Capturing and Archiving MiniDV and HDV Tapes on Mac & Windows - LifeFlix Mini Demo

Thanks

Great video, but I had a bit of trouble understanding what you said at the beginning. I assumed it was your name, so I went and searched for it. Found it: Lon Seidman. Why say it so quickly that it's hard for anyone to catch what you're saying?

I have a firestore fs100 dvr that can only connect to a computer using firewire. I know connecting it directly to a firewire adapter card for pc works, so I was wondering if I could connect the fs100 through the same method you use as if the fs100 was the camera, and it would still work. thanks

I need the microsoft solutions

Thanks for the video, is it possible to record at 60 frames per second?

Great video. Did you figure out how to convert the digitally archived HDV videos yet? Would love to hear your best practices and tips.

Just what I needed! Thank you thank you.

Is it possible to use Adobe Premiere?

What if I told you a lot of large transfer companies down convert these formats from Digital to composite for capture. They claim stuff like there's only a marginal increase in quality for the added time required and that the customer won't care or pay for that extra time. This obviously is complete nonsense.

Any one know why my video and audio is losing frames every few seconds? I wanted to use iMovie but it’s losing audio and video frames. Canon mini dv Optura

I tried using QT player to capture a tape, but the recording stops after a few seconds, every time. I have Lifeflix 3.5.3, but I cannot get it to see my DV signal. Running OSX Ventura 13.4.1

Good stuff thank you

My m2 mac mini is not recognizing my Sony digital 8 camcorder. I used all the adaptors you recommended. Running ventura 13.4. Any idea?
Update
I bought another new fire wire cord and it worked.

Going to check back in with Brian because he knows his shit man Respect ✊

Not sure if anybody already said this but in iMovie if you go to the crop button and go to the original size it’ll be the 4:3

Great video. Just what I was looking for. Does anyone know what to do if the camera doesn't automatically appear in QuickTime or iMovie? I'm using an old Mac with MacOS 10 High Sierra, a FireWire port and a Thunderbolt 1/2 port, so it should be easier!!

Very interresting video! I have actually recently some hdv tapes (2011) to my computer. The quality was far above what I expected

Lon, I bought the 400 800 cable from Amazon that you recommended and it was defective. There seems to be a few other complaints about this cable. If you could change it to another cable, it may help others in the future. Thank you.

You are the king, being new to Mac I needed this very detailed exactly step by step information. Now to the pile of MiniDV's I have :)

Does LifeFlix do a better job of importing video as compared to iMovie, in terms of quality?

You are the best! Nothing out there as precise as your video. You saved me $100 bucks for app. And for some reason I get Capture device offline on premiere although I can control camera from Premiere.

Great video everything proven vhs tapes last longer then your computer does everything proven

Great video. I'm doing the same thing but I'm having a problem. I can't seem to adjust the capture settings in imovie because I get no audio in my captured video, and for some reason the capture is breaking down on single continuous clip into 2 second slices of the same clip. Are you familiar with this issue?

Does the firewire connection capture the time code and the date. ? ????. If not all the captured videos are useless. I want the memories of the video date.

Anyone know how to also capture the date/time stamp from the tape? I have a Canon HV10.

Thanks for this informative video. Got me convinced to purchase Lifeflix. I spent much time recapturing with iMovie and FCPX, sometimes no Audio, sometimes crash at tape end. Lifeflix works better although with Canon DV40 camera you need to apply a work around to capture with audio. . I'm using my old 2012 MBP's to capture V8, Hi8, D8 and mini DV in uncompressed MOV format.
Would be interesting to know at what parameters you generate the final mp4 (resolution, bit rate, ...). Thanks, Hans

Could you help me understand what's going on here - on my camera the tape playback has audio that's perfectly fine. when I plug the av into my computer and try to record it I get no audio, just a loud distorted buzzing sound. I'm using a ccd trv68 and an easycap adapter. not sure where to look on how to fix this problem

Thank you soooooo much this video was FANTASTIC!! Exactly the information I was looking for!!

WinDV is the business!

Great work on your explanations. I followed you to the letter but could not get my Windows 11 laptop to recognize the camcorder. Do you have any suggestions that might help with that?

Thank you so much for the video! I started capturing DV video from a firewire source (minidv camera and Canopus 110). With damaged tapes, I always get more than 100 small clips MOV-DV, with FCPX... opposed to FCP9, there is no option to record "plain" without creating different clips for each scene.
After viewing your video I tried windv and captured all the tape without creating so many clips, but it generated me a AVI-DV video that FCPX does not open... What should I do?
I want to keep the original DV to archive (I don't mind on using bootcamp to capture with windv) and then to edit it on Mac with FCPX but without having quality loss converting from avi to mov in order to open with FCPX.
Thank you so much for you help in advance... I read so many forums for so much time, but I cannot figure the best way to do this...

any idea how to pull this off with an old Canon NTSC ZR25 (mini dv tape) 
It does not have a digital out jack - just a headphone style jack that is labelled AV in/out (I still have the original cable supplied with unit and it is a headphone jack on one end, with old RCA tri output, red/yellow/white on other end). Working off a current MBP with two USB C inputs only
Am I out of luck?! Any help or advise would be great, thanks!

Hey Lon Thanks for a great video! Quick question about LifeFlix and timecode. If there is a break in the time code from one clip to another on a tape does LifeFlix continue to capture? In other words will it ignore any change in time code and allow me to walk away until the entire tape is captured?

Excellent - very useful! I bought the two Apple adaptors some months ago (they're sitting here on my desk and I haven't even opened the boxes yet). My PC has T3 over USB-C so I really must get down and do it!

That's the problem with sony stuff...it stops working after so many tapes or the day after the guarantee expires. But when it works...good quality footage.

Interesting video. I was rummaging thru over 100 mini-DV tapes and some of which I would like to preserve / edit. My iMac is a late 2017 and does not have the thunderbolt connector you show as the 2nd add on Apple adapter, but it does look like the thunderbolt 1 or 2 connector. Will this single adapter (1st one) I believe is firewire to Thunderbolt 1-2 type connector work on my iMac? I will also probably need a new/different firewire cable as the one I have does not look like the one you showed. Great idea!
Also as an FYI - have to tried to use the miniDV tape head cleaner cassette? I was using the Sony DRV27 camera and later went to the prosumer Canon XL H1A with XLR audio w/ +48v mics.

I have the canon mini dv playing the tapes, I have the firewire to a thunderbolt 2 and I am using a iMac with a thunderbolt 2 port. But I can't see the view on any program such as Quicktime, Premier Pro etc. Please can you suggest anything else?

Panasonic dvx100b too ?
Imovie run only few cameras! HdvSPLIT ?

Using the same setup but my camera isn’t appearing as an option after I open QuickTime?? Just the webcam :(

Hi there have you ben able to still do this using the exact same method since Apple updated their operating system to Monterey? I was able to do it but now can't. Any up-to-date suggestions?

Hi - I can get the video going into my mac and recording it using Quicktime on my mac laptop no problem, but it seems that everytime there is a timecode jump, or I have stopped and started recording on the actual video, the Quicktime recording stops. A message comes up saying 'recording has stopped' and if I don't catch it in time, everything that is has recorded disappears and it comes up with a new recording window. It doesn't always stop at the same place, it's random. I just want to get one long recording of my 60 min videos, not numerous clips as I don't want to be editing them.
Do you know how I can stop this random interruption of my recordings happening? Thanks

Cool Sega Genesis (and video)!

I'm in the process of doing this now with a bunch of tapes, both DV, Hi-8, D8, and VHS, and have been using a HDMI -- USB capture device, which has been working out pretty well. I would offer it as an alternative to having to have all of those dongles for a single purpose...

This is super helpful! Thank you so much. I’m using the same setup as you, except with a Sony Digital 8 Handycam. How do I know if the recordings have captured all the material from the tapes? Is there a quick way to know all of the film has been recorded aside from fast forwarding and spot checking the full tape?

using Lifeflix how good was the HD conversion?

His friend let em borrow the camera decades ago and he still got it🤣🤣🤣

Can you recommend the firewire 800 to ilink 1394 cable. I bought the bought the adapter but I think the 800 to 1394 cable is not working.. MacOS 11 can't identity the device connected. Was working on Windows

Will this work on MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014) Version 10.11.6 (15G22010)?

Thanks for this - I'm starting to import a bunch of Beta, 8MM, Hi-8 and MiniDV family movies. Once imported is there a way to upscale them to HD? I've seen some videos this has been done to and the results are amazing. But I'm not sure what software is being used. Would love to see how we should do this (on MacOS).