Old dvcam to imac?

[T-bag]

Hi! I have an old canon dvcamcorder. I think it is over 5 years old. I used to import the footage from the camera to pinnacle studio in windows xp. I wanna do some editing to the original footage from the old dv-tapes on my iMac. The camera has fw, and so does the iMac. How do I do the import? What kind of program do I need?

Appreciate all suggestions.

 

[S.B.G]

iMovie and Final Cut Express/Pro should be able to recognize the camera through FW. Have you tried it yet?

 

[T-bag]

Nope, just wanted to see if there was any known issues with it. My DV-tapes are at a secure location at the moment. I'll fetch them and try iMovie. Didn't know it could import directly from cameras. Thanks!

 

[S.B.G]

I think it will. I have a 6 year old 30GB HDD Sony camcorder and iMovie will import directly from it via USB.

 

[huntercr]

I think it will. I have a 6 year old 30GB HDD Sony camcorder and iMovie will import directly from it via USB.

However DV cameras will only work with firewire on Macs. Just wanted to make sure T-bag didn't try to use USB. It won't work.


T-bag be sure and google for acquisition quality problems with the new iMovie versions. Imovie HD ( 6 ) was the last one that would properly import interlaced video properly without any quality loss.. I still use it to import my video and then bring it into the modern iMovie

The quality loss is extremely frustrating so hopefully you have an old copy of iMovie you can use as well. ( for the importing part I mean... you can use the latest iMovie for the editing side of things )

 

[LethalWolfe]

Make sure you get the correct firewire cable. If your iMac has FW400 you'll need a FW400 cable that has a 6-pin connector on one end and a 4-pin connection or the other. If your iMac only has FW800 you'll need a FW400 cable that has a 9-pin connector (aka FW800 plug) on one end and a 4-pin connector on the other.


Lethal

 

[chrismacguy]

Make sure you get the correct firewire cable. If your iMac has FW400 you'll need a FW400 cable that has a 6-pin connector on one end and a 4-pin connection or the other. If your iMac only has FW800 you'll need a FW400 cable that has a 9-pin connector (aka FW800 plug) on one end and a 4-pin connector on the other.


Lethal

Or a FW800-FW400 adapter and the FW400 6pin to 4 pin cable (Can be cheaper if you already have a lot of FW400 devices you may want to use, or have the FireWire cable for your camera - I have 2 NEET adapters for my Mac Pro both work flawlessly and were cheapish).