deciding on laptop to best capture minidv , Hi8 and HDv video tapes

[peterellen]

After looking into this I decided to buy an old laptop with a wirefire connection. Already have
a mini dv camera with firewire and will search for Hi8 and HDV with firewire ports also.
I have been adviced to try to by a windows xp. I have had difficutly dinding one which has a firewire port
and enternal cd drive. I do not want to edit on the old laptop I hope to buy. I want to only capture then put
tapes onto dvd and transfer to my present laptop to edit in adobe elements .

I want to know do I need to have a windows xp or can I use a windows 7 for example to be able to capture
fotage or maybe I am going the wrong way about everything. It seems complicated to me to install windows xp .
Any suggestions, advice would be great,
Peterellen

[usually_quiet]

You can use a laptop running Windows 7 to capture DV via ia firewire connection. If the laptop has an ExpressCard slot but no actual firewire port, there are ExpressCard 1394a FireWire adapter cards available.

Sometimes Windows 7's default firewire driver doesn't work well and you need to manually install the "1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller (Legacy)" driver provided with Windows 7 to get firewire working as it should but that isn't hard to do.

[Edit]You will need a DVD drive for storing DV because DV files are large. DV requires 13.5 GB per hour of video.

[dellsam34]

There are tons of threads with the exact same quest, No need to buy any laptop, your current one works fine, Just get a device like in the link, I'm running it on my Wind 10 laptop with ScenalyserLive:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/396471-help-with-capturing-dv-footage-from-sony-ha...am#post2577576

[babygdav]

The pinnacle above is a great solution I didn't know about, app worth the look.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pinnacle-Ssystems-PCI-Card-Callisto-REV-7-0-51011615-500-USB-...AAAOSw8vZXNCB1
Wow! Only $35!

https://www.ebay.com/c/1101270436
$40 for the 700

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Fyi: for the future, People had said the pinnacle is getting hard to find, so if a laptop with firewire is all you need, Thinkpads (P, W, T, R series from years ago had these ports. Same with MacBooks.)

Eg Lenovo ThinkPad T530 Intel Core i7-3740QM 2.7GHz 8GB 256GB SSD NVidia 1920x1080

You can find cheaper ones.

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Laptops with card slots can use firewire adapter cards.

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[dellsam34]

For a laptop the 500-USB external is the best, small foot print and USB powered, It may however requires USB 2.0 port not USB 3.0, I couldn't get mine to work on USB 3.0.

[peterellen]

Thank you everyone , I always learn somthing from these forums,
peterellen