Unless you have a special video capture card built into your computer you will need a FireWire cable. FireWire is also referred to as Sony iLink or IEEE 1394. You can easily add a FireWire port to your computer via the PCI (desktop) or PCMCIA (laptop) slot. Check out our Fire wire Guide for all the details.
A USB cable, or USB to FireWire adapter will not work for transferring miniDV video because the transfer rate is too slow. MiniDV video is transferred to your computer in real-time as the video plays back on your camcorder. It the cable connecting your computer and camcorder can not transfer the data fast enough you will loose audio and video frames resulting in a really poor video capture.
Visit the capture camcorder video page for more information on importing camcorder video onto your computer.
An alternative to adding a FireWire port to your computer is to have a video transfer service transfer your miniDV video to a digital file for you. At StashSpace we can transfer your miniDV tapes to digital for just $6.95 tape. You then have several differnt options for retrieving the digital content:
- Online- Use the StashBox video editor to watch, share, and edit your digitized miniDV tape. You can order a DVD of your personalized movie for $14.95
- DVD- Convert your miniDV tape to DVD directly for just $9.95. Enjoy playback on your computer or DVD player.
- StashDisc- Get the raw digital file created when we transfered your miniDV tape to digital. A stashDisc is a data DVD that allows your to copy the digital file onto your computer. A stashDisc is not finalized so it won't play on your DVD player but you will be able to stick it into the DVD-ROM of your computer for playback.
- Portable Hard Drive - We'll send you a Western Digital hard drive containing your raw digital files so you can watch and edit right away.
To place a miniDV transfer order visit our miniDV transfer order page
Comments