This is half relevant for this forum, but it looked like the most appropriate.
I am not hit with nostalgia, just a good friend came to me with a box of mini-dv cassettes in need to "digitize" them. Well, I know they are already digital, but my knowledge of mini-dv camcorders ends just about there. And also that they were usually connected to PC for downloading the video using a firewire interface. My PC doesn't have a firewire interface but I found there are PCIe cards with such interfaces still in the market.
If I were to look for a decent camera to mount these cassettes and transfer them to a PC, what considerations should I make? I am fairly certain the cassettes are PAL format, since the camcorder originally used (a SONY) was purchased here in Europe, but am not certain about resolution (were there HD versions in consumer miniDV camcorders?).
I understand the format used is Mpeg4, which I can handle with the video editing s/w I normally use. But have no idea what to use to connect to the camera and stream the video onto the PC. Should I aim for a camcorder model that the manufacturer still offers download support for relevant s/w?
I am not hit with nostalgia, just a good friend came to me with a box of mini-dv cassettes in need to "digitize" them. Well, I know they are already digital, but my knowledge of mini-dv camcorders ends just about there. And also that they were usually connected to PC for downloading the video using a firewire interface. My PC doesn't have a firewire interface but I found there are PCIe cards with such interfaces still in the market.
If I were to look for a decent camera to mount these cassettes and transfer them to a PC, what considerations should I make? I am fairly certain the cassettes are PAL format, since the camcorder originally used (a SONY) was purchased here in Europe, but am not certain about resolution (were there HD versions in consumer miniDV camcorders?).
I understand the format used is Mpeg4, which I can handle with the video editing s/w I normally use. But have no idea what to use to connect to the camera and stream the video onto the PC. Should I aim for a camcorder model that the manufacturer still offers download support for relevant s/w?