Firewire vs. S-Video recorder quality for capturing miniDV Tapes
As mentioned in a previous blog post, I spent all of Tampa Pro 2021 walking around filming with a Canon GL1 rather than taking still shots with a DSLR. This was the first year where I didn’t take a single shot at SPoT with my DSLR and rather filmed 100% of the time.
When I got back into town after Tampa Pro, I figured capturing my footage was going to be a breeze. I still have a 2012 Mac Mini with a Firewire port that has never been used. Unfortunately, the iOS on my Mac Mini lagged, causing crazy audio to video syncing issues, glitched capturing, and many other simple issues. Ideally, I wanted to capture to my brand new 2021 Macbook Pro, just so I don’t have to transfer the footage to a hard drive, just to transfer it again. However with only TWO!! USB-C ports, I figured it wasn’t going to be that easy.
Originally, I settled on a VHS recorder to transfer my miniDV tapes. However, the quality was subpar and the audio, especially in high noise situations, seemed blended together and just like a bunch of jumbled mess.
After some research, I found out that after buying two different dongles for my new Macbook, it is possible to capture via Firewire with no issues. Other than my Sunday Tape randomly cutting capture during David Reyes’ run, both tapes came out perfect. The quality that the Firewire port produces is drastically better than the VHS recorder. First and foremost, the audio quality is PERFECT. It is the amazing audio quality you expect from a camera with an external mic such as the VX1000 or GL1. There are moments on the Sunday tape during runs where you can clearly and cleanly hear the sound of a grind or skateboard landing on the ramp. The video quality is crystal clear, and in perfect 4:3 ratio, rather than the slightly bigger and dragged ratio the VHS recorder produced.
If you stumbled across this post and are curious to the quality comparison, here are two videos below. The top video is Firewire Quality while the bottom is VHS recorder quality.
