Transfer video to Mac using USB?

[wiseguy27]

I just borrowed a Sony TRV33 camcorder and have an USB cable and a Firewire 4 pin to 4 pin cable. My Mac seems to have only the 6 pin Firewire ports. Is there a way to transfer video from a Sony TRV33 camcorder to a Mac using a USB cable? When I connect it using USB, the Mac doesn't even recognize the device in 'VCR' mode on the camcorder (nothing gets mounted on the file system). Bu it does work well in the 'camera/memory stick' mode to transfer still pictures.

I do know that with the correct Firewire cable it would automatically launch iMovie. I've tried searching for answers but seem to find suggestions to use Firewire (since it's a borrowed camcorder I don't want to unnecessarily spend $30+ for a new cable).

Any ideas/suggestions?

 

[MacFan25863]

USB is too slow for video, and USB2 hasn't hit camcorders yet.


You will need to buy a new cord or borrow one. On the other hand, this is a good time to buy a LaCie external hard drive if you want one, because they come with a 4 to 6 pin firewire cord

 

[wiseguy27]

Considering the fact that I just **borrowed** the camcorder (which has USB and Firewire), it really is not worth it to buy anything.

I'm considering importing the videos into a Windows machine and then get it to the Mac. I still have to figure out how I can get the raw DV footage into Windows without it converting the video into wmv or something.

 

[JeDiBoYTJ]

the easiest thing to do is to just simply buy a firewire cable.

 

[yellow]

On those cameras, the USB is solely for the pictures you can take with the 'corder. You cannot transfer video with it. It should have come with a proper FW cable..

 

[.Joel]

USB = Pictures Only
Firewire = Video

So either buy yourself a new 6p to 4p cable. Or a Belkin USB DVD Creator for $90.

I'd say a cable is cheaper

 

[wiseguy27]

I guess I'm left with only two options:
* buy a FireWire (6 pin to 4 pin) cable
* import into Windows in (raw) AVI format and get it into iMovie on the Mac (through an external hard disk). iMovie doesn't complain while importing AVI files for editing. [EDIT: iMovie does seem to do "something" while importing .avi but shows nothing after!!! A better option seems to be to convert from avi to mov using ffmpeg]

Would there be any disadvantage in getting AVI (after conversion to mov) into iMovie instead of importing the video directly from the camcorder???

The second option seems to be cheaper, considering that this is a *borrowed* camcorder that I won't have for more than a day (and may never see again). The camcorder does have a FireWire cable, but it is 4 pin to 4 pin (which fits very well into a Windows laptop I have access to) - the Power Mac has a 6 pin FireWire port. I may probably buy a FireWire cable too.

BTW, the USB works very well for video transfer on Windows.

 

[FF_productions]

dvd camcorders i believe use usb 2.0, though u apparently don't have one