DVX-100 resurrect with direct to disk/drive?

[machineager]

Hello!

I own an old DVX-100 that was my pride and joy 15+ years ago. This question is NOT about all my old tapes.

My question is whether there's now any tech that would allow me to use this camera and record directly out of the firewire port to some modern drive or disk?

Basically, I am wondering if there is way to bypass the tape and go directly to some modern digital storage system - in real-time. I love this camera, but hate miniDV tapes and then having to capture those tapes.

To be clear, I want to be able to do this with the camera (and some attached digital capture/storage device) so that I can be out in the field shooting direct to the capture/storage device. So I'm not talking about some desktop system where I'd need have the DVX-100 connected to my modern macbook.

DVX-100>>>SD Card/Drive>>FILE>>>edit in FCPx. (no tape)

Is there any such modern device that will save my DVX-100 from living alone forever in its pelican case?

Can my dreams come true?

THANKS!

[BW37]

Interesting camera I knew nothing. Some searching led me to some possible "state of the art at the time" solutions. But you may already know of these...

Discussion on the subject.

Link from it to "Quickstream" devices.

All the info is out of date of course, but maybe a Quickstream would suffice or can be upgraded if needed to be the more "modern digital storage system" you seek.

It looks like Datavideo also made devices that could do this most have "DN-" model numbers. The DN-60 and 70 look the most portable but have drive size limitations. There are other model numbers in the 100's that have replaceable drive modules but they look less portable.

Someone is selling some Quickstream units on eBay at this time.

Hope this is useful...

BW

[machineager]

THANKS! I had not seen those and will investigate them. Really appreciate your help.

There are these things too: https://www.amazon.com/ClearClick-Video-Capture-Box-Ultimate/dp/B09S8R5PVH/ref=sr_1_5?

But, it's unclear to me whether this would work for converting my DVX-100 into a digital recorder. The DVX only has a firewire output (not HDMI), but I have seen cables that are firewire on one end and HDMI on the other, so at least I could connect this all together.

I just don't have enough tech know-how to know whether this would work. I would think that with all the old cameras in the world, that there would be lots of info on "how to turn your old DVX-100 or other miniDV recorder into a direct digital capture device" or somesuch. The fact that I cant find anything on this, makes me think that its not technically doable. People could buy old DVX100s for $200 and have a killer digital film camera, if this could be done.

Thanks again.

[lordsmurf]

ClearClick are problem devices with awful quality. Worst of all, vastly expensive compared to the best cards.

Do not buy.

[latreche34]

What all that hack back in the day did was just bypass tape, It has nothing to do with quality, DV footage recorded to tape then transfered to hard drive in real time, or recorded to an external HDD then work from the same HDD on computer only saves time, DV is still DV, Honestly who would shoot DV nowadays when 4K cameras are available? I get the nostalgic feeling and "artistic look" but there are better camcorders out there, it's a fact.

The clearclick thing if analog, it just records the analog output of you camcorder, even worse than DV. There is no passive firewire to HDMI converter, all of them are bulky powered signal processors, You will be better off with a tiny tape hidden inside the camcorder if you don't mind an extra step of tape transfer than two extra devices duct taped to the camcorder so you can bypass the tape.

[BW37]

latreche34's comments are worth considering. No matter how you record with it, the best your nice old camera will do is to provide nice "old" video, ie. high quality SD NTSC in DV25 codec with all of it's limitations (720 x 480 resolution, compression artifacts, 4-1-1 color, etc.). Other than avoiding the time consuming transfer from tape to PC, doing anything with that video will require the same processing that your old DV tapes require to make it viewable on modern devices. If you understand that process and want to create new video with that look, great, go for it, but understand the limitations.

Before you spend money on alternative recording devices, you might want to record some new video to DV tapes and go through the effort of processing the video through to a usable form.

BW

[machineager]

Thanks for all your info and advice. Yeah, I'm torn. Some of my favorite documentaries were shot on a DVX-100 and they look fantastic to me even today. It's really hard for me to just let this perfect camera sit and rot, when I paid several thousand dollars a decade ago and it was cutting edge then. But, I agree that dealing with the footage is a PIA. I never understood the "pulldown" hassles and its been years since I editted any of my old taped footage, because I recall what a hassle it was. I guess I was thinking that FCPx is now 10+ years older than when I last used it with my DVX-100, and that if I could avoid the hassles of tape by going straight to disk, I could then edit it in FCPx and have the best of all worlds -- cool vintage look, plus easy downloading to computer and editing.

Truth is, that i can probably get 90% of the look (?) shooting with my iphone and NDF filter and quick download to FCPx. Still... kills me to just let my DVX gather dust.

Thanks everyone!