Bit of a silly question maybe, but can somebody please confirm that
you can WRITE to a Mini-DV camcorder from a Mac?

Googling has taught me that it is commonplace to read from the
camcorder over firewire, but I haven't actually been able to find any
mention of sending video from the Mac to the camcorder.

I'm not a Mac or Mini-DV user, but I want to buy a gift for somebody
who is.

Thanks,
Chris

PS if you have opinions on the relative merits of Panasonic PVGS320 vs
Canon ZR850 vs Sony HR28, I'd welcome them.

"Chris" wrote ...
I'm not a Mac user, but I can't imagine that Macs do not
have the capability of writing DV out through the Firewire
port.

OTOH, note that recording from Firewire is NOT something
that EVERY DV camcorder will do. Many (most? all?)
camcorders in much of the PAL-territories do not work
as "recorders" because VCRs have some extra tax or tarriff
which would increase the cost of the camcorder. Maybe
someone from the EU or OZ, etc. can update this info?

Most NTSC camcorders are likely to support recording,
but I would double-check before buying some amazing
bargain gadget.

I work with an FCP post house on a regular basis and get mastered miniDV
tapes from them all the time so the answer is yes.

Mike


Chris wrote:

On Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:22:29 -0800, "Richard Crowley" <rcrowley@xp7rt.net>
wrote:

That's only in the EU.

-m-
--
Official website "Jonah's Quid" http://www.jonahsquids.co.uk

"Mike Kujbida" <kXuXjXfXaXm@xplornet.com> wrote in message
news:5r1vjgF123emeU1@mid.individual.net...
After helping my 6th grade granddaughter to edit several class project
videos, I thought it was time for her to try it on her own. She has a
Mac-mini. She used I-Movie. The project turned out great, but neither she
nor I could find a way to export the movie file back to the camera. The
camera does have VTR capabilities and records through its IEEE1394 port from
Vegas on a PC. Does anyone know if I-Movie can export to tape?

Steve King

On Nov 27, 10:11 am, "Steve King"
<steveSPAMBL...@stevekingSPAMBLOCK.net> wrote:

Steve, I just spoke to a buddy who's used I-Movie before and he's
pretty sure it's "burn to DVD" only :-(

Mike

"Mike Kujbida" <kujfam@xplornet.com> wrote in message
news:831a3c8a-39b1-4594-a865-1b0333347a03@d21g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
That's what I came up with as I dug down in I-Movie. I think there will be
an external DVD Burner under the tree on Christmas day. The work-around we
came up with was to render to a large MP4 and burn that as a data file to a
CD-ROM. I then loaded that file into Vegas and rendered to MP2 for burning
to DVD. Bit clunky, but for a school project it worked fine. She did a
great job with her first solo edit.

Steve King

On Nov 27, 11:55 am, "Steve King"
<steveSPAMBL...@stevekingSPAMBLOCK.net> wrote:

All she cares is that it worked and Grandpa's now her hero :-)

Mike

On Nov 27, 10:48 am, Mike Kujbida <kuj...@xplornet.com> wrote:

export and it will give you options like write to QT or DVD. The first
and primary option is "Export to Camera". That is the main way one
should archive finished projects, burn to DVD for distribution, but
always keep a back-up on tape. There is a new version called iMovie8,
that I hear is dumbed down, so maybe that one doesn't let you write to
tape. In that case get a version of iMovie6.

Dave

<davesvideo@aol.com> wrote in message
news:51fea3b1-c56f-4aba-80f3-dd91f17bac9d@i29g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
Dave, thanks for that. Someone else told me the same thing; however, I did
not find those options in the version of iMovie on my granddaughter's Mac
Mini. Being a PC guy, how would I go about finding iMovie6?? And would
there be problems in installing it over iMovie8?

Steve King

On Nov 27, 3:05 pm, "Steve King"
<steveSPAMBL...@stevekingSPAMBLOCK.net> wrote:

I hear that there is so much dissatisfaction with version, 8 that
Apple is offeering a free version of iMovie 6HD for those who purchase
iLife 08. I would think the Apple web site would tell you how to get
it. I think that you can install it in it's own folder and run
independent of Imovie8 and once it is working, trash version8. In
spite of the nomenclature, it is aparently not considered to be an
upgrade, but rather a new product with only the name in common. In my
opinion iMovie2 and QT4 were the best, the later versions are much
more user friendly, but lack some of the flexibility, and to run those
much older versions, I believe you need to have the old operating
system.

Dave

Chris wrote:
Yes, you sometimes can, but perhaps not the way you expected. When A dvd
camcorder is connected to a computer via firewire or USB2 the
computer sees the DVD player as a disk drive - so you can
exchange files but not raw video. S/w (such as NERO) can be used
to prepare the files on the computer HD, then burn it on a blank DVD.

On Nov 30, 12:13 pm, Rick Merrill <rick0.merr...@NOSPAM.gmail.com>
wrote:

But the question was about a *mini-DV* recorder, not a *mini-DVD*
recorder. And the answer is that given the proper software, one should
be able to write back to the digital tape. Unfortunately, the latest
version of iMovie seemes to have dropped this capability.

Dave