What is the modern solution for backing up MinDV tapes?

[Videogamer555]

MiniDV tapes are used in camcorders that have a Firewire output. This is because the MiniDV tapes actually store digital data like a computer disk, and the Firewire output is a digital connection. Unfortunately no modern computers have Firewire ports (or at least none that I can find on Google searches). One solution people seem to use is putting the tape in their camcorder and playing it back over an analog video cable into a USB video capture dongle. This is a lossy conversion though, due to first converting it to analog and then back to digital. Any analog signal is a lossy medium for sending data. So that's unacceptable for me.

I was wondering if anybody has yet made a USB device that is designed for the specific purpose of backing up MiniDV tapes. If such a device existed it would simply be a small device with a slot to put the MiniDV tape, and a USB cable going out the back. You would then be able to just push the play button (either a physical button on the device, or an on-screen button in the computer software that operates the device from the PC side) and it would send the DV video stream from the tape over the USB cable, and you would use software on the PC side to record the stream into a file (either a raw DV stream file with the file extension .dv, or an AVI file as the container with the file extension .avi).

Yes, I know that when it comes down to the technical details that the Firewire connection is a stream oriented connection, while the USB connection is a packet oriented connection. This is probably why MinDV camcorders only output the DV stream over Firewire cable, while the USB cable is only used to access the content of the memory card (which usually contains ultra-low quality video files with a resolution no larger than 320x240). However, if a decicated USB device was built for the specific task of backing up people's MinDV tapes, a workaround could easily be done. The electronics in the device could packetize the DV stream from the tape (chop it up into packets) and send those over the USB protocol. Then on the PC side, all you'd need would be a driver and software for operating this MinDV backup tool.

Unfortunately, I can't find such a USB based MiniDV tape backup tool. Do you know if any such tool was ever made? If so, what's it called, and where can I buy one?



(note to moderators: Please don't delete this. I know it's a duplicate, of another post, but I originally posted this in the Capturing section, but then I realized it's a better topic for the Media section, so I posted here now. If you delete one of the posts, please delete the one back in the Capturing section)

[dellsam34]

I've answered your other thread, no need to make multiple threads, you can always ask the mods to move your thread to the right section.