MiniDV DVCAM DV lost memories

Here at Radio Retro we had a dilemma. Like many others who captured their family’s precious moments on video in the 1980s, 90s and early noughties, before mobile was a thing, we have a problem — incompatible upgrade hell. This post looks at some attempts to replay and transfer old videotape to modern formats and the traps Apple Inc. and other tech companies have put in place to prevent you.

How do you playback those boxes full of Fuji 8mm or Sony DV premium video tapes?

Plan A – Sony DSR-11

Way back in the day I rarely considered how technology’s endless media upgrades renders itself obsolete. I was happy to jump naively on the bandwagon and buy the next gadget gizmo without considering the consequences.

Well that’s not quite true. Soon after we replaced our Canon 8mm analogue camcorder with Canon’s shiny digital MV500i,  I used the MV500i’s handy analogue composite video input to transfer the memories from 8mm to DV tape. My thinking was a digital backup would age better than analogue.

Unfortunately, a few years later when I found the MV500i in its cosy padded carry case, it refused to rewind tapes – note to self – always rewind tapes when you finish playing them! The older Canon 8mm also refused to play without severe video tearing that could be persuaded to disappear with a gentle knock. I found this out after hitting the Canon in frustration!

We had several boxes of video tapes of family memories and no way to view them. I guess many others do too. We put the tapes on a shelf or in a cupboard, thinking it will be nice to see them when the we get older. But the tapes need a player and as I’d found we can’t rely on the video camera to function after several years asleep. Custom camcorder batteries die or get lost and their rubber belts and pulleys perish.

I’d seen and used professional Sony DV kit when I was with BT Rich Media in mid noughties, so was familiar with how the units worked. With a much better build quality than the consumer or pro-sumer variants, I searched eBay for a more reliable machine to playback the DVCAM tapes.

A ‘professional’ Sony DSR-11 soon arrived and promptly ate three DV tapes and displayed some cryptic ‘professional’ error numbers. Fortunately it regurgitated the tapes, so at least I could thread the crumpled tape back onto their reels. And yes, I did let the Sony warm up and check the transport and head counters were in the reasonable territory before the feeding frenzy.

Being ‘professional kit’ also means a hard life and this one was knackered, so I sent the DSR-11 back and put the DV project on the shelf for a plan B.

Plan B Sony HVR-Z1E

With our wedding anniversary approaching I decided plan B should involve a sourcing a local machine to see it working before wasting time and money on shipping thrashed out machines. Plan B involved buying a replacement DVCAM recorder, so at least we could use the device to record more video after its work was done transferring the DV tapes to the MacPro.

I located a Sony HVR-Z1E complete with case, battery and charger. This professional camcorder was capable of recording 1080i along with standard DV so it ticked the boxes.

The HVR-Z1E arrived and after warm up and a quick setup, I inserted one of our DV tapes. It played. And it rewound. All looked good. It even came with an iLink / Firewire cable to plug into a computer.

We had an early 2009 MacPro that had been ungraded to dual Xeon 6 core with SSD and 48GB memory that seemed ideal for video editing. I tried to plug the Firewire connector in to the MacPro’s front sockets. It would not fit and neither would it fit in the rear sockets. I’d forgotten about Apple’s desire to render interfaces obsolete as quickly as possible! All the MacPro’s sockets were Firewire 800 not the Firewire 400 that has been supplied with the Sony and I’d last used.

Undaunted, I dusted off a PowerMac G5 that has been stored under my desk for years. We’d bought the G5 back in the early noughties to run Adobe’s publishing collection for client work, which together with the G5 had cost the price of a small family car. (I jest about the cost, but it was not far off). I could not bare to part with the G5 as the design was outstanding inside and out. In fact, from the outside, the 2009 MacPro looked almost identical next to the PowerMac. The G5 had Firewire 400 and the Sony plugged straight in. Up popped iMovieHD and I could control the HVR-Z1E to import the footage. Wow.

Yes, the MacOS was way out of date but it still worked even if Apple had decided its life should have ended long, long ago.

What could possibly go wrong?

iMovieHD did its thing and soon I had imported two DV tapes. One was a native digital recording from 2003 and the other, our wedding,  was a transfer from an earlier 8mm tape. Unfortunately this was a transfer from VHS tape, which was copied from an original 8mm wedding tape long since lost – Chris do you still have it I wonder?

As the G5 was sadly lacking in horse power and disk space compared to the MacPro I copied over the iMovie folders to the MacPro.

Unfortunately I’d ‘upgraded’ the MacPro to El Capitan at some time and it refused to run iMovie. I looked for an upgrade but Apple had decided it was obsolete and was not available unless I upgraded the macOS. Unfortunately, the early 2009 MacPro that had cost an arm and a leg was also obsolete and Apple would not let me update it. Hmmm, note to self, don’t let Apple grind you down and give in!

As you may have seen from Radio Retro’s other posts, we do try to preserve old technology and avoid needless replacement, save the planet and well, feel good. Apple, like so many large corporations only want to sell you more stuff or endless subscriptions to put your assets in their cloud and forever pay the privilege to access them. I’m only bitter because I did not think of doing it first.

Google provided a solution to a copy of iMovie 9, even available as a download from Apple, that runs on El Capitan without needing to upgrade. It’s not simple to just download and install the update though. But YouTube provides an answer where a very helpful lady guides you though the hoops and rabbit holes Apple has placed to try and prevent it being installed easily.

With iMovie now running on the MacPro I try to open up a project from the G5’s iMovieHD. After some time, iMovie 9 shows the two events, 2003 and 2021, along with dozens of thumbnail clips. When I say dozens I mean hundreds. Something has been lost in translation – it’s as if each frame is now a clip. iMovie 9 tries to play the clips but decides to turn some thumbnails upside down (yes upside down) just for fun. I wonder if Apple’s developers decided to write some playful code for those that bypass its end of life ‘upgrade’ policy?

I decide to order a Firewire 800 / Firewire 400 cable to plug the Sony in directly to the MacPro. Maybe iMovie 9 will capture directly. After a week the cable arrives and soon I’m transferring some more DV tapes using iMovie 9. It obviously takes real-time to do this so I switch screens and carry on other office duties while the Sony does its thing.

A mistake. When I try to play back the events I find iMovie 9 has decided to change the speed in some clips so the video looks like a 1920s comedy movie where everyone is walking at pace.

I try again, using the manual import rather than auto, watching the start to check the import looks correct. After a few minutes I leave it only to return to find the import had stopped. I try again and a blue screen appears with the dreaded ‘Communications error’. So I try quitting iMovie and the problem persists, I try disconnecting the Firewire and recycling the Sony.The problem persists. Each attempt to import from iMovie or QuickTime reports no camera is connected.

Next day, I decide to try again, first connecting the Firewire cable then switching on the Sony to VCR then starting iMovie. Import works again and the Sony plays back some footage. But I notice pixelated video and soon the import stops playing. What could be wrong? Maybe the Firewire 800 / 400 cable has fractured with repeated connection and disconnection. I fire up the ageing G5 and connect the Firewire 400 cable. iMovieHD recognises the Sony and it imports the same video with ease.

Firewire 800 should be backwards compatible with the 400. The IEEE 1394 spec was adopted by Apple, Sony and others for high speed data transfer. Was this an early failure of a new lead as I suspected or a software issue with the data speed difference between the 4pin Firewire 400 Sony side or the 9 pin Firewire 800 Apple side?

I figured I needed a reliable data connection to the MacPro so here’s what I tried:

• Check and cleaned the MacPro’s front  Firewire 800 sockets: – no improvement
• Try the MacPro’s rear Firewire 800 sockets using the suspect cable: – no difference
• Buy another Firewire 800 9pin to Firewire 400 4 pin cable: – this worked proving the first cable I bought was faulty!

Note to self – don’t pick the cheapest cable available and read the reviews! (Obvious but when you’re in a rush it’s what happens…)

Death of a thousand cuts

With the replacement cable I tried a new manual import from the wedding DV tape. iMovie started the Sony HVR-Z1E and the video played. Reviewing the import I discovered instead of a 60 minute run iMovie had split the video into hundreds of sections. It attempted to create thumbnails for each, which took ages, switching between timelines. The import was useless.

I checked import settings looking for a way to control scene detection. I found nothing. It seems the multiple copies made from the original VHS video tape were causing a frame sync that triggered iMovie to interpret each as a new scene.

I was stumped and needed a simple way to capture the Sony’s video output – I lost faith with Apple.

Plan C Panasonic DMR-EX77 to the rescue.

I remembered we had an old Panasonic DVR with a DV firewire input. Maybe I could hook up the Sony to record directly without a computer? The Panasonic’s 160GB hard drive was full of TV programmes so would need sorting. It had been part of an AV setup in our den, which back in the day provided a 5.1 Dolby surround sound experience via a Yamaha RX-V530RDS Natural sound receiver. This together with a Paradigm sub and a later Panasonic Blu-ray player provided endless entertainment for our teenager and his friends with Star Wars and Harry Potter rumbling through the house.

The original Panasonic DMR-EX77 had been out classed by Blu-ray and relegated to standby, just routing the TV signal through and showing time of the day! Fortunately I’d not sold it off. Its Firewire interface required a mini 4 pin plug, just like the Sony DVCAM, so I searched through the box of leads looking for something suitable.  With nothing found, I ordered a 4pin/4pin IEEE firewire cable from eBuyer.

Could third time be lucky? Panasonic’s user interface is basic but allows many different combinations of source and destination for playing and copying titles. I plugged in the Sony and up popped a helpful dialog asking if I wanted to auto record from DV. I accepted but if refused to find a DV programme. I tried switching the Sony off and on and manual record modes but the Panasonic just displayed a blank screen.

I then realised the DV tape in the Sony was recorded in HD format. Could that be the problem? I swapped the tape with an older SD one from a Canon DVCAM and tried again. Success! The Panasonic offered to automatically copy the video and on selection it played via the monitor without a hitch.

The recording showed up in the play list and played back perfectly. I tried another tape, again from the Canon DVCAM but one I’d previously transcribed from the analog camcorder. It played, but there was noticeable breakup in places and mirrored the video tearing I’d seen from the analog Canon.

With three 10 minute video’s transferred to the Panasonic’s HDD, I looked for a way of copying the files. I found an 8GB SD card and slotted it into the Panasonic. There was no option available to copy to the SD card. In fact, the only way to make a copy is to transfer the programmes to DVD. Fortunately I had some blank DVD-R disks and tried inserting one. I must confess I’d not realised the Panasonic could write DVDs I’d only ever used it as a reader!

It took around 3 minutes to burn the three videos to DVD with a chapter index and 3 minutes to finalise so it can play on another machine. Panasonic also provides some limited editing capabilities that could improve the production, but I was happy to finally see an end result.

The DVD played well on another player so I left the Panasonic recording the wedding tape and grabbed some lunch. On return a helpful dialog informed me recording was complete and I looked in the title library expecting to see hundreds of entries just like iMovie had created. There was only one, an hour long just as I wanted!

I inserted another blank DVD-R and the Panasonic spent a few minutes whirring while it copied with ease.

I now have a fairly simple way of archiving and viewing our lost memories without the need of Apple’s tiresome gotchas. If you too have a box full of DV tapes and want to archive them to DVD media then I recommend the Panasonic DMR-EX77. It’s a lot less frustrating than an Apple software route.

And I can, of course, rip the DVD to MPEG file format if I really want to process the videos later.

DMR-EX77 copying in progress

DMR-EX77 finalising in progress

Notes:

• The Panasonic also has composite video along with analog stereo sound inputs. This allows you to connect an older VCR to digitise VHS video tapes and copy to DVD. Note copyright protection exists so you can only copy your own video recordings.
• You can also use the Panasonic’s analog AV input to connect an 8mm camcorder.
• The Canon MV500i series camcorders also plug directly into the Panasonic allowing automatic copying.