Firewire.. Remember that? Got a question

[OwP]

I have been asked by a colleague to help transfer some footage captured on a mini DV camera onto a computer, he still has the original camcorder. Has anybody done this in the past few years, and how easy was it? The most reliable solution appears to be via a pci firewire card, but he hasnt got a desktop, could do it on one of my rigs. He did mention buying an old Mac laptop to do it, but then wants to keep using the laptop, I am not sure when they stopped fitting firewire.

Thanks

[AGTDenton]

I can't speak from experience

If he currently has a Thunderbolt 2 Macbook then this might suffice:
Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Apple-Thund...dp/B008RXYOKY/
If he has a Thunderbolt 3 Macbook, he'd have to get a further T2 - T3 adapter and may get too messy with no guaranteed results.

Otherwise from what I can garner general converters & hubs are few and far between with too many mixed results.

FireWire is quite a unique port and I think PCI or old equipment is the better way forward.

[mtyson]

Last time I did this was using a cheap firewire card added to my desktop PC. Process was very easy, and I think Windows Movie Maker did the import. After saving that video file to PC, you can use any video editor on any PC/laptop you want, of course.

[DanceswithUnix]

Not done that for years, but it was a pretty easy import at the time. ISTR I had a PCI card to start with, so not much chance of plugging that into anything these days. Then I had a motherboard with integrated Firewire, which I think I gave away.

Back in the day I just told whatever Windows video editing software I was using (can't remember the name, sorry) to go grab from the camcorder. If you struggle for software, there seems to be a Linux command line utility "dvgrab" and Linux is usually good at supporting old hardware.

[MrJim]

Looking om Ebay, you can get PCIe Firewire cards for around a tenner. After a bit of Googling, there are a couple of free programs for transferring MiniDV files onto a PC - WinDV & ScenalyzerLive. Both are old programs though, & no longer supported.

https://www.videohelp.com/software/WinDV

http://www.scenalyzer.com/

Here's a Youtube video that might be of help:

[Percy1983]

As above I use a pci-e adapter, can't remember what I used to capture last time (was about 18 months ago), was either virtualdub or vegas.

[OwP]

Thanks for the ideas. I will see what he wants to do. Half tempted to build up a spare rig and give it a go.