TOPIC:

Hey friends!

I have a box of old mini DV tapes (mostly TDK DVM60s) that were shot on a DVX-100a. I hooked the camera up to FCP X through some creative cabling, and thankfully it still recognizes it. I am going to capture the tapes directly into FCP X and wanted to ask the community if there are any settings I should make sure I check before I do. I don't want to spend 100 hours digitizing and archiving memories to find out I did it wrong.

Thank you!
Daniel

Assuming you are able to transfer an entire tape, you could do so to test the process. Then, load the contents into FCP and watch things to see if everything is okay. You may see separate files, depending on how "scene breaks" (recording stop/starts) are handled or if there are timecode breaks.

You could take the resulting file after capture and open it in Invisor or MediaInfo to get more detailed info. The tapes should transfer digitally to the computer as DV-25 files (~12 GB/hour of storage required). You might want to verify that the recorded format is playing back properly, as that camera records in 24p, 30p, and 60i.

Once you've decided one tape has transferred properly, you can do the rest. Of course, the only way to confirm the transfers is to watch the captured media in its entirety.

It might also be more efficient to capture an entire tape (happens in real-time) and then remove parts you don't want to archive afterwards (using "Create Archive" in the Import window).

Hope some of this helps.

Use the 'Create Archive..." butoon lower left of the import window to Capture first all tapes. After that you can when you want edit the movies by import the archive

Just because you HAVE Final Cut doesn't mean you have to USE Final Cut. There are better & more efficient ways of doing this. This method has maybe a 5 minute administration penalty (grab tape, load tape, play tape, remove tape) to it versus the way you're going about it.
- - - - -
1) Buy/rent new/used Atomos Ninja V / Black Magic Video Assist V.
2) Capture to media drive/card.
3) Sell/return new/used device.
- - - - -
This method works well for me in a professional services environment and has the expediency and reliabilty needed to turn a profit and offer same day service. It'd be a disaster if I had to rely on Final Cut for reliability or quick turnaround.
- - - - -
Read previous archived posts here of the difficulties people encounter connecting camera, getting FCP to recognize camera, aborting capture unexpectedly, etc. You'll need 13GB / 63GB for each SD/HD tape run and tieing up hard drive space for something you won't get around to editing for maybe a year also needs to be considered.

VTC, I actually like your method, as an alternative, however it is no faster, as tapes play back in real-time and take that long to capture. Your method seems to assume inherent issues with macOS and iMovie/FCP. Most problems people experience are often due to "operator error".

Many older DV and HDV camcorders don't have HDMI or SDI outputs, so the Ninja V alternative would then require more links in the chain, contributing to more potential points of failure (and even more added cost, e.g., to get the SDI input adapter for the Ninja). There may be issues with interlaced source footage and the Ninja capture (especially if you want to maintain the interlacing — maybe this is no longer an issue on the Ninja).

Size is another issue. Capturing a DV or HDV tape requires around 12 GB/hr of footage if the source format is maintained. Capturing something to ProRes 422 for SD footage ranges from 15 to 19 GB/hr and capturing 1440 x 1080 (most HDV) to ProRes 422 ranges from 45 to 57 GB/hr (according to "Target Data Rates" at the end of the ProRes white paper)***. The sizes differences are significant for HDV footage, at least.

Lifeflix is a very good alternative to using FCP or iMovie. It just works.

Overall, there are various ways to transfer/capture old footage from DV/HDV tapes. At least we have some choices...

P.S. - For me, I like being able to maintain the original source format. I'm then able to choose if and how that media is processed for further use (choice of tools to use, including machine learning based enhancements).

*** Full raster captures to ProRes 422 (1920 x 1080) range from 53 to 132 GB/hr, with 60i/30p coming in at around 66 GB/hr. I believe that the Ninja V only captures full raster images (last I checked).

Hey Dave,

I'm in agreement, with an exception. I have an old HDV camcorder (Canon HV20), and got much better image quality capturing the HDMI output or component vs. the anamorphic files captured over FireWire.

I'll be testing FW capture from a TVR350 later this week.

Edited for clarity

dmetz wrote:

Hey Dave,

I'm in agreement, with an exception. I have an old HDV camcorder (Canon HV20), and got much better image quality capturing the live HDMI output vs. the anamorphic files captured over FireWire.

I'll be testing FW capture from a TVR350 later this week.

I wouldn't be surprised to see better-looking images coming from the HDMI output. However, to be clear, the images stored on DV/HDV tapes are digital information. So, a tape "captured" to a computer file via FireWire (don't know if that is the most accurate term to use) is an exact digital copy of what was on the tape. Playing back a tape in the camcorder or deck and outputting that signal via HDMI or component/composite (analog) connections will not be an exact copy of what was on the tape, due to processing that occurs with video going to either the HDMI and analog outputs (along with the processing done through various connected devices and the codec and settings used to create the computer file).

The "HDMI out" ports on camcorders (for DV or HDV) almost certainly process the video in terms of frame format (pixel aspect ratio, filtering, color subsampling, etc.), so no surprise there. I wouldn't be surprised if some camcorders do a better job than others when processing and sending a signal out via HDMI (or SDI), or in D-A conversion via analog connections.

None of the old (tape-only) camcorders I have possess HDMI outputs, so FW is the only way for me to capture from those devices without any signal processing being applied. I used to have a couple of decks but no longer have them ("gifted" to some colleagues with lots of tapes to capture). And, sometimes tapes only play back consistently on the camcorder, on which they were recorded (head quality, alignment, etc.???).

Nothing wrong with your methods, or with VTC's workflow. Different workflows yield different results. Just being able to successfully "rescue" that old footage is a feat in and of itself!


P.S. - A cool thing about some older camcorders is that their HDMI output provides a fairly high-quality signal that you can use to record, instead of using on-board tape or cards. This can make an older camcorder useful as a vlogging/"webcam" camera, b-roll camera, etc., especially if the camcorder was a higher-end model...

VTC wrote:

1) Buy/rent new/used Atomos Ninja V / Black Magic Video Assist V.
2) Capture to media drive/card.
3) Sell/return new/used device.

You can't capture DV to a Atomos Ninja because DV hardware does not feature HDMI. Also the Atomos cannot instigate the pulldown removal required for DV shot at 24fps.

Using Final Cut to capture DV is interesting because it will make a new clip for each press of the record button you did on the camera as opposed to one long continuous video stream. Another thing to watch out for is your frame rate. If you have 24p and 30p and 60i stuff all on the same tape, Final Cut will get confused. It can detect them automatically but I've found that things can get weird if you let it do the entire tape on its own. If the entire tape is all one frame rate you should be good.

Redifer wrote:

VTC wrote:

1) Buy/rent new/used Atomos Ninja V / Black Magic Video Assist V.
2) Capture to media drive/card.
3) Sell/return new/used device.

You can't capture DV to a Atomos Ninja because DV hardware does not feature HDMI. Also the Atomos cannot instigate the pulldown removal required for DV shot at 24fps.

Using Final Cut to capture DV is interesting because it will make a new clip for each press of the record button you did on the camera as opposed to one long continuous video stream. Another thing to watch out for is your frame rate. If you have 24p and 30p and 60i stuff all on the same tape, Final Cut will get confused. It can detect them automatically but I've found that things can get weird if you let it do the entire tape on its own. If the entire tape is all one frame rate you should be good.

Actually, you can capture DV to a Ninja V. Some decks have SDI and HD-SDI out or HDMI, where SDI can be captured with the "SDI Sled" add-on for the Ninja V. I haven't seen a DV/DVCAM/DVCPRO-only camcorder with HDMI, but many DV/HDV camcorders (Sony HVR-Z5 being one) have HDMI outputs.

Pulldown can be removed after capture, as needed. It was never a good idea to record a different format or frame rate on the same tape (that's sort of video tech 101 stuff), but yeah it can complicate things, for sure...

Well then he'd need to buy new hardware, as the Panasonic DVX100a OP mentioned doesn't have any of that. It would be much more work than just capturing with Final Cut Pro, especially if he had to buy/rent an Atomos as well. Can the Atomos accept standard definition over HDMI? I haven't tried.

FCP is by far the quickest, easiest, and cheapest method here.

Redifer wrote:

Well then he'd need to buy new hardware, as the Panasonic DVX100a OP mentioned doesn't have any of that. It would be much more work than just capturing with Final Cut Pro, especially if he had to buy/rent an Atomos as well. Can the Atomos accept standard definition over HDMI? I haven't tried.

FCP is by far the quickest, easiest, and cheapest method here.

Yeah, there's a lot of extra cost involved with using a Ninja V. I haven't tried using my Ninja V for this kind of thing (standard def. DV over HDMI), either.

There were recent instances where an update to macOS killed FW connectivity until a fix was released in a following macOS update. Some people have trouble getting decks to work with FCP/iMovie, so VTC's workflow may be better in those cases.

I, too, prefer using FCP/iMovie in order to get an exact digital copy of the source tape. I've also used Lifeflix on more modern Macs with good success for DV and HDV source tapes...

Good point about whether standard definition DV over HDMI can be "seen" or recorded by the Ninja V. Thanks for bringing that point up...

First of all, thank you all for replying so fast!

I'm going to run a few beta tests this week to see how it goes based on your recommendations. Fortunately, 99% of the footage was recorded at the same frame rate (24p), so there shouldn't be a big issue there.

After this, it's on to the older Hi8 tapes.

I'll post and let you all know how it went next week!

Daniel

FCP 7 is likely a better option, it was designed to natively digitize DV over firewire.

Hey everyone!

I have some good news and some frustrating news, AND some more questions as I've run into a snag. Hopefully you can help.

I was able to digitize all of the Hi8 tapes with no problem, saving each tape as an archive, and they look good and now I can edit them and export them however I want. Awesome. However...

The MiniDV tapes are not working right. Here's the specifics:

1) All of the footage on the DVX-100A was shot in 24p.

2) I plug the DVX-100A in the Mac via the same DV cable and adapters and FCP X sees the camera no problem.

3) I click on Import - I try to create a camera archive OR just import the footage and there are two main problems.
A) It's only importing the footage at 29.97
It's making hundreds of individual files and even if were to drop them all onto a timeline and export them as one movie, there are frame drops / skips on every individual file, so they don't line up. I imagine the frame rate discrepancy is causing this.

4) FCP X has apparently gotten rid of the option to tell it what frame rate you're ingesting and to tell it to ignore drop frames, so no luck there.

I've tried importing the footage via Quicktime, via FCP X, nothing works. So...

5) I then thought maybe I'd use FCP 7, and installed the OS in parallels, and when I went to install FCP 7, it says I don't have the right hardware (Parallels is using the VRAM, etc.).

6) Before I go down a whole road of wiping my older MacMini and installing Sierra on it, then installing FCP 7, hoping it works, and trying to digitize the footage there, I wanted to find out if there is another way to do this and one that is a lot easier.

7) I did try to make a USB installer of Sierra, and for whatever reason, it won't work, so I don't know if I even can get it as the main OS on my MacMini.

I have about 100 to 120 MiniDV tapes, most of which were shot on the DVX-100A, and most of which, if not all, was shot in 24p. I know there HAS to be way to get this footage into my computer, but I am at a loss.

Would LOVE some help from you all. If I have to buy a piece of kit to do this, I can try that, I just want it to work.

Thank you again!
Daniel

Unfortunately to my knowledge there's no way to get modern Final Cut Pro to NOT create an individual clip each time the record button was pressed on the camera, which is extremely annoying. Not sure why they thought everyone without exception would want that. Kinda weird about the 24P not being captured properly. I had no issues with Final Cut Pro running on an ancient Mac Pro with firewire capturing in 23.98, but of course I have thousands of individual clips with missing frames at the head/tail of each.

There are ways to remove pulldown after it's been ingested, but I believe this recompresses the DV footage which is already bad as it is. Maybe someone else has more info on this.

Final Cut Pro 7 can capture each tape as a single clip and remove the pulldown without recompressing the original data from the tape, assuming you shot it properly. If you shot it with normal pulldown then there's no way to remove it without recompressing as it's literally on the tape as 29.97, just with normal pulldown inserted. I always shot with Advanced Pulldown on the DVX100 and Canon XL2, so that it could be removed and you'd get a true 23.98 file to edit with without any of the interlaced pulldown frames. I wouldn't trust Final Cut Pro 7 running in emulation, I'd see if you can find an old Mac for cheap somewhere that has a firewire port.

Daniel, have you tried using Lifeflix yet? I believe there is a demo you could try. You might want to contact them, as well, to see if they have any insights into capturing DVX-100A footage.

I tried it... and it worked perfectly! I can't believe it! Amazing. Thank you so much!

Daniel, thanks for letting us know that Lifeflix worked for you.