Firewire card advice, please.

Lokwyr

Lokwyr

Lokwyr

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There are approx. 30 Mini DV tapes awaiting my attention.
Unless I've gone totally ga-ga, there's no IEEE1394 facility on my Asrock Z370 Extreme 4 motherboard.
So- suggestions please for a reliable Firewire card, suitable for a dabbler-level inexpert operative. Preferably with an internal on-board port to easily connect to the front-of-the-case port.
It needs to be compatible with:-

My wallet,
Asrock Z370 Extreme 4
Win 10 Pro 64,
2x 8 Gb Vulcan T-Force DDR4 3000Hz,
256 GB WD Black NVME SSD,
2x Samsung 1000GB HDD,
all running from an old Corsair 650Watt PSU.
The camcorders still available to me are: JVC GR-D240, Samsung VP-D55.
In all probability, most of the videos will feature one leg walking:rolleyes:
 
andy_mk3 said:
Firewire has been obsolete for a long time, your best bet is just a PCI-E add-in card. Pretty much anything should work.
Click to expand...

Obsolete- granted. I've tried 3 (also obsolete) add-in cards. With and without the Legacy drivers. Sometimes the camcorder will show on This PC/Devices & Drives but that's as far as it gets.
I last used Firewire on an Win 98 rig and it also worked on up-grades with XP and Vista.

If I'm missing something, it will be something dumb!
 
If my memory serves me correctly, Firewire used to work fine with Windows Movie maker. Capture the footage, job done. Movie maker is no longer supported by MS & is not available to download either, I wouldn't bother trying to look elsewhere or you will be in world of malware pain.

I was in the same situation as you a few years ago, couldn't get footage captured via firewire so I installed Linux mint onto a spare SSD & got it to work after a bit of faffing. Bear in mind that a lot of video capture & editing software for Linux isnt stable, that might have changed since 2016 when I did this. For the record, I used openshot in the end but it may be more stable on Linux these days. I cant comment on if it will work on W10 though as I used it on Linux only.
 
^ Grimley. Movie Maker rings a distant bell. Can't say for definite 'cos I'm sure that whatever it was opened automatically.
Maybe that's the dumb thing I'm missing- some software?
Anybody out there able to confirm if windows Movie Maker is included in Win98, Win2000, WinXP, Win Vista original disks. I still have all of those. Could quick-fix my older Biostar mobo and spare Firewire cards parts just to achieve video transfer.
Or is this another daft ideas?!
 
/\/\/\/\ I dont think that's a daft idea at all. DV footage IIRC is 640x480 so it not like going to take up TB's of space or require a mega core CPU to capture it. I've captured DV footage on single core CPU PC's. Once you've got the captured video just edit it on a modern PC. Only thing i'm not sure about is what is the file type the captured video is & whether the file size will be capped, that was a problem in the 'old days' but it may well have been solved when MS introduced NTFS.

I would try openshot to capture the footage. if the firewire works correctly you should be able to control playback of the camcorder via the Capture software.
 
Failing all that, another option maybe to capture using composite / svideo if the outputs if the camcorders support it.

I recently bought an pcie avermedia card from AliExpress to capture VHS tapes and it's extremely reliable when capturing. Svideo footage is decent enough considering.

Card was about 60quid all in and worked in my Ryzen win 10 setup without issue.

A neat benefit is the software allows you to do a custom record time, so if you know the length of the tape, you just set that time length, hit play and record on the PC and walk away.

Can save direct to mpeg2, and h.264 (cpu or gpu encoding).

Ok, it's not DV, but it's still decent and works in modern setups.
 
I am not 100% sure but Firewire or 1394 were not always 100% exactly the same like on Creatives Soundcards not sure why they even added it TBH.

Bit tired to look up now, though.


Soundblaster-Audigy2-ZS.jpg



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster_Audigy
 
OK, I'm back. Family sorted:rolleyes:.
Some good info above. At the moment I'm contemplating (dangerous- I know!) dual-boot with Win7, as per a very recent fortnightly magazine. Any snags with the procedure in that publication?
My Samsung camcorder has an SVid connection. I'll try that next.

Before I started this 'capture-my -dvtapes' thing, the weather was lousy/wet/windy/cold. Trapped indoors. Now- dry, warmish ,sunny, dry, a garden calling and this conundrum arrives! I guess 'tis because life is boring without variety and excitements!
 
I may have solved the problem. Found a £10 Shuttle SB51G on Gumtree. It's loaded with ports, including Firewires. Slight new problem- it's running Lubuntu :confused:. Every time I take a shufti at Linuxes I think favourably of Windows. Often.
Will be installing XP Pro or Win 7 Pro with a refreshed hdd.
Any comments? Be gentle- I'm not intending to be expert, only able.
 
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