Mini DV to flash drive

[gejodi]

Hi all hope to get some answers! First let me apologize if I repeat this question. I have recorded many recitals, plays etc through the years all on mini dv. My sony trv900 is broken and am thinking about getting it repaired so I can attempt to transfer the 60 minute tapes to my computer which I will eventually like to put on preferably usb flash drive or dvd. I believe I can do this with the firewire port on the sony. I truly am a noob but am computer literate and so my questions are as follows: what software is needed to make this transfer to the computer and then to the usb flash drive or dvd? I don't intend to edit the tapes just to preserve them and get them on different media. I would pay for the transfer but I have so many it would not be cost effective Do I need to convert these tapes first to a different format? I have tried to get info on the net but came up empty! So I would truly appreciate any help even if its just a source to read the how to. I am using 64bit win 10 with 16gb ram 2tb hdd with an i7 5930k processor.

Thanks
gejodi

[redwudz]

I still use WinDV for firewire transfers.

You can save the transfers as DV, but that takes up about 13GB per hour of video.
But I would still keep them in that format even if you need to buy some external hard drives.
Best quality that way for archival purposes.

From there you can convert the DV to DVD or MKV, or whatever format you want and put that onto a DVD or a flash drive or even a Blu-ray data disc for more storage room.

Others here can probably give you more info.

And welcome to our forums.

[gejodi]

Thanks Red for your help.....I am not sure though if windv will work with windows 10. Do any other programs come to mind for simple transfer via fw without any editing? Seems it should be simple but not for this novice!

[smrpix]

The only thing that would stop WinDV from working on Windows 10 is missing firewire port drivers. If you're computer savvy you shouldn't have any trouble finding the ones for your system -- and Win10 seems to be better in that regard than Win7. It doesn't get any simpler than WinDV. best of luck.

[gejodi]

Thanks guys I will go with windv. I do have a follow up....most of my videos are an hour or more ...if the capture is greater than 13 gb then I cant put it on a flash drive formatted at fat 32 correct? because of the 4gb file restriction. and ntfs is not compatable with all players....any work arounds for this other then storing on dvd? I really wanted to keep on flash drives

[jagabo]

if the capture is greater than 13 gb then I cant put it on a flash drive formatted at fat 32 correct? because of the 4gb file restriction.

That's correct. Though WinDV has a "split" option so you could capture as multiple <4GB files.

and ntfs is not compatable with all players....

No player (other than software on a computer) plays DV anyway. There's a sample you can try in this post:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/326496-file-in-Virtualdub-has-strange-colors-when-o...=1#post2022085