Honestly, to me the full quality 4K version looks just like you'd expect a modern music video to look. Looks pretty good. But the Digital8 version looks like it's actually from the early-mid 2000s, which makes it look like a professional and expensive music video that you'd probably see on MTV. I'm imagining flipping on MTV to get some background music while I'm working on an assignment for school, and getting distracted watching this music video. So I don't think it was pointless, it gives the video a new context, gives it a different feeling. It's another example of how making something "look worse" can actually improve it. And to me, that makes it worthwhile.
I had an older I7 Macbookpro 2014 that i used to use to get footage from my PDW700 with an XDcam disc it worked flawlessly. That computer broke and I got a M1 and now nothing. Thanks Apple.
@@thedave7760They make a thunderbolt to FireWire adapter…although, at this point, it’s probably best to find a more future proofed alternative considering FireWire has been out of date for over a decade and a half now. I’ve been using thunderbolt since around 2011 and it was and still is an absolute game changer for using any kind of serious external equipment. You could also get a video capture card, or if neither the adapter or capture card is something you like, just look for a used 2012-2013 MacBook Pro, and you can use it just for the FireWire. You can find them super cheap and they last forever.
@@Marc42yep. if there's no damage the transfer should be lossless -- FireWire is actually the only way to do this, USB is simply not designed for this style of transfer
I love your entire style, it's so nostalgic. I know exactly what you mean about the excitement of buying a box of software. I was 14 when I convinced my mum to buy me some editing software called Magix, and it was such a major upgrade from windows movie maker. I also remember spending hours watching my dv tape transfer the footage via firewire, it was so exciting!!
I never used their video editing software, but I quite literally learned how to produce music using Magix Music Maker, back in 2003/2004. I LOVED that software! I actually have a video in the pipeline featuring Magix 😄 Thank you for sharing your story!
@@harkeofficial oh man I also remember making music in the magix music software too! I remember putting a load of the preset loops together and it totally changed to the game for my amateur movies haha!
I put one in my rig I built at the start of this year. My USB Audiobox had started to make popping sound through my monitors, which is most likely the electrolytic capacitors at the end of their service life. Since I had an M-Audio FireWire 410 sitting unused in a drawer, not enough spare cash for a new interface but enough for a FW card, the choice seemed simple. Getting the drivers for the M-Audio to work with Windows 10, was far from simple, though. But I can now also expand my storage with some aluminium external HDD enclosures (again sitting unused in the drawer)each with active cooling and fresh 3.5" drives installed, all daisy-chained to the spare FW port.
that's what I was hoping this video would be a guide to honestly. I have an Avid Mbox Pro (3rd gen) that has just been a stand for one of my speakers for about 5 years because I can't connect it but the actually inputs in it are way higher quality than anything I've bought to replace it since.
@@the_panos I'll see if I can dig up the info on which card I bought (I'm also using an Mbox) -- failing that, I'll boot up after work and get the info out of Device Manager
Loved the video. The “algorithm” finally got you to me. Quick fun fact. One thing that made FireWire so much superior to USB back in the day isn’t just the speed. It took several revisions of USB before it could transfer data both directions simultaneously. That’s why FireWire was so much better for audio and video. It didn’t have to interrupt the data stream to send acknowledgment packets, telemetry, and control data back to the host. I worked in recording studios back in the day and all the audio interfaces were FireWire or they had their own PCI interfaces. It was super revolutionary at the time. 😊
Just so everyone is aware you can still install a firewire card on a new desktop along with legacy IEEE-1394 drivers. Then all you need is WinDV and/or HDV Split.
The usual method for DV(including Digital8) video was to copy to the computer in DV format (the same as how it was sent back from the pc to the camera here) - giving *exactly* the same data on your computer as on the tape, ie: no loss in image quality. The DV encoding(which was designed for editing) also means that unchanged sections of video won't be recompressed after editing and saving the edited video / sending to the camera in DV format again. It should also be less taxing on older computers, though the files are bigger. As DV was so common, a ton of editing applications(free or paid) did and often still do support it. The old, tiny, free application(which still works with modern versions of Windows) WinDV is one way to copy DV from/to the camera for example. Windows 10 & 11 still support firewire. With the process shown here it started as DV, was converted to mpeg2, edited, all video was converted back to DV, with losses in each conversion - albeit perhaps not much.was degrading quality, and obviously still better than the s-video capture (though that's partly due to the cheap capture device, others can be significantly better.)
2 หลายเดือนก่อน +54
"maybe you like wasting hours of your life for results that were shot on potato" my sister in christ, as a huge lgr fan, I demand you print at least one good cd jewel case insert on a 30 years old laser colour printer for your album
Oh, my dad has one of those handicams. When my parents went on vacation to Vegas for a week, he kept me busy by tasking me with getting it hooked up to a PC so we could get the footage off of our old mini DV tapes. I ended up having to order a double-ended mini firewire cable and drag out my bright pink Dell Inspiron from 2008, lol.
I was sold after the Brave Little Toaster reference. I have a firewire card in my modern NAS to transfer music and podcasts at BLAZING SPEEDS to my fourth gen iPod, while also fast charging it!
Ha! This is my intro to your content, and I am loving your style! Too funny! I feel sooooo old, though, having done video transfers before FireWire and thinking just how ever-loving magical FireWire really felt back in the day. And I, too, was an avid manual reader, cover to cover, always and forever, amen. Peace be with you.
@@harkeofficial Well, it didn't go unappreciated! I especially like parts where it's animated so it looks like an Apple Quicktime game. Made me want to go play some Oregon Trail II haha.
And here I am using Firewire to connect my audio interface to my PC / Hackintosh (and also my 2012 MBP if I wanted to). And yes, it works with Sonoma. Apple only dropped default device drivers. My interface comes with its own drivers hence why it still works.
I would suggest setting the XP machine up as an SMB share/enabling network sharing, as that standard is cross platform and doesn’t care about file system type
This is the type of stuff I live for! Messing with old operating systems and hardware, I did it with an Optiplex, Windows XP and Bryce3D to make the visuals for an art project, it’s a goofy set up but it works! I would love more old tech content from u, love ur editing style
The youtube recommendations have been super random for me in the past few weeks. It's mostly rubbish, but this channel has earned a subscription, because i like the topics. Greetings from Bavaria.
Feels like yesterday I was using windows 7 on my old computer... mainly because it was a few years ago. Windows XP brings back so many memories of using my nana's computer and watching old 2015 youtube.
I remember one video I did for a band, they asked for David Lynch on a busted VHS. A lot of the issues you faced were easy compared to the madness that was smashing up this colour grade/degrade hahaha. Really enjoyed this video. Your pacing tickled my brain, subscribed.
as insane as this is, i think i'd have gone the extra step to install the firewire card in my actual modern 2023 build. i'm insane enough to want a tape drive in my modern computer. loved this video, it was great! subscribed for sure.
YOOOO that was RAD! I really appreciate your commitment to exploring the tech of years past with genuine interest in learning / educating. I've learnedd a lot from your videos having grown up in the 2000s. I just really dig your vibe too
If you use a Updown Cross Converter from Black Magic you can upscale and restretch the video to 16x9 you'd need to convert to SDI to do that. A Black Magic Teranex depending on model would deinterlace and upscale to 4K. I've wanted to experiment with shooting anamorphic and transferring it to tape before I de-squeeze it.
Wow...thought I was the only freek still doing this...transferring videos back and forth to my dig8 and mDV camcorders via my fire wire and 20 year old pc...at least running on win7 32bit machine to be able to use Adobe premiere 6.5 This gives me so much satisfaction to see the results when you give a modern video that VHS "look" There are people out there spending everything to try to give their videos that "VHS" look. Modern day software just can not accomplish that. Love your channel.
I Have that exact same camcorder & I have also shot a lotta things with it!! super glad to see a resurgence of this era of tech, the look is unrivalled. I use a piece of hardware that uses VGA cables to directly port the tape & record it as an mp4, it's been a while since I've used it so i don't remember exactly what it is but if ur interested i will look back into it!
“Was this project worth it” hell yes! Not only the result looks fantastic. This is kind of retro tech escapades are 100% my jam. Thanks the algorithm for finally showing me a channel I like. I just subscribed.
Some of my older computers from back in the day had FireWire (IEEE1394) built in. I always though "Oh cool, maybe I'll use that someday."... That day never came. Even the DV cams I had back then didn't use Firewire. I did have an iPod back then, but I was a broke teenager and those iPod-Firewire cables were not worth the slightly faster file transfer speeds.
You likely didn't have a DV camcorder. There was very few DV camcorders that didn't have firewire, on the lowest end models. I imagine it gave them minimal savings, but was perhaps to prevent people buying them solely for firewire transfers. Sony called it "i.link" however, which may have caused some people to think it wasn't firewire.
Firewire is a goddamn nightmare. A few years back I tried to get a firewire cam working and ended up with about 20 different cables/adapters chained together. I don't think I ever even got it working. Also: 4:27 looool. Very tempted to sample that 'faint smell of y2k'.
People like to credit Apple for creating firewire, despite numerous other companies having significant input, in reality despite Apples big contributions they also caused it to not be widely adopted. They tried charging excessive fees to manufacturers, despite signing an agreement with Microsoft that they wouldn't - Intel in particular had enough, so dropped firewire & developed USB2 chipsets instead. If Intel built it into their chipsets it would almost certainly have been far more common.
As an IT person in the late 90s & early 2000s who got pegged as "the Apple guy" in the shop, I can't count how many times a Firewire cable and target disk mode saved the day.
I thought I was watching my "Watch Later" list, but when this video started I was like "That's not what I ordered", but it quickly turned into "Yk what, I'm not complaining". Nice vid
The only item I owned that had FireWire was a Sony DVD/DVR that I still own. It had the ability to transfer from a firewire capable camera then burn it to DVD.
thunderbolt to fw800 adapter still work and there are 800 to 400 cables for pennies on amazon. It's how I am still able to use my motu ultralite mk3 hybrid with my apple silicon Macs. Also the action retro guy can always be there to help you with similar adventures.
The Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 interfaces in my Windows 10 based studio are Firewire. You can pick up excellent used Firewire audio interfaces dirt cheap and they still work great. Also: great cameo by the Bernard Grob Basic Electronics textbook. Essential. Also, post from Craig Anderton, personal hero of mine.
I use four of them daily in my recording studio, chained together they work great, zero issues, use the legacy drivers, converting thunderbolt 3 on Windows 10 down to Firewire 800, 40 channels out down to a 48 channel analog mixing board.
i will always love people passionate about keeping old technology alive and i personally don't think it's a waste of time. so yes i think i will subscribe
oh for sure! I had an old FireWire card and a copy of Pinnacle 11 so I figured WHY NOT 😂 But then I ended up having to buy a new FireWire card anyway 🤦🏼♀️
6 years ago, I was still using my trusted Edirol FA66 audio interface. It was a great piece of hardware, which could do things, todays interfaces can't, like weird high sample rates etc. Then 6 years ago I got a new PC -> no FireWire. So I bought a FireWire adapter card ....and it was absolute hell to get it to work with the FA66 ... so I had to say goodbye to that good old hardware friend. It's sad, but it happens to all beloved hardware one day.
This is really fantastic, i love old tech, i was born in the late 70´s and there is something magical with tech around 2000:ish, Hi8 camcorders, computers reaching the 1Ghz territory and editing videos on the computer was really possible from now on, even on Mac´s. I would really like to buy a Handycam Hi8 camcorder and some working video editing for my XP computer, its a P4 3.2Ghz so its not crazy fast, but it is from 2004 so in that early 2000 ballpark. Then i have to export that edited video to a CD and import it to my modern MacBook so i can upload it to where ever i am thinking. my XP computer dont have any working browser for internet. Thanks for the video, i would want to see more like this..
Damn, I completely get the nostalgia in this video. I think I had almost the same Sony Digital-8 camcorder and used it to shoot goofy videos with my school friends. Luckily, TH-cam wasn't yet a thing in early 2000s. I used Pinnacle Studio to transfer, edit and copy the footage back to tape. Sold the camcorder some years ago to someone who wanted to backup their Video-8 tapes. Still kept the original tapes and I think even a PCI Firewire card somewhere, because you never know what it will be good for :D
I'm a professional filmmaker, and I've been using those for about 15 years just for fun. The solution to the madness of outdated technology is to get a laptop from that era, like a MacBook Pro from 2006. This is especially useful because you can record directly to tape if you're shooting on set. Some of those Macs will give you absolutely no problems.
Wait what? Noooo I've used the newest Final Cut Pro to import my DV tape footage through FireWire! Edit: Oh, Ventura.. idk why they did that. That's why I will never update past Monterey on my i9 MacBook lol.
I remember when my grandpa bought me MS visual basic 5 education edition. I was so proud of that big box, i read all the manuals front to back and watched all the videos on the educational companion cd. I don't think I have been excited about buying software in over a decade or even longer.
If anything, the problems have just gotten worse. Buy something new now and a year later, you can't use it because the latest version of Windows is required. And you can't get the latest version of Windows because the latest version of Windows is too new for your computer. Which is old because you've had it for more than a year. Still remembering the struggle for getting better picture quality. Digital8 and Mini DV wasn't a huge jump up from VHS and 8mm but it was the best we could do.
No, things are the same. Companies want your money and will make up "new standards" to sell you expensive adaptors, right Apple? USB is a naming mess, USB1, 2, 3, 3.1, 3.2 gen1. 3.2 gen 2. BUT they are backwards compatible at least. Same with PCIE and most of our ports. It isn't IEEE making it hard, they try to make it make sense.
I've used FireWire on relatively recent PCs, not just retro systems. They still work great on many systems, software support is the hardest part. It's the only way to losslessly (except for tape errors) transfer DV/MiniDV tapes to a computer. Haven't seen anyone try to send it back to tape in at least a decade though! 😂 WinDV, DVRescue, and Scenalyzer are amazing tools if you're trying to archive old tapes to computer.
Two quick comments - One, you could try to play with this using "anamorphic widescreen", which was a trick in the 90s and 2000s that DVDs did where a widescreen 16:9 video was smushed to a 4:3 aspect ratio, but the dvd player or TV would be able to stretch it back out. This was done to avoid black bars being encoded directly in the video stream, and to increase the resolution. Depending on what kinds of settings you have, you might be able to export it from the old software as anamorphic 4:3 into the camera, then record it from the camera in 4:3 again like you did, then in a modern editing tool, import the 4:3 from the camera and set the aspect ratio to 16:9. It should still look retro, but it will be in a widescreen format, rather than cutting off the frame of the video at the edges. Two, you could run a high-pass filter on your youtube uploads - with quality headphones on, there's a bit of high hiss / static. Great video though, really brings me back and makes me feel ways about stuff.
I had the SAME camera back then! So many memories. Thankfully I have all of the footage digitized thanks to transferring it back in the day. I used Sony Vegas back then.
This video was fascinating however something I want to point out is a frustration I dealt with in the 2000s when it came to do projects like this, imo Windows computers take a laborious amount of work to do any audio or video editing import or export duties, what would be very entertaining is to see you get your hands on a power Mac G4 and run an old school copy of final cut pro with all the bells and whistles that used to come in the software. If I recall out of the box final cut will do everything you needed to do
The only Firewire things I have are an Edirol FA-101 audio interface and M-Audio Ozonic keyboard audio interface. The former is brilliant if you play guitar and keys and need low latency, plus it looks cool IMHO and can work in Windows 10/11, although I use it with Win XP because duh....its the best OS ever! ☺😁 The latter I bought as it was very cheap, but sadly broke after only two weeks (apparently poor reliability is common for this brand); shame as its a great concept and well designed. My friend used to make quick fast network connections between his PCs with Firewire, and it was so much better than USB in every way.
Ah, memories. Actually I have a firewire 800 card not far from me right now, in my "Keep in case" box. I used it with my Drobo (Another retro thing!), before NAS and USB was "a thing". Funny how our perspectives of "fast" have changed - my current homelab setup would rival a whole 1997 small datacenter. Now I find 10Gb networks just passable. Personally I would use the tape footage sparingly, like an effect, and not smear it over everything; cut in and out of it when it makes an impact. Just me tho. I don't find DV footage triggers my nostalgia much - you want old-school go back to VHS! Analog was where it was at. (two turntables and a microphone).
I find DV is nostalgic because of the camera quality but not the tape quality. btw... Drobo went bankrupt so be careful using their equipment, if hardware or software stops working it can be nearly impossible to fix, and data recovery from an array can get expensive. Have seen too many people screwed by an OS update that corrupted the client-side software and left their data inaccessible.
@@QualityDoggo Oh, I haven't used the drobo for more than 10 years now - there's a limit to old tech, especially storage. That's why the card sits in a box, unused. I wonder if any modern OS still has drivers for it?
Great work. Still using FireWire in a DAW I built in '21 to run my PreSonus FireStudio Mobile audio interface, which works great, runs off of the FireWire power, has all the inputs I need (multiple computers, synths and consoles), fits in my hand and has a U/I with detailed controls that still runs just fine on Win10. Sometimes it's worth the futzing.
As a vintage Mac collector, I use FireWire a lot, and my 2010 Mac Pro has a FireWire 400 card. This is very useful for me, as the later cheesegrater Mac Pros only have FireWire 800. This also gives my Mac Pro some fun anachronistic PCIe expansion: advanced NVMe (2 TB 970 EVO Plus) in Slot 2 and USB-C in Slot 3, alongside antiquated FireWire 400 in Slot 4. I'm not sure if Apple has fully dropped support for FireWire in MacOS. My Mac Studio has an Apple Thunderbolt Display, running through a Thunderbolt 3-to-2 adapter, and the FireWire 800 port on the back is fully functional in 14 Sonoma. I also had success using a Thunderbolt 3-to-2 adapter with a Thunderbolt 2-to-FireWire 800 adapter.
I love this. Not only does physically going through all this trouble make it more worth while, but I think it looks better too. Maybe most people won’t notice, (and I usually just bounce to VHS and then back like you said you did) but that’s okay because WE retro engineers truly thrive on aesthetic.
Honestly, the only reason I want to do any of this is to have fun throughout the whole adventure and experience. Besides, it's fun reliving how I used to make videos and music back in the early 2000s, even if it is mostly pointless in 2024 :)
I remember being a kid, my dad bought a copy of PC-DOS version something... I read the manual whenever i got grounded and ended up learning a neat way to make a menu system using the config.sys and autoexec.bat. A bunch of games had some funny settings like Ultima 7 or Hi-Octane so having certain memory managers would either need to be enabled or disabled depending on what we wanted to play. I miss manuals, it's hard to read a QR code when I'm grounded nowadays.
i'm going to do something i never do, subscribe after first time seeing one of your videos which turned out to be a nice stress free change compared to everything else we're being bombarded with right now besides, who else is going to get excited over firewire, you even had me thinking about grabbing a card out the drawer and installing one too, well for a minute anyway...
sonys iLink plug has very tight tolerances. i also had issues back in the day when buying those transparent non sony cables that had firewire on one side and iLink on the other.. meanwhile apples 40pin to firewire cable was a pleasure to plug in and even had an interlocking mechanism on the iPod side
Very fun to watch! And congrats on the success of the transfer! I like the old school look! But if it was me I would experiment with mixing back a bit of sharpness around your face / eyes area maybe? See how that looks? Just a bit maybe. Or not.
Wow, I love your editing style! Especially that band-passed and aliasing audio lip-synced to your pixelated cut out. That’s exactly the kind of stuff I used to do in like 2009. (Also at first I thought your mic arm was on that tiny tripod and I got very confused!)
Wow I used the same camcorder in your video. It was my very first video camera I own. My dad brought it for me. It introduced me to new hobby "making home video / shortfilm" since I was teenage. So much memories with this camera. I also always capture videos with firewire. I use Sony Vegas Pro in that time in my school. You can press capture directly in the software, it will communicate with the camera itself, so no need to press play before capture. I love that Vegas Pro seperate video into clip as I press record - stop record so I have clips as I shot, which helps a lot while editing. I think for now the best way to get the best picture/audio possible from camcorder is to use video I/O for example Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini connect over SDI with miniDV player such as SONY HVR-M35E. It may be overprice but you will get the best out of it.
I had a firewire audio interface way back then when I had the only macbook I had (the classic 2007 one) aka the Pre USB 3.0 era ! It was great back then !
File transfers over network is pretty easy with windows and mac. Baffling how USB sticks still work kinda poorly on mac though, it's like the last thing you expect from a product line thats supposed to be easy to use. That said, I can definitely see how burning a CD fits perfectly into your channel's theme, I just thought I would mention networking :)
Great video. There is a good free program for sony camcorders called Stoik that let’s you record minidv tapes to your computer together with a firewire card. I actually bought one for amazon and it works in a modern computer (then just make sure it’s a PCI-E card, not PCI). Although, you might have to download a legacy driver for the card.
i recently installed a firewire card in my daily PC, windows 11 picked up the drivers, installed miniDV (which iirc was meant for windows XP) and i was able to preserve all my tapes from my samsung VP-D31i :D
Honestly, to me the full quality 4K version looks just like you'd expect a modern music video to look. Looks pretty good. But the Digital8 version looks like it's actually from the early-mid 2000s, which makes it look like a professional and expensive music video that you'd probably see on MTV. I'm imagining flipping on MTV to get some background music while I'm working on an assignment for school, and getting distracted watching this music video. So I don't think it was pointless, it gives the video a new context, gives it a different feeling. It's another example of how making something "look worse" can actually improve it. And to me, that makes it worthwhile.
I miss when MTV was just videos 🥹 Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I do think I’m overall happy with the outcome 😁
I had an older I7 Macbookpro 2014 that i used to use to get footage from my PDW700 with an XDcam disc it worked flawlessly.
That computer broke and I got a M1 and now nothing.
Thanks Apple.
@@thedave7760They make a thunderbolt to FireWire adapter…although, at this point, it’s probably best to find a more future proofed alternative considering FireWire has been out of date for over a decade and a half now. I’ve been using thunderbolt since around 2011 and it was and still is an absolute game changer for using any kind of serious external equipment.
You could also get a video capture card, or if neither the adapter or capture card is something you like, just look for a used 2012-2013 MacBook Pro, and you can use it just for the FireWire. You can find them super cheap and they last forever.
My gosh, that tape transfer clip has more artifacts than a history museum.
I'd still call this a win.
I think putting it back on the computer with the S-Video cable actually “helped” with the “look” 😆
@@harkeofficialYes, actual Firewire would likely have looked way too clean - SD, but still digital.
@@Marc42yep. if there's no damage the transfer should be lossless -- FireWire is actually the only way to do this, USB is simply not designed for this style of transfer
I love your entire style, it's so nostalgic. I know exactly what you mean about the excitement of buying a box of software. I was 14 when I convinced my mum to buy me some editing software called Magix, and it was such a major upgrade from windows movie maker. I also remember spending hours watching my dv tape transfer the footage via firewire, it was so exciting!!
I never used their video editing software, but I quite literally learned how to produce music using Magix Music Maker, back in 2003/2004. I LOVED that software! I actually have a video in the pipeline featuring Magix 😄 Thank you for sharing your story!
@@harkeofficial oh man I also remember making music in the magix music software too! I remember putting a load of the preset loops together and it totally changed to the game for my amateur movies haha!
I actually have a FireWire card installed in my modern gaming rig. Currently has an audio interface plugged in.
I put one in my rig I built at the start of this year. My USB Audiobox had started to make popping sound through my monitors, which is most likely the electrolytic capacitors at the end of their service life. Since I had an M-Audio FireWire 410 sitting unused in a drawer, not enough spare cash for a new interface but enough for a FW card, the choice seemed simple. Getting the drivers for the M-Audio to work with Windows 10, was far from simple, though. But I can now also expand my storage with some aluminium external HDD enclosures (again sitting unused in the drawer)each with active cooling and fresh 3.5" drives installed, all daisy-chained to the spare FW port.
that's what I was hoping this video would be a guide to honestly. I have an Avid Mbox Pro (3rd gen) that has just been a stand for one of my speakers for about 5 years because I can't connect it but the actually inputs in it are way higher quality than anything I've bought to replace it since.
@@the_panos I'll see if I can dig up the info on which card I bought (I'm also using an Mbox) -- failing that, I'll boot up after work and get the info out of Device Manager
@@the_panos HP Hi349-2
What is it useful for in the 2020s?
The tape gives off the "I recorded my favorite music video off of MTV!" vibes.
Loved the video. The “algorithm” finally got you to me. Quick fun fact. One thing that made FireWire so much superior to USB back in the day isn’t just the speed. It took several revisions of USB before it could transfer data both directions simultaneously. That’s why FireWire was so much better for audio and video. It didn’t have to interrupt the data stream to send acknowledgment packets, telemetry, and control data back to the host. I worked in recording studios back in the day and all the audio interfaces were FireWire or they had their own PCI interfaces. It was super revolutionary at the time. 😊
It was hot swappable too! No need to power off like SCSI.
Just so everyone is aware you can still install a firewire card on a new desktop along with legacy IEEE-1394 drivers. Then all you need is WinDV and/or HDV Split.
Yep. At least on Windows 10 capture still works great.
WinDV to capture
DVRescue to find errors
Scenalyzer to split by timestamp
@@QualityDoggo win 11 also works.
Thank you, Nick and Doggo. This will be my Christmas project this year and that's an important tip.
@@Nitidus no problem, this is part of my work. If you need any help just reply and I will probably see it.
The usual method for DV(including Digital8) video was to copy to the computer in DV format (the same as how it was sent back from the pc to the camera here) - giving *exactly* the same data on your computer as on the tape, ie: no loss in image quality.
The DV encoding(which was designed for editing) also means that unchanged sections of video won't be recompressed after editing and saving the edited video / sending to the camera in DV format again. It should also be less taxing on older computers, though the files are bigger.
As DV was so common, a ton of editing applications(free or paid) did and often still do support it.
The old, tiny, free application(which still works with modern versions of Windows) WinDV is one way to copy DV from/to the camera for example.
Windows 10 & 11 still support firewire.
With the process shown here it started as DV, was converted to mpeg2, edited, all video was converted back to DV, with losses in each conversion - albeit perhaps not much.was degrading quality, and obviously still better than the s-video capture (though that's partly due to the cheap capture device, others can be significantly better.)
"maybe you like wasting hours of your life for results that were shot on potato" my sister in christ, as a huge lgr fan, I demand you print at least one good cd jewel case insert on a 30 years old laser colour printer for your album
Oh, my dad has one of those handicams. When my parents went on vacation to Vegas for a week, he kept me busy by tasking me with getting it hooked up to a PC so we could get the footage off of our old mini DV tapes. I ended up having to order a double-ended mini firewire cable and drag out my bright pink Dell Inspiron from 2008, lol.
I was sold after the Brave Little Toaster reference. I have a firewire card in my modern NAS to transfer music and podcasts at BLAZING SPEEDS to my fourth gen iPod, while also fast charging it!
Ha! This is my intro to your content, and I am loving your style! Too funny! I feel sooooo old, though, having done video transfers before FireWire and thinking just how ever-loving magical FireWire really felt back in the day. And I, too, was an avid manual reader, cover to cover, always and forever, amen. Peace be with you.
I love the vibe of this video! It's so effortlessly fun but at the same time looks like it was hellacious to edit together.
Thank you so much! I kept creating more work from myself, because every five minutes I thought of a new thing I should add to the video 😅😂
@@harkeofficial Well, it didn't go unappreciated! I especially like parts where it's animated so it looks like an Apple Quicktime game. Made me want to go play some Oregon Trail II haha.
And here I am using Firewire to connect my audio interface to my PC / Hackintosh (and also my 2012 MBP if I wanted to). And yes, it works with Sonoma. Apple only dropped default device drivers. My interface comes with its own drivers hence why it still works.
I knew I was in for a nostalgia trip but like DAMN, I'm pretty sure I had that EXACT case back in the day
I would suggest setting the XP machine up as an SMB share/enabling network sharing, as that standard is cross platform and doesn’t care about file system type
That would work, also XP has support for exFAT, KB955704. Windows 11 would probably run that software. Is PCIe retro now?
This is the type of stuff I live for! Messing with old operating systems and hardware, I did it with an Optiplex, Windows XP and Bryce3D to make the visuals for an art project, it’s a goofy set up but it works!
I would love more old tech content from u, love ur editing style
This is all the shit I used in my 20's in the late 20's and not one bit of it sounds fun to use any more, lol.
The youtube recommendations have been super random for me in the past few weeks. It's mostly rubbish, but this channel has earned a subscription, because i like the topics.
Greetings from Bavaria.
thank you so very much! 🙏
this is amazing wow👏
Feels like yesterday I was using windows 7 on my old computer... mainly because it was a few years ago.
Windows XP brings back so many memories of using my nana's computer and watching old 2015 youtube.
I remember one video I did for a band, they asked for David Lynch on a busted VHS. A lot of the issues you faced were easy compared to the madness that was smashing up this colour grade/degrade hahaha. Really enjoyed this video. Your pacing tickled my brain, subscribed.
Ah, it has all the qualities of a 30mb .mov clip that you used to download for hours and hours on a dial-up modem.
My prized possession was a clip I downloaded of 3D Homer Simpson. It took like 6 hours in the 90s 😂
Then someone picks up the phone at 99%
I'm pretty sure that's considered an excuse for murder in some countries.@@barowt
I enjoyed watching that but I found it funny about the editing at some part and I really had fun watching that!
thank you SO MUCH FOR WATCHING! I was trying to keep it fun, hopefully it'll get better as I go 😅
@@harkeofficial can you put a tutorial of a bitcrusher?
@@AsterixLiangVEVO yes I can make a tutorial in a future video, hopefully soon!
I used pinnacle studio so much, this was an incredible trip of nostalgia I didn't expect.
so happy I found your channel, as a fellow musician, videographer and vintage tech geek :D
as insane as this is, i think i'd have gone the extra step to install the firewire card in my actual modern 2023 build.
i'm insane enough to want a tape drive in my modern computer. loved this video, it was great! subscribed for sure.
Don't give me crazy ideas!
“The faint smell of Y2K” LOL. The computer build segment gave me “The Screensavers” vibes if anyone else remembers that TechTV show 😅😁
YOOOO that was RAD!
I really appreciate your commitment to exploring the tech of years past with genuine interest in learning / educating. I've learnedd a lot from your videos having grown up in the 2000s.
I just really dig your vibe too
If you use a Updown Cross Converter from Black Magic you can upscale and restretch the video to 16x9 you'd need to convert to SDI to do that. A Black Magic Teranex depending on model would deinterlace and upscale to 4K. I've wanted to experiment with shooting anamorphic and transferring it to tape before I de-squeeze it.
Wow...thought I was the only freek still doing this...transferring videos back and forth to my dig8 and mDV camcorders via my fire wire and 20 year old pc...at least running on win7 32bit machine to be able to use Adobe premiere 6.5 This gives me so much satisfaction to see the results when you give a modern video that VHS "look" There are people out there spending everything to try to give their videos that "VHS" look. Modern day software just can not accomplish that. Love your channel.
I Have that exact same camcorder & I have also shot a lotta things with it!! super glad to see a resurgence of this era of tech, the look is unrivalled. I use a piece of hardware that uses VGA cables to directly port the tape & record it as an mp4, it's been a while since I've used it so i don't remember exactly what it is but if ur interested i will look back into it!
“Was this project worth it” hell yes! Not only the result looks fantastic. This is kind of retro tech escapades are 100% my jam. Thanks the algorithm for finally showing me a channel I like. I just subscribed.
The HD version is nice, but the Tape Transfer one is definitely my favourite. It's more tonally consistent with the material. Worth it!
loving the retro looking versions 😊 totally worth it!
thank you so much!
love your channel , I grew up with all these things, just when home computers and the internet were becoming a thing in homes in the 90's
Some of my older computers from back in the day had FireWire (IEEE1394) built in. I always though "Oh cool, maybe I'll use that someday."... That day never came. Even the DV cams I had back then didn't use Firewire. I did have an iPod back then, but I was a broke teenager and those iPod-Firewire cables were not worth the slightly faster file transfer speeds.
You likely didn't have a DV camcorder. There was very few DV camcorders that didn't have firewire, on the lowest end models. I imagine it gave them minimal savings, but was perhaps to prevent people buying them solely for firewire transfers.
Sony called it "i.link" however, which may have caused some people to think it wasn't firewire.
I am binging your vids right now, they are so great! Just chock full of all that retro goodness that we miss today! 🎉
Firewire is a goddamn nightmare. A few years back I tried to get a firewire cam working and ended up with about 20 different cables/adapters chained together. I don't think I ever even got it working. Also: 4:27 looool. Very tempted to sample that 'faint smell of y2k'.
I had a lot of fun with FireWire back in the day, but it is indeed a nightmare 😅
Awesome vid! I also use firewire with my older audio interface :D
Yeah, I'm all in for this content. It's like we lived in the same time period.
the end result looks great, digital 8 is so cool
thank you!!
FireWire was ridiculously better than USB at isochronous transfers and never should have gone away.
People like to credit Apple for creating firewire, despite numerous other companies having significant input, in reality despite Apples big contributions they also caused it to not be widely adopted. They tried charging excessive fees to manufacturers, despite signing an agreement with Microsoft that they wouldn't - Intel in particular had enough, so dropped firewire & developed USB2 chipsets instead. If Intel built it into their chipsets it would almost certainly have been far more common.
Great.
This is my new favorite channel now. The humor and subject matter could not be more up my alley.
I loved and still love reading physical manuals. I read so many computer manuals, troubleshooting guides, and programming from them.
The final result reminds me of early 2000s flash FMV videos, still a cool nostalgic effect that you can now produce accurately
this truly was an episode of crazy harke's amazing emporium of total retro madness !!
As an IT person in the late 90s & early 2000s who got pegged as "the Apple guy" in the shop, I can't count how many times a Firewire cable and target disk mode saved the day.
I thought I was watching my "Watch Later" list, but when this video started I was like "That's not what I ordered", but it quickly turned into "Yk what, I'm not complaining". Nice vid
The glorious jank. Incredible, truly.
The only item I owned that had FireWire was a Sony DVD/DVR that I still own. It had the ability to transfer from a firewire capable camera then burn it to DVD.
Firewire is oldskool and retro? Damn! 😮
Later versions are actually quite competitive with USB2: 1394a, half-duplex 100-400 Mbit/s (12.5-50 MB/s); 1394b and later, full-duplex 800-3200 Mbit/s (100-400 MB/s)
I was like... A retro computer has PCIe slots?
@@Marc42 Firewire was released in 1995, USB 2.0 in 2000. They weren't competing standards; I don't get your point.
Cool video. Brought back a lot of memories. I don’t really even use computers anymore. I do everything on my phone. Burning a CD…freaking classic
thunderbolt to fw800 adapter still work and there are 800 to 400 cables for pennies on amazon. It's how I am still able to use my motu ultralite mk3 hybrid with my apple silicon Macs. Also the action retro guy can always be there to help you with similar adventures.
I have all the adapters, and used my Mac to upload footage for years, but they stopped working completely when I updated to Sonoma ☹️
@@harkeofficial which is why mojave is the best macOS version. 32bit app support (90% of mac games), still runs great on non metal gpus
I am also miserably sick, but this video was still a lot of fun. I'd love to see more stuff like this
The Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 interfaces in my Windows 10 based studio are Firewire. You can pick up excellent used Firewire audio interfaces dirt cheap and they still work great. Also: great cameo by the Bernard Grob Basic Electronics textbook. Essential. Also, post from Craig Anderton, personal hero of mine.
I use four of them daily in my recording studio, chained together they work great, zero issues, use the legacy drivers, converting thunderbolt 3 on Windows 10 down to Firewire 800, 40 channels out down to a 48 channel analog mixing board.
I see you all the time on Tiktok! More content like this please. I've been loving old tech lately so anyone making content on it is A+ to me
i will always love people passionate about keeping old technology alive and i personally don't think it's a waste of time. so yes i think i will subscribe
You could’ve just encoded it to DV with ffmpeg or something but where’s the fun in that? Congrats on the new series 😁
oh for sure! I had an old FireWire card and a copy of Pinnacle 11 so I figured WHY NOT 😂 But then I ended up having to buy a new FireWire card anyway 🤦🏼♀️
Thank you for doing the things that must be done.
6 years ago, I was still using my trusted Edirol FA66 audio interface. It was a great piece of hardware, which could do things, todays interfaces can't, like weird high sample rates etc. Then 6 years ago I got a new PC -> no FireWire. So I bought a FireWire adapter card ....and it was absolute hell to get it to work with the FA66 ... so I had to say goodbye to that good old hardware friend. It's sad, but it happens to all beloved hardware one day.
This is really fantastic, i love old tech, i was born in the late 70´s and there is something magical with tech around 2000:ish, Hi8 camcorders, computers reaching the 1Ghz territory and editing videos on the computer was really possible from now on, even on Mac´s. I would really like to buy a Handycam Hi8 camcorder and some working video editing for my XP computer, its a P4 3.2Ghz so its not crazy fast, but it is from 2004 so in that early 2000 ballpark. Then i have to export that edited video to a CD and import it to my modern MacBook so i can upload it to where ever i am thinking. my XP computer dont have any working browser for internet. Thanks for the video, i would want to see more like this..
Damn, I completely get the nostalgia in this video. I think I had almost the same Sony Digital-8 camcorder and used it to shoot goofy videos with my school friends. Luckily, TH-cam wasn't yet a thing in early 2000s. I used Pinnacle Studio to transfer, edit and copy the footage back to tape. Sold the camcorder some years ago to someone who wanted to backup their Video-8 tapes. Still kept the original tapes and I think even a PCI Firewire card somewhere, because you never know what it will be good for :D
I really like the tape transfer version. I think ideally, you would mix the two somehow.
Cool vid!
I'm a professional filmmaker, and I've been using those for about 15 years just for fun. The solution to the madness of outdated technology is to get a laptop from that era, like a MacBook Pro from 2006. This is especially useful because you can record directly to tape if you're shooting on set. Some of those Macs will give you absolutely no problems.
This brings me back to my teens, in the early 2000's.
Crap, I never want to be a teenager again . 😅
Love the reminder of good tech memories thu 😊
Wait what? Noooo I've used the newest Final Cut Pro to import my DV tape footage through FireWire!
Edit: Oh, Ventura.. idk why they did that. That's why I will never update past Monterey on my i9 MacBook lol.
I remember when my grandpa bought me MS visual basic 5 education edition. I was so proud of that big box, i read all the manuals front to back and watched all the videos on the educational companion cd. I don't think I have been excited about buying software in over a decade or even longer.
If anything, the problems have just gotten worse. Buy something new now and a year later, you can't use it because the latest version of Windows is required. And you can't get the latest version of Windows because the latest version of Windows is too new for your computer. Which is old because you've had it for more than a year.
Still remembering the struggle for getting better picture quality. Digital8 and Mini DV wasn't a huge jump up from VHS and 8mm but it was the best we could do.
No, things are the same. Companies want your money and will make up "new standards" to sell you expensive adaptors, right Apple? USB is a naming mess, USB1, 2, 3, 3.1, 3.2 gen1. 3.2 gen 2. BUT they are backwards compatible at least. Same with PCIE and most of our ports. It isn't IEEE making it hard, they try to make it make sense.
tape transfer actually looks awesome!!
Even in 2016 my high school av department was still using mini dv cams, fcp7, and FireWire. I don’t miss it
I've used FireWire on relatively recent PCs, not just retro systems. They still work great on many systems, software support is the hardest part. It's the only way to losslessly (except for tape errors) transfer DV/MiniDV tapes to a computer. Haven't seen anyone try to send it back to tape in at least a decade though! 😂
WinDV, DVRescue, and Scenalyzer are amazing tools if you're trying to archive old tapes to computer.
Two quick comments - One, you could try to play with this using "anamorphic widescreen", which was a trick in the 90s and 2000s that DVDs did where a widescreen 16:9 video was smushed to a 4:3 aspect ratio, but the dvd player or TV would be able to stretch it back out. This was done to avoid black bars being encoded directly in the video stream, and to increase the resolution. Depending on what kinds of settings you have, you might be able to export it from the old software as anamorphic 4:3 into the camera, then record it from the camera in 4:3 again like you did, then in a modern editing tool, import the 4:3 from the camera and set the aspect ratio to 16:9. It should still look retro, but it will be in a widescreen format, rather than cutting off the frame of the video at the edges. Two, you could run a high-pass filter on your youtube uploads - with quality headphones on, there's a bit of high hiss / static. Great video though, really brings me back and makes me feel ways about stuff.
Un proyecto encantador lo que buscaba, saludos desde Perú!!!.
I had the SAME camera back then! So many memories. Thankfully I have all of the footage digitized thanks to transferring it back in the day.
I used Sony Vegas back then.
Pointless but perhaps entertaining tech escapades are my JAM!
This is epsiode is really impressive and I forgot Firewire was a thing. Good to see how the old tech works :D
This video was fascinating however something I want to point out is a frustration I dealt with in the 2000s when it came to do projects like this, imo Windows computers take a laborious amount of work to do any audio or video editing import or export duties, what would be very entertaining is to see you get your hands on a power Mac G4 and run an old school copy of final cut pro with all the bells and whistles that used to come in the software.
If I recall out of the box final cut will do everything you needed to do
The only Firewire things I have are an Edirol FA-101 audio interface and M-Audio Ozonic keyboard audio interface. The former is brilliant if you play guitar and keys and need low latency, plus it looks cool IMHO and can work in Windows 10/11, although I use it with Win XP because duh....its the best OS ever! ☺😁 The latter I bought as it was very cheap, but sadly broke after only two weeks (apparently poor reliability is common for this brand); shame as its a great concept and well designed. My friend used to make quick fast network connections between his PCs with Firewire, and it was so much better than USB in every way.
This was really cool. Thanks for doing that. Love your voice.
I loved this. Keep up the randomness.
Ah, memories. Actually I have a firewire 800 card not far from me right now, in my "Keep in case" box. I used it with my Drobo (Another retro thing!), before NAS and USB was "a thing". Funny how our perspectives of "fast" have changed - my current homelab setup would rival a whole 1997 small datacenter. Now I find 10Gb networks just passable. Personally I would use the tape footage sparingly, like an effect, and not smear it over everything; cut in and out of it when it makes an impact. Just me tho. I don't find DV footage triggers my nostalgia much - you want old-school go back to VHS! Analog was where it was at. (two turntables and a microphone).
I find DV is nostalgic because of the camera quality but not the tape quality.
btw... Drobo went bankrupt so be careful using their equipment, if hardware or software stops working it can be nearly impossible to fix, and data recovery from an array can get expensive. Have seen too many people screwed by an OS update that corrupted the client-side software and left their data inaccessible.
@@QualityDoggo Oh, I haven't used the drobo for more than 10 years now - there's a limit to old tech, especially storage. That's why the card sits in a box, unused. I wonder if any modern OS still has drivers for it?
Damn, I’m sold!
On your channel I mean. Not this process, that’s for sure.
:D
Thanks. That was delightful.
This has an ungodly amount of charm, so good
hehe thank you!
Great work. Still using FireWire in a DAW I built in '21 to run my PreSonus FireStudio Mobile audio interface, which works great, runs off of the FireWire power, has all the inputs I need (multiple computers, synths and consoles), fits in my hand and has a U/I with detailed controls that still runs just fine on Win10. Sometimes it's worth the futzing.
As a vintage Mac collector, I use FireWire a lot, and my 2010 Mac Pro has a FireWire 400 card. This is very useful for me, as the later cheesegrater Mac Pros only have FireWire 800. This also gives my Mac Pro some fun anachronistic PCIe expansion: advanced NVMe (2 TB 970 EVO Plus) in Slot 2 and USB-C in Slot 3, alongside antiquated FireWire 400 in Slot 4.
I'm not sure if Apple has fully dropped support for FireWire in MacOS. My Mac Studio has an Apple Thunderbolt Display, running through a Thunderbolt 3-to-2 adapter, and the FireWire 800 port on the back is fully functional in 14 Sonoma. I also had success using a Thunderbolt 3-to-2 adapter with a Thunderbolt 2-to-FireWire 800 adapter.
My grandma collected little spoons from different states or countries, she thought it was cool so that was good enough for the rest of the family.
I love this. Not only does physically going through all this trouble make it more worth while, but I think it looks better too. Maybe most people won’t notice, (and I usually just bounce to VHS and then back like you said you did) but that’s okay because WE retro engineers truly thrive on aesthetic.
Honestly, the only reason I want to do any of this is to have fun throughout the whole adventure and experience. Besides, it's fun reliving how I used to make videos and music back in the early 2000s, even if it is mostly pointless in 2024 :)
@@harkeofficial I’m 100% our 13 year old selves would think we are so cool now. That’s the only persons I’m trying to impress.
@@PatrickMacCready YES!!! 13 year old me would LOVE all this 😆
I remember being a kid, my dad bought a copy of PC-DOS version something...
I read the manual whenever i got grounded and ended up learning a neat way to make a menu system using the config.sys and autoexec.bat. A bunch of games had some funny settings like Ultima 7 or Hi-Octane so having certain memory managers would either need to be enabled or disabled depending on what we wanted to play.
I miss manuals, it's hard to read a QR code when I'm grounded nowadays.
i'm going to do something i never do, subscribe after first time seeing one of your videos which turned out to be a nice stress free change compared to everything else we're being bombarded with right now besides, who else is going to get excited over firewire, you even had me thinking about grabbing a card out the drawer and installing one too, well for a minute anyway...
That's quite an honor!! Thank you!
sonys iLink plug has very tight tolerances. i also had issues back in the day when buying those transparent non sony cables that had firewire on one side and iLink on the other.. meanwhile apples 40pin to firewire cable was a pleasure to plug in and even had an interlocking mechanism on the iPod side
Wait what, how come you've only got 4k subs?? This is top tier content?
Thank you so much! I’m already getting started on episode 2 🫡 Shooting for every other week for now!
@@harkeofficial We'll all be here for the 5k special 😳
@@harkeofficialretro PC'S? Count me subbed.
Very fun to watch! And congrats on the success of the transfer! I like the old school look! But if it was me I would experiment with mixing back a bit of sharpness around your face / eyes area maybe? See how that looks? Just a bit maybe. Or not.
I loovveedd this, can't wait to see what else the Emporium has in store!
Wow, I love your editing style! Especially that band-passed and aliasing audio lip-synced to your pixelated cut out. That’s exactly the kind of stuff I used to do in like 2009.
(Also at first I thought your mic arm was on that tiny tripod and I got very confused!)
Wow I used the same camcorder in your video. It was my very first video camera I own. My dad brought it for me. It introduced me to new hobby "making home video / shortfilm" since I was teenage. So much memories with this camera. I also always capture videos with firewire. I use Sony Vegas Pro in that time in my school. You can press capture directly in the software, it will communicate with the camera itself, so no need to press play before capture. I love that Vegas Pro seperate video into clip as I press record - stop record so I have clips as I shot, which helps a lot while editing. I think for now the best way to get the best picture/audio possible from camcorder is to use video I/O for example Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini connect over SDI with miniDV player such as SONY HVR-M35E. It may be overprice but you will get the best out of it.
I had a firewire audio interface way back then when I had the only macbook I had (the classic 2007 one) aka the Pre USB 3.0 era ! It was great back then !
File transfers over network is pretty easy with windows and mac. Baffling how USB sticks still work kinda poorly on mac though, it's like the last thing you expect from a product line thats supposed to be easy to use. That said, I can definitely see how burning a CD fits perfectly into your channel's theme, I just thought I would mention networking :)
Oh my gosh there's this song called firewire and I didn't realize I need it back in my life now.
Great video. There is a good free program for sony camcorders called Stoik that let’s you record minidv tapes to your computer together with a firewire card. I actually bought one for amazon and it works in a modern computer (then just make sure it’s a PCI-E card, not PCI). Although, you might have to download a legacy driver for the card.
i recently installed a firewire card in my daily PC, windows 11 picked up the drivers, installed miniDV (which iirc was meant for windows XP) and i was able to preserve all my tapes from my samsung VP-D31i :D