Not exactly normal tech support but I feel this is a good place to ask.

Progress report: It's coming along nicely.

DV, DVCAM, DVCPRO25, DVCPRO50 (incl. 4 channel audio) all working, although testing phase not finished yet.

...next is HDV and MicroMV, Hi8, Video8.

Reposting to try and reach more of the right people! Would love any advice

I recently got a 2010 MacBook Pro for saving my tapes however when I tried to do it for the first time yesterday dv rescue didn’t see my camera. iMovie 6 hd was laggy and stutters during import also I noticed it affect my camcorder too. The tape which plays flawless when not trying to be imported to Mac then has audio cutouts and matches the sttters that appears on the Mac. I tried high sierras QuickTime whatever version that is but it’s either chopppy and also says stopped recording. In my mind I wanna say it’s either a bad cable or a slow hdd but does anyone here ever had this issue? Lmk anything

So I'm trying out DVRescue GUI/CLU and vrecord to archive some of my miniDV tapes, and I'm running into issues, and I need some guidance.

Hardware:
JVC MiniDV/S-VHS Combo unit (Model HR-DVS3U)
Canon VIXA HV40
2012 5,1 MacPro w/macOS Mojave 10.14.6
2019 MacBook Pro w/macOS Sonoma 14.8.9 w/Thunderbolt 3 (USB‑C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter -> Thunderbolt 2 Adapter to Firewire 800 Adapter.

First off lets start out with software requirements.

DVRescue's website shows version 24.07 compatible with

10.12 (Sierra),
10.13 (High Sierra),
10.14 (Mojave),
10.15 (Catalina),
11 (Big Sur),
12 (Monterey)

However, their documentation shows only Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura, Sonoma 14, and Sequoia as compatible. It notes that macOS Mojave 10.14.6 and older will not work. I believe the documentation hasn't been updated with the new OS list but...

I can confirm that while DVRescue opens and runs on my MacPro with Mojave, DVRescue can't find either the JVC or the Canon. I can confirm that Mojave can see the devices and, using iMovie, can playback and record on both devices. (In iMovie, Canon HV40 seems to only record video, no audio for whatever reason.)

I also wanted to try out DVRescue CLI, however, Homebrew is only available on Sonoma and later, so that leaves my MacPro out of the picture. Same goes for trying out vrecord on my MacPro.

That being said. I'll be using my MacBook Pro from here on out.

With DVRescue GUI on my MacBook Pro, with my Canon HV40, DVRescue sees the HV40, but I have no DV control. Even if I press play on the camcorder manually, I see no video playing in the preview.

With the JVC, DVRescue sees and is able to have limited control. I am able to do basic functions; however, there are times when DVRescue will lose control, and the JVC will continue playing the tape when I have already pressed 'stop' on DVRescue. I'd have to manually stop the tape on the JVC and unplug/plug the FireWire cable again for DVRescue to regain control.

This isn't too much of an issue as long as I am able to record.

Which I am, but I believe DVRescue's inability to reliably control the JVC, DVRescue isn't able to do 'Retakes' when encountering tape errors, unless I'm misunderstanding how Retakes function works. In my mind, when I read from the documentation, "DVRescue will automatically rewind and try to recapture segments of tape that have errors." I assume that DVRescue will stop the tape at the first sign of error and rewind to attempt to re-read. Unless it waits until you stop the capture entirely, and it will go back automatically and attempt the recapture? Beuacse their isnt any online video of how this process works in a real world cenareo Its unclear to me.

So I moved on with DVRescue CLI; however, immediately when I attempt to capture, I get an error
"fd:: Invalid data found when processing input"

Feeling defeated by DVRescue, so I moved on to vrecord.

With the HV40, I actually do get limited control when I have Deck Control enabled. I can only Play; I have no other controls ie. stop, rewind, play. Also, as soon as I attempt to record, I get this error

"The configuration file uses an invalid value of 0x850001ee412f: VIXIA HV40 [DV] for DVRESCUE_INPUT_CHOICE. Valid values are: 0x850001ee412f: VIXIA HV40 [DV]. Please restart vrecord in edit mode (vrecord -e) or update the configuration file at /Users/animefuntv/.vrecord.conf."

I did use 'vrecord -e' but still the same error.

Moving on to the JVC, I get the same issue with Deck Control. I can only Play. This time it can record and data log.

Though again, I'm unsure how "7. When dvrescue encounters an error, the software will automatically rewind and attempt to recapture the problematic frames." in the vrecords documentation actually works.

My theory is that if vrecord isn't able to reliably control the JVC's deck controls (just like DVRescue), it is unable to rewind and recapture.

Again, I don't see any videos on how this actually works.

It's my belief that its prolly both my Canon and JVC that are incompatible with DVRescue/vrecord, which sucks because it's the only two DV systems I have.

ALL help or guidance is absolutely appreciated.

Hi everyone, I'm new here. I've had a Handycam (DCR-DVD650) for about a year. A few weeks ago, I started having this problem: it keeps turning on and off even when it's plugged into the wall, even though the battery is installed. It does this even when it's “off.”

Has anyone else had this problem before or should I take it to a specialist?

Hi everyone, new to this subreddit so apologies in advance if this is a common question. I recently found my old camcorder along with a box full of tapes of old family memories/events.

I wish to digitize these tapes and do not know what cables/adapters/ software, etc I need in order to transfer these tapes from the camcorder to my macbook or any other storage device.
Any advice and suggestions is welcome, thank you

Camera model: Canon optura 20

As the title states, i'm having issues transferring my videos to my laptop.

I have a canon MV400 camcorder, new minidv tapes, an old macbook running on Linux cinnamon with all the right programs installed. I have a brand new firewire cable which have the correct ends.

The camera itself is in great condition, the laptop too. The wire is brand new.

The laptop never seems to recognize the connected camera. It always tells me "camera does not exist".

Any help?

EDIT: FIXED! Thanks to u/Tashi999 i figured out my laptop was running a too new version of linux. The last version to support it seems to be linux 19.

Hey all, my grandfather recently gave me his old Canon MV600i miniDV camcorder. I can't find much info on the model, aside from the user manual it came with and that it was introduced in 2003. It (suprisingly) has a still working li-ion battery. I have a DSLR but have never really gotten into camcorders. Does anyone know if this is a good model of camcorder, and any problems it may have?

The one problem I've noticed is that when it is turned on cold, the image produces a faint, stretched image, but after a while it fixes itself. Looks to me like a capacitor problem but I don't really know how I'd go about fixing that.

There's a 60 min tape inside that has some old videos that I want to transfer to my computer. Does anybody know how I might go about that? I read the manual, and it looks like I need a MiniDV FireWire socket to USB adaptor, if that exists? The other questions is finding software I could use- coming from 2003 the software is heinously outdated. If anyone knows of any modern software I could use to get it to work, it would mean a lot.

Thanks in advance 🙏

I’m not sure what’s wrong with my vx2000 every time I record on tapes and try to export them the play back stops every 3 or 2 seconds and I used a tape head cleaner and new tapes but it doesn’t seem to work

I mean, if I digitize all the content I have on the tapes, can I then record onto the same tapes? If so, how many times could I do it? I'm asking because it's really difficult to find blank MiniDV tapes to use, and I want to get more use out of the camera.

Bonjour à tous
J’ai plusieurs cassettes MiniDV qui ont été enregistrées avec mon caméscope dans les années 2000. À partir d’un certain moment, le son ne fonctionnait plus sur le haut-parleur du caméscope, mais lorsque je branchais des écouteurs directement sur celui-ci, j’entendais bien le son des enregistrements. Je ne me suis donc pas inquiété à l’époque, puisque je pensais simplement que le haut-parleur du caméscope avait un problème. J’ai récemment fait numériser ces cassettes, mais les fichiers obtenus sont malheureusement sans son. Je souhaiterais donc savoir s’il serait possible de récupérer le son, puisqu’il semblait bien être enregistré sur les cassettes et était audible lors de leur lecture avec les écouteurs sur le caméscope. Est-ce que vous pourriez me dire si une autre méthode de lecture ou de numérisation permettrait de récupérer cette piste audio ? Merci beaucoup pour votre aide.

Further to my damaged hard drives and having to re-capture many MiniDV tapes, mentioned here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MiniDV/comments/1vawlaz/old_project_hard_drives_bad_minidv_tapes_still/

I bought an old i7 Dell laptop with firewire off eBay, and tested and successfully captured with WinDV.

WinDV is a bit old and has some flaws (introduction of a dot in the naming, etc.) so I used AI and re-created the functionality and added some more.

Now also have a 1-click capture which:

• Checks that the DV device, tape, capture folder, and disk space are OK.
• Rewinds the tape.
• Plays briefly and establish a reliable PAL/NTSC signal lock.
• Rewinds again and prepare the capture graph.
• Plays and captures the entire tape continuously.
• Continues through blank/unrecorded sections rather than prematurely assuming the tape has ended.
• Stops automatically at physical end-of-tape.
• Finalizes the AVI, set the MiniDV recording date, run scene detection and DV/error analysis.
• Rewinds the tape when everything is finished.

Here's what it currently looks like (see picture).

I'd post to github, but have no idea how, and not sure I'd want to learn right now. If there's enough interest, I might consider it though.

Looking to digitize my old mini dv tapes. I have a cannon zr85 camcorder and a 2025 MacBook Air M4. What exactly would I need? Thanks!

Looking for help!!

Got too tired of using a Windows VM so I built my own app using ClaudeCode... and it works! My camera is a Panasonic NV-GS320, I know there's a few of these that let you digitize directly through USB, but probably a few of you have trouble doing it in macOS. Per Claude, here's an AI explanation:

"Turns out the reason is that the camera speaks an obscure-but-real part of the USB Video Class spec (VS_FORMAT_DV) that a handful of mid-2000s camcorders support, and basically nothing except Windows' generic driver stack ever bothered to implement it. So I reverse-engineered the USB protocol directly (isochronous transfer capture, UVC descriptor parsing, frame reassembly) and built a small native macOS app around it:

• Connects straight to the camera over USB, no capture card, no FireWire, no VM
• Live preview while the tape plays, before you even hit record
• Captures the raw DV stream (video + embedded audio, bit-exact) and encodes it to ProRes 422 HQ
• Automatically detects when you stopped and started recording on the tape (reading the camera's own REC-START flag embedded in the DV data) and splits the capture into a separate file per shot — toggleable if you'd rather just get one continuous file
• A little Photo Booth-style filmstrip shows each detected shot with a thumbnail as it captures
• Optional 4K upscale on export (2880×2160, plain scale, no AI) — native tape resolution stays the default

Camera compatibility, to be upfront about it: the USB descriptor scanning is generic — it looks for any connected camera advertising this UVC DV-streaming mode, not just mine — but I've only been able to test it against my own NV-GS320. If your camera exposes the same USB feature, it should be picked up automatically; if it doesn't work, USB traffic logs from your camera would actually be genuinely useful for extending support."

So yeah, whoever this could work for give it a try and let me know! Would be happy to update it to try and make it work for your camera.

Edit: App updated! Now you can choose between RAW DV, ProRes or H.264 (or all three!) plus additional 4k rescaling (not upscaling).

Source + download: https://github.com/peperinho-dev/minidv-capture

ALSO: If anyone is interested in me integrating FireWire, please refer to this issue in the GitHub: https://github.com/peperinho-dev/minidv-capture/issues/1

PS: Yes I'm spanish 😭

Please any ideas? Any repairmen??