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Sony cassette (Digital 8) camera DV out ---> Thunderbolt iMac 2013

S

SLO-Jure

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dear all.

I would like to transfer video form Sony DCR-TRV110E (Digital 8) camera DV port to my IMAC 2013 Thunderbolt port.

What cable or even multiple cables do I need for this job, since new Imac doesn't have Firewire port?

Thank you for your help!
 
SLO-Jure said:
Thank you for your answer!
Are all Firewire cables the same or I need some special one? Please, be so kind and specify which one I need.
Thank you!
Click to expand...
Suggest you get one from Sony because it has to fit your camera.. The FireWire end will take the adapter...I used to have a Sony camcorder with tape DV and if the cable was not in the original camera box, I for sure ordered one from them...(had some bad experience with gray market cables)
 
SLO-Jure said:
Thank you for your answer!
Are all Firewire cables the same or I need some special one? Please, be so kind and specify which one I need.
Thank you!
Click to expand...

No, there are three different size plugs and two different speeds.

The Thunderbolt adaptor will have a FW800 jack. The camera will have a tiny 4 wire Sony i-link jack. Best to get a FW400 to iLInk cable and then a FW400 to FW800 dongle. Other combinations work but the above has the fewest parts and they are all common.

The place to buy cables is "monoprice.com" Prices, service and quality are all good.

Sony uses a tiny kind of connector that has only four wires and can not supply power like the larger FW400 connectors. But i-link is still FW400. The later FW800 is backwards compatible and is what is found in the TB to FW dongle.
 
Last edited:
ChrisA said:
No, there are three different size plugs and two different speeds.

The Thunderbolt adaptor will have a FW800 jack. The camera will have a tiny 4 wire Sony i-link jack. Best to get a FW400 to iLInk cable and then a FW400 to FW800 dongle. Other combinations work but the above has the fewest parts and they are all common.

The place to buy cables is "monoprice.com" Prices, service and quality are all good.
Click to expand...

On Sony official site is a quote:
Sony does not make a 9-4 pin i.LINK cable, but you can normally purchase these cables from online electronics retail websites (such as http://store.apple.com/us) or a local electronics retail store.

So, if I understand correctly I need Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter and cable like this(9-4): http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-MacBook-FireWire-Cable-F3N416eb06-APL/dp/B0065V44B4
 
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That's the same combination that works for me. I have an old Sony D8 that I transfer with those cables, into my thunderbolt equipped Hackintosh.
 
Thank you, tomorrow I will buy this cables.

I am planning to use IMovie. Is there any default file format to which I should convert video from camera?
 
It will create a .DV file format which is the native format of the D8 camcorder. The files will be large. You can use these files perfectly fine in iMovie to the best of my knowledge.

I do recall however moving to the older version of iMovie HD (6) for some reason. Sorry, I can't remember exactly why.
 
geomiga said:
It will create a .DV file format which is the native format of the D8 camcorder. The files will be large. You can use these files perfectly fine in iMovie to the best of my knowledge.

I do recall however moving to the older version of iMovie HD (6) for some reason. Sorry, I can't remember exactly why.
Click to expand...

I think there was an issue with newer version of iMovie handling DV interlaced video frames. The concern was that it would automatically deinterlace the video throwing away half the lines. A quick Google search suggests that this is no longer a problem, but I'm not sure.

The important thing to keep in mind for the OP is that capturing DV video over Firewire is basically a binary data transfer in real time -- that is, you press "Play" on the camera and a stream of data appears on the Firewire port. iMovie (or whatever capture program you use) is basically just dumping this data to disk and wrapping it inside a QuickTime container. Meaning that codecs, bitrate, etc. are all chosen for you automatically. Of course, if you wanted to, you could transcode that data to something else later (h264, MPEG2, etc.) But by default, DV video is the codec that's chosen for you, because that's exactly what is coming out of the camera.

Have fun. I have a ton of tapes sitting around collecting dust, I should probably capture them too before they deteriorate too much...
 
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