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Level 1

24 points

Import DV video from camcorder tape to a single DV file?

I've looked around quite a bit on this forum and can't find an answer to this one...

I'm importing DV videotapes from an old Sony camcorder onto my Macbook Pro using iMovie 11. I have unchecked the iMovie import dialog box that says "Split days into new Events".

When I click import in iMovie the video is indeed imported.....but upon looking at my hard disk after the whole tape was imported, iMovie split my import into about 35 separate DV file clips.

I don't want all of these individual DV clip files....I just want to do a straight import from the camera tape to hard disk and have one resulting large DV file (which for an hour of DV video will probably be around 17 gig). If iMovie is going to split my single tape into 35 separate DV files then I'm going to have to go through the extra steps to create an iMovie project, assemble the clips into a movie within that project, export to a single movie file, etc. All of that just to get a simple import done....

Is there a way to use iMovie to just do an import from the DV tape to a single DV file on my hard disk? Or, do I have to find another piece of software to do this?

Any input would be greatly appreciated because I have about twenty DV tapes sitting on my desk and I need an easy way to import all of this stuff to archive it...

Thanks,

John

Posted on Oct 4, 2013 6:36 PM

71 replies

Jan 3, 2014 1:05 PM in response to Chris Rivas

I'd give Thunderbolt to FireWire a try.

Matt

Johnny O

Level 1

35 points

Jan 7, 2014 3:19 PM in response to JohnNY123

Hi JohnNY123,

Excellent Thread--thanks for starting it. I reached the same point as you with the same objectives; that is, what is the best native capture application for mini-dv tapes!

Curious to know what application you, and/or anyone else, decided to use for capture and why?

JohnNY123 Author

Level 1

24 points

Jan 15, 2014 2:09 PM in response to Johnny O

Hi Johnny O.....

I got stuck on this project back when I was making these original posts and I missed your message here so I apologize for not answering sooner.

I need to get back to it to run some more tests, but I think my solution is going to be to import the tapes into iMovie as planned (which creates a bunch of small files for each scene in the tape) and then use QuickTime Player 7 to read in all of those small files (it's an automated process) and output them to a single large original quality dv file for archiving.

It sounds like this can be done as described with just iMovie and QuickTime Player 7, so no other software will be needed.

I'm kicking myself for not getting this project done so I'll be getting back to it soon and will let you know how this approach works.

Johnny O

Level 1

35 points

Jan 16, 2014 5:15 AM in response to JohnNY123

Thanks for the post. As I begin to back-up/convert my mini-dv library, I have settled on using either iMovie 6 HD and/or QuickTime 7 Pro as the import application of choice. I'm trying to determine the merits and any tangible differences between via iMovie 6 HD or QuickTime 7 Pro, to create the highest quality native transfer.

It's still not clear weather iMovie or QT7Pro is best for conversion to create a long-term archive. Later, I plan to use either iMovie 6 or new iMovie 2013 as my editing application (presuming the latter has resolved the skip field issue observed in iMovie 8, 9, and 11).

Anyone's experience or perspectives regarding of using iMovie 6 HD vs. QT7Pro to optimize the import/archive step in this workflow would be most helpful!

JohnNY123 Author

Level 1

24 points

Jan 16, 2014 6:33 AM in response to Johnny O

Johnny O,

If QuickTime 7 Pro can be used for import from the tape, then I think I'm going to try that. The key is that I would want it to deliver as its output a single original quality dv file.....exactly duplicating what's on the tape.

Do you know if that's what QT7Pro does? Have you tried it for import yet? If so, what settings did you try?

John

Johnny O

Level 1

35 points

Jan 17, 2014 7:38 AM in response to JohnNY123

Hi JohnNY123,

I thought there may be a "magic bullet" or process to best archive tapes; however, like you, the process has quite a learning curve. I'm going to review / compare both applications just for capture and file format over the next few days/weeks. Also, I will be examining some of the approaches "surreyfriends" and others in this thread indicated earlier, interesting approaches that I want to validate.

One tidbit, I did visit the Apple Store recently and one of the Apple video experts did say that previous iMovie applications utilize QuickTime as their foundation.

john

Jan 17, 2014 1:39 PM in response to Johnny O

I've had success with lifeflix a new minidv importer in the app store. it doesn't work with every camera but most of them. it's only $10.

JohnNY123 Author

Level 1

24 points

Jan 19, 2014 12:31 PM in response to Johnny O

Johnny O,

Yes, elements of the QuickTime engine seem to be in most of their video apps. Agreed.

If QT7Pro can simply capture the dv file from tape to disk in original quality as one large file with no further compression or screwing around, then I'm done. That will be my solution.

I will force myself to find the time tomorrow on my day off to try this out for one of my tapes. Will post results withint the next few days.

John

JohnNY123 Author

Level 1

24 points

Jan 19, 2014 12:32 PM in response to williaml100

Hi williaml100....Thanks for the tip on LifeFlix, but I think the combo of iMovie and/or QT7Pro should be able to handle this properly....I don't want to add another software app to the mix. 🙂

Jan 23, 2014 10:57 AM in response to JohnNY123

you're welcome. I totally get not wanting new software, and I think lifeflix was built on quicktime, but it fits my other side which is really lazy, it makes the import and organization of the files so easy. anyway, glad you figured it out!

Johnny O

Level 1

35 points

Jan 28, 2014 4:48 PM in response to JohnNY123

Hi JohnNY123,

As an update, I've been experimenting using iMovie '09 & '11 for dv import. Regrettably, I have yet to find an option to select/deselect clip-splitting in either two applications. The result, as you have found early-on, is multiple clips in the Events folder. There are some solutions to rejoin those clips; however, not without challenges.

Recently, I have experimented with "Sharing" (exporting) original captured mini-dv footage to achieve one clip for archival storage. Using iM09 & iM11, I too found that each produced substandard results due to an issue called Single Field Processing (SFP).

I am reviewing deinterlace software which may remedy this issue (ex. JES Deinterlacer). If acceptable results can be obtained (deinterlace), it may be possible to export multiple split clips as one clip. However, by doing so, it is not clear to me technically whether that would require/result in greater compression and loss--even if shared/exported as a DV Stream--perhaps others can speak to this?

Some folks in various threads have commented that iMovie '13 should be able to export/share without SFP; however, I cannot verify. Presuming iM13 can export/share dv footage without SFP limitations, iM13 may be an interesting application choice.

I do share concerns expressed by others who suggest iM13 may have limited codec choices/availability. Thus, if iM13 can "use" other codecs from the QT7P library, it may be a good combination. Of course, if iM13 cannot "use" other codecs, other solutions may be necessary.

So, it appears that unless SFP is solvable/resolvable, it may be better to utilize other capture applications to archive original footage. Hope to progress this discussion!

Hope to hear how you are progressing with QT7Pro as a capture/export application....

Johnny O.

Jan 28, 2014 10:13 PM in response to JohnNY123

I know the forums are not meant for commercial purposes - and hopefully this won't be construed as such. If it is, my apologies in advance.

We developed the LifeFlix MiniDV Importer recently to deal with all the issues discussed here (I personally had over 100 MiniDV tapes and iMovie was frustrating me to no end). If anybody on this list wants a free copy please email me at robert@lifeflix.com. LifeFlix isn't some venture capital funded company with tons of cash, just me and a couple guys with regular day jobs and tons of MiniDV tapes. We'd love to offer everybody here a free copy and get some feedback where we went right and/or wrong. Thanks!

Robert Sharp

www.lifeflix.com

Jan 28, 2014 10:47 PM in response to Johnny O

@Johnny O: For an answer to your SFP question, see this topic: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5488241?answerId=24572590022#24572590022

JohnNY123 Author

Level 1

24 points

Jan 31, 2014 6:29 PM in response to Johnny O

Hi Johnny O and everyone else....

Well, unless I'm totally missing something in the QT7Pro manual or the help for QT7Pro, I see no way to use this application to import/capture video directly from the camcorder dv tape. I am totally lost.

Can I use QT7Pro to import/capture video directly from a camcorder dv tape, or not?

Any help would be much appreciated. Specific steps, please.... 🙂

Arghhhh. I'm starting to HATE managing video! Really hating it...

John

JohnNY123 Author

Level 1

24 points

Jan 31, 2014 7:04 PM in response to Johnny O

Hi everyone...

Search the internet with just the right combination of keywords and you'll eventually find what you need. I was able to answer my question above about the lack of instructions to do the capture in QT7Pro.

Using this link: http://www.ezxchanges.com/page/ezhelp/qt7pro_cap

....I was able to understand how to import/capture a dv tape directly from a camcorder into QT7Pro. It's not intuitive to do it, but it does work. I captured a large sample of my tape and the resulting disk file was a single .mov file. Finally!

But...I'm not sure this is a straight dv-to-file capture process going on here. My feeling is that something from a quality perspective is going wrong because the resulting .mov file from the tape capture does not appear to be the same quality as the original dv tape. I see more lines and pixelation (for lack of a better word) in the file version than I do on the tape when I watch both in QT7Pro windows side by side.

I don't see any options in QT7Pro for import quality settings except a drop-down list that lets you set the quality level to "Device Native", which should mean dv in my situation here (and it does indeed capture to a .mov file). I don't see any options for deinterlacing or anything like that.

I'm going to do a more lengthy test over the weekend and look agan at the resulting files and compare them to the tapes very closely. Maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me tonight, but the resulting files don't look as good as the tapes.

Any comments/tips with regard to what might be going on here would be appreciated. Is the proess described at the link above supposedly capturing a perfect copy of the tape to the disk file?

Thanks,

John

Import DV video from camcorder tape to a single DV file?