Page 1 of Old MiniDV camcorder quandry

Had an old Sony DCR-TRV18E camcorder for quite a while now, about 13 years actually, and aside from the 6 hours of honeymoon footage, there's a few older tapes I want to transfer to my PC before it finally gives up the ghost (internal mechanism is on its way out and it doesn't play sound during regular playback. The batteries won't keep a charge either).

Thing is, the on-board software isn't compatible with Windows 7 for USB streaming. The camera does have a firewire port, but my PC itself doesn't have one. I purchased a cheap USB-Firewire adaptor and connected it up that way, but I can't get the playback footage to stream to the PC.Is there another way to get the footage off the tapes using what I have, or should I buy a Firewire card, hoping that the software compatibility issue won't be a factor using this method rather than USB?

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Writer`s Release

what do you mean by onboard software and windows streaming? it isn't a media player, so you will need to use a program like Adobe Premier to import the footage before saving it in a format that Windows will play.

I have actually been doing exactly the same thing with my old camera and tapes using a firewire to mac adapter and imovie to import the media, then save to my NAS as an M4V file.

This item was edited on Friday, 3rd April 2015, 13:43

I've imported footage from the camcorder before, but that was on my old PC, which was XP. This problem I have at the moment is that although the camcorder is connected to the PC, it's showing up on any device list. I have Cyberlink Powerdirector but that doesn't appear to 'see' the camcorder either.By 'onboard software' I mean that when you plug in a new piece of kit to your PC, it generally installs the drivers before you can use it. In this case, the camcorder is so old it's not compatible with W7, via a USB connection at least

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Writer`s Release

Have you been here? http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/content/cnt-hn/prd-dime/how-to-transfer-dv-or-digital8-videos-to-your-pc/DCR-TRV18E Looks like there is a Windows 7 driver available if you scroll down the page, and some Sony software for Windows 7 importing of video too.

This item was edited on Friday, 3rd April 2015, 14:18

Yup, saw that the other day centres on using an iLink cable. Looks like the adaptor was useless, and I'll have to invest in that firewire card anyway

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Writer`s Release

Isn't iLink Sony's take on FireWire?

Ste
My Flickr Photostream

It's exactly the same thing under a different name.

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Writer`s Release