Wanted: DV cross converter
 

This may be an odd request because I feel like most of this forum is geared toward consumer formats, but maybe a video pro is among this group that will see this. Anyway, I'm looking for a DV converter from SDI to FireWire. I have some Panasonic DVCPro footage and decks that just have SDI. FireWire on DVCPro was an after thought. Sony DVCAM decks won't play Panasonic DVCPro footage via FireWire. I'm seeking something like a Canopus/Grass Valley ADVC-1000 or Miranda DV Bridge+. DataVideo also made something, but I don't know the model number (DAC-something I want to say) There may be others too.

Important note: There is a Miranda DV Bridge without the "+" that was just a YUY to FireWire converter. I'm not interested in one of those.

I don't see why a DVCPRO deck doesn't have a firewire port, What models do you have? Converting DVCPRO to SDI inside the deck and back to DVCPRO outside the deck is not a good idea, Though I don't know much about DVCPRO.

Lack of Firewire on a DVCPro deck is very odd. All the Panasonic DVCPRO decks I worked with in college had Firewire as thats what we used to transfer footage to the Macs in the lab. We were using MiniDV tapes, but the decks were the fancy ones that took multiple tape sizes without an adapter. In terms of output, its DV video regardless of tape size and type. The DVCAM deck not outputting DVCPro via Firewire seems like an artificial limitation.

Either way, SDI capture devices are readily available these days for reasonable prices. I'd go that route if needed.

I have a Panasonic AJ-D95, one of the "shoebox" type decks. I had a Blackmagic DeckLink Mini Recorder, but didn't like that I couldn't simply capture (or rather copy) a DV-AVI from a tape using WinDV or VirtualDub. I had to use BM's capture software where I could only capture lossless. It seems only once DVCProHD came out FireWire became more common on decks.

I have seen shoebox type DVCPro decks with all kinds of bastard configurations of inputs and outputs, some with no digital ports at all, just composite and/or S-Video as well as RS-232, of course. Since analog NTSC broadcast was composite, decks were made in the early years of the format that could simply be dropped in the existing workflow at stations across the country. SDI and IEEE-1394 cards were optional.

And yes, Sony DVCAM decks not outputting Panasonic DVCPro footage via FireWire exactly is an artificial limitation.

Those ports look like composite to me, But if you are sure are SDI and you were able to transfer the footage to computer using MediaExpress then that's the best option ever, Lossless AVI can easily be de-interlaced and encoded to H.264 in 4:2:2. There is no need to seek an intermediate ancient format like DV where sooner or later you will be forced to convert it to H.264 or H.265 due to the unavailability of the hardware that can playback DV.

Whether it's the case for these VCRs I don't know, but variants of SDI can carry various compressed formats directly as well.

Probably not the old SDI equipment, Old SDI carried lossless SD and HD, Now we have newer codecs so I don't know what the standards are for SDI but I know one thing that SDI is all about lossless, compressed or not that I don't know.