{"id":8978,"date":"2025-05-07T22:27:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T21:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/?p=8978"},"modified":"2025-05-07T22:28:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T21:28:11","slug":"working-with-legacy-tech-importing-minidv-tape-content-to-a-modern-mac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2025\/05\/working-with-legacy-tech-importing-minidv-tape-content-to-a-modern-mac.htm","title":{"rendered":"Working with legacy tech: importing MiniDV tape content to a modern Mac"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s a common problem: aging media on legacy technology; valuable content that needs to be preserved. For me, that content is my travels to Australia and South Africa when I was in my 20s; getting married; and early days with our children (who are now adults). And whilst losing some of those videos (never watched or edited) would simply be annoying, the footage of the-tiny-people-who-grew-into-men would be devastating to lose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I have a project, to import as much of the content as I can to a modern computing system. I even used it as a justification to buy myself a new MacBook Pro (it&#8217;s &#8220;man maths&#8221; &#8211; don&#8217;t ask*).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What&#8217;s the problem?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>My digital video camera is a Sony DCR-TRV900E from circa 1998. The media are MiniDV cassettes (digital, but read serially). The interface is Firewire 400.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>My Mac has Thunderbolt 3 ports, using the USB-C form factor.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I needed to connect these two things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">And the hardware solution?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Internet is full of videos about this &#8211; and it&#8217;s a cable and adapter setup that is so <a href=\"https:\/\/www.collinsdictionary.com\/dictionary\/english\/heath-robinson\">Heath Robinson<\/a>-esque it shouldn&#8217;t work. But it seems to. For now. My task is to import the content before it stops working!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>First up, the Firewire 400 cable from the camcorder. Firewire 400 is also known as IEEE1394 or Sony i.LINK. I already had a suitable cable, possibly supplied with the camera.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Then, a Firewire 400 to 800 adapter. <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4cv7c0Y\">I used this one from Amazon<\/a>. That&#8217;s the inexpensive part.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Next, Firewire 800 to Thunderbolt 2. Apple no longer sells this adapter so it&#8217;s expensive if you can find one. There are some very-similar looking ones on AliExpress, but they were only a little less expensive than the genuine Apple one that I found here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pixels-store.co.uk\/shop\/p\/genuine-apple-thunderbolt-to-firewire-800-adapter-dongle-a1463-sealed?rq=A1463\">Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire 800 Adapter Dongle A1463<\/a>. I paid \u00a385 (ouch).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Finally, Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3. These are still available from Apple (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.apple.com\/uk\/shop\/product\/MYH93ZM\/A\/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-to-thunderbolt-2-adapter\">Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter<\/a>), but are another \u00a349 so I saved a few quid by buying one second-hand. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The whole setup looks like this (\u00a3150 of electronics&#8230; but priceless memories, remember&#8230;):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/IMG_0425-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C525&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8988\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/IMG_0425-scaled.jpg?w=2560&amp;ssl=1 2560w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/IMG_0425-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/IMG_0425-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C768&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/IMG_0425-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C576&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/IMG_0425-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1152&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/IMG_0425-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1536&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/IMG_0425-scaled.jpg?resize=772%2C579&amp;ssl=1 772w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/IMG_0425-scaled.jpg?resize=1230%2C923&amp;ssl=1 1230w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/IMG_0425-scaled.jpg?resize=256%2C192&amp;ssl=1 256w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/IMG_0425-scaled.jpg?w=1400&amp;ssl=1 1400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/IMG_0425-scaled.jpg?w=2100&amp;ssl=1 2100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How to import the footage<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Connect the Camcorder to the Mac, using the various cables and adapters.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Put the Camcorder into Video Tape Recorder (VTR) mode and insert a tape. Rewind it to the start.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Fire up iMovie on the Mac and create\/open a library.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Click Import Media (from the File menu). Select the camera (e.g. DCR-TRV900E) and you should see the first frame.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Click Import.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then, sit back and wait as the contents of the video are read, serially, and imported to iMovie. Other video editing packages may also work, but I used what I already had installed with macOS. Just remember that the transfer happens in real-time &#8211; but it&#8217;s also an opportunity to get nostalgic about times past. You&#8217;ll also need to stop the import when you get to the end of the footage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, does anyone have an <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Advanced_Photo_System\">Advanced Photo System (APS)<\/a> film attachment for a Sony Coolscan IV ED film scanner?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">*I do have functioning Mac Minis from 2006 and 2012 with Firewire connections, but the 2006 Mini is long-unsupported and the versions of MacOS and iMovie it has are alarmingly dated. The 2012 one is better, but I found I was getting application crashes on import. That drove me to invest in a solution that would work with my M4 MacBook Pro&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Featured image: author&#8217;s own.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s a common problem: aging media on legacy technology; valuable content that needs to be preserved. For me, that content is my travels to Australia and South Africa when I was in my 20s; getting married; and early days with our children (who are now adults). And whilst losing some of those videos (never watched &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2025\/05\/working-with-legacy-tech-importing-minidv-tape-content-to-a-modern-mac.htm\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Working with legacy tech: importing MiniDV tape content to a modern Mac<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[218],"tags":[31,32,170],"class_list":["post-8978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-macintosh","tag-pc-hardware","tag-video"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - 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