrupted and (at the time) was too slow. Firewire, OTOH, is synchronous and (at the time) was much faster - it could carry and maintain a steady stream of uninterrupted video data from camera to computer.
DV "capture" is actually not capture, it is direct data transfer from tape to computer; and since the tape is in constant motion there is an uninterrupted stream of data to be transferred - that's why a synchronous, uninterruptible transfer protocol was necessary.
For further technical details, and as references for anyone interested, here are a few good ones:
The above is the spirit of the phrase intended.
There is usually more than one way of tackling any task.
Having an older Mac is one of them.
Al
And a very good suggestion too. I still have a 2014 mini that can run any OS from Sierra to Monterey.
Getting digital footage to a Mac couldn't be easier.
The Mac can read DV directly from SD/micro camera cards, direct connect to cameras via usb-a/c connections, etc.
Capturing analog video to digital can still be done with a capture card to usb like those available from elgato.com and others.,
I think what's becoming more difficult is continued use of Firewire devices with contemporary Macs, but that's not unexpected. Firewire, like many other technologies, seems to have run its course, imho. Personally, I was never particularly impressed with nor saw much need for Firewire but for a few limited uses such as a/v capture and production. Maybe that was its strength?
My 2 cents worth
I couldn't understand the literal translation, so I looked it up, but I couldn't figure out whether it was positive or sarcastic.đ Is that a humble way of saying it?(Sorry for being off topic)
It's generally a neutral colloquial expression meaning "in my opinion" as it is in the context here. It has a general connotation of not expressing an opinion too forcefully but it could be self-effacing (humble as you say) in some cases.
Getting Firewire (and DV) to new macs
