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TechnoGuy001

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#277175 30-Sep-2020 13:12
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I recently got an old Mini DV Sony Camera (DCR-PC7E PAL) to backup an old Mini DV tape I found and wanted to check if anyone here wanted there tape/s captured?

 

I realize lots of people already offer this service, but when I looked around I couldn't find anyone who would just do a raw data transfer to PC, and not re-encode it. In this day and age, space isn't really an issue, and I hate to compress old footage down any more then is absolutely necessary.

 

 

 

I would transfer the footage (without re-encoding) and then upload it to Google drive (or other site) for you to download.

 

50 minutes is about 10GB

 

Mediainfo of a transfer I done, .dv file: https://pastebin.com/QkvcmvS1

 

 

 

I'm in Hawkes Bay, if you want to ship tapes to me, I'd recommend TradeMe's courier booking service, as they've usually got the best rates.

 

 

 

$20 per tape. (if your tapes have mold or are dirty, I won't try clean or capture them, only clean tapes please)

 

Free return courier of tape/s.

 

 

 

This offer will only be valid for about a week, as I'd like to sell on the old camera and gear, just figured I'd check if anyone wanted some raw transfers before I sell it.

 

 

 

Disclaimer: I realise the DV format isn't lossless, I just mean it's a lossless transfer without any re-encoding.


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timbosan
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  #2576516 30-Sep-2020 13:35
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Hi, I am keen, will PM you!




pih

pih
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  #2576590 30-Sep-2020 16:38
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Tempted. I have a DV camera with IEEE1394 out... But no longer have a PC with IEEE1394 input (long gone!) Might have to give it a miss and go looking for some old hardware as we have about a dozen tapes in various states of (re-)edit. Like the ones from the champion video crew who did our wedding and later overwrote large portions of the recordings with student footage from a film school 😡 Good thing we had an amateur mate of mine filming for backup.

TechnoGuy001

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  #2576599 30-Sep-2020 16:46
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@pih, That's rough, lucky you had a backup filmer.

 

I'd keep an eye out on TradeMe for some old Mac laptops, often they sell pretty cheap, even ones with a dead screen may be good, just plug in an external screen.

 

I'm using an old MacBook from 2009 which still has a FireWire 400 port, had a friend who still had the laptop.

 

 

 

@timbosan looking forward to hear from you.




Jaxson
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  #2576731 30-Sep-2020 20:02
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usb firewire dongles seem cheap too,not sure if anyone's tried those successfully.

 

 

 

Good stuff mate on offering this service.  The raw/native file size of these tapes is massive for the time.  I have a panasonic with firewire out and av in too, so you can feed vhs tapes through it and onto a computer in a similar fashion.  


TechnoGuy001

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  #2576735 30-Sep-2020 20:10
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From my understanding the USB FireWire dongles/adapters don't work. They only work with things like FireWire HDDs (data), but won't pass on the data stream or whatever from a DV camera.

 

Wait, think this is where I read it from;

 

[source] I can’t say for sure because I have never tried it, but I know the reason you can’t capture tape through a USB connection is because USB transfers data as packets, while Firewire transfers data as a steady stream. So while you can come out of your camera or deck with a firewire connection, the data stream will catch a snag when it hits that USB connection.

 

But I have read that people have managed to go from 4 pin DV cam to FireWire -> thunderbolt adapter to USB-C, or something like that, it was quite a long chain of adapters, and likely still end up costing in the $100-$200 in adapters if you don't have them.


lchiu7
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  #2576926 1-Oct-2020 08:04
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I captured all my Digital 8 tapes and some DV tapes using Firewire.  Initially I used an older laptop with a PCI card slot (people remember those?) and a PCI Firewire adapter that worked fine. Then I bought a cheap IEEE1394 card for my desktop that also works fine. And as somebody else has noted, there is no such thing as a USB Firewire card - the protocols are too different.

 

As an aside I also captured all my analogue tapes using a Canopus ADVC110 analogue to firewire adapter.





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Jaxson
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  #2576941 1-Oct-2020 08:37
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https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/CABSTT4688057/StarTech-PEX1394A2V2-FireWire-Card---PCIe-FireWire

Can still buy desktop cards at around $65 locally and $10 - $40 on aliexpress.

 


Gives an idea as to how nice this offer from TechnoGuy001 is.


 
 
 

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.
TechnoGuy001

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  #2580512 7-Oct-2020 10:39
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Offer is now closed. I will be putting it up for sale on TradeMe tomorrow.


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