Hi All,
Just thought I'd share something I'm using now which hopefully helps others.
Problem:
I'm a Mac user - I'd been using the firewire out from a miniDV camera and DV deck to a thunderbolt adaptor and into the MacBook Pro. Final Cut Pro or iMovie allow importing, but it has a very frustrating bug which I suspect will never be fixed - the last file is always left out.
Also, another issue is some miniDV tapes that have a problem where a long clip is constantly split into 1-3sec clips. the importer seems to think it's another clip. so you end up with thousands of 3 sec clips which even when assembled in a timeline, there are a few frames missing in-between each clip.
Bad Fix/Solution:
Using the included AV cable with the handycam, and capturing that analogue signal. Which would increase losses from Digital>analogue>digital conversion.
Final Solution:
I went out on a limb and purchased a Canopus/grass valley ADVC-1000 which is a bi-directional DV-SDI converter.
I like the fact it keeps it a digital signal along the path, and the SDI cables are quite nice to work with, a clean solution and you can run the cables longer.
I use the tiny Blackmagic Mini Recorder which has both SDI and HDMI input, connected to the computer via thunderbolt.
So far it works really well! I'll see If I can add some samples here.
The Canopus is very noisy, it has a horrible blower fan in there that I'd like to replace. The rear DC barrel connecter is an obscure one where the male is a sleeve + pin design. I couldn't find a replacement so I just replaced the female connector on the PCB to a standard 5.5mm design.
the power switch was also not working, which was replaced with a almost perfect match from
ebay (alps SDL1P-A TV-3 on-off panel mount power switch 4A 250VAC 2pi Dh) I just had to modify the bottom pins to fit in the PCB.
They seem pretty cheap - only around 70USD 2nd hand.
Only downside is you don't get the metadata associated with the DV clips.
Photo attached of the unit (with some tape holding the power button in when it was broken!)