Hello, I have a Sony GV-D300E mini DV player

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Level 1

8 points

Hello, I have a Sony GV-D300E mini DV player

I t used to work fine till I went over to Mac.The machine [ IMac 2013 i7 ] just does not see the player when I connect it.The connection on the player is firewire,the little rectangular one with an indent on one of the long sides, I have recently bought a cable,firewire one end and USB on the other,still the machine will not see the player. First of all, is it possible to get a thunderbolt to my type of firewire cable and if it is will the machine see my player? I need to resolve this as if I cannot them I may as well throw the player away.

If there are no solutions to this then any ideas what mini DV player would be recognised by my mac.

MANY THANKS.

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Mar 8, 2014 4:59 AM

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Answer 1

MartinR

Level 7

24,954 points

Mar 10, 2014 8:24 AM in response to laszlovarga

The connection on the player is firewire

You need the following:

Apple Thunderbolt - Firewire adapter
4-pin to 9-pin Firewire cable like this one

No software drivers are needed.

No icon will appear on your Mac desktop when the deck is connected. You need to use video capture software such as iMovie, Final Cut, etc. in order to "see" and use your Firewire deck. (I believe QuickTime Player will also "see" your deck and allow playback.) You will probably have to use the manual controls on the deck to control actual playback start & stop.

I have recently bought a cable,firewire one end and USB on the other

Hard to believe there is such a cable. If there is such a cable, it's a scam. Firewire and USB are totally different, electrically and protocol-wise. Even if there is such a cable, it will not work for connecting your miniDV player to a Mac. miniDV (video) has always been a Firewire-based connection. Sony calls Firewire "i.Link"

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Answer 2

laszlovarga Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 8, 2014 4:47 PM in response to Saito_Chikara

I have tried to talk to Sony but we were unable to establish if the had a driver as I was unable to understand what they were saying most of the time. These players were very popular when I bought it in about 1996/1997 and it worked great on the windows machines I had at the time,I would have thought the mac would have been as good if not better.

Thanks for your reply.

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Answer 3

Mar 9, 2014 6:57 AM in response to laszlovarga

It's possible that the Sony technology is just too old, and the company discontinued their support for newer operating systems.

For example, I have an old Video Card that worked great on my OS X 10.6, but stopped once I upgraded to OS X 10.7. The card didn't support the Intel processor, and the company discontinued the model.

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Answer 4

Mar 8, 2014 6:22 AM in response to laszlovarga

Does the manufacturer of the device you are trying to connect make a driver for your version of Mac OS X?

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Answer 5

laszlovarga Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 10, 2014 6:23 AM in response to Saito_Chikara

Any body know how I can play my DV tapes on my new iMac,what player do I need that will be recognised .

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