Upgrading to FIREWIRE! 🔥 

Who is more foolish, the fool or the one who automatically assumes this is an April Fool's video? 😀😁😂

April 1st 2020: Upgrading to USB 2.0

I've always considered myself young but when Paul started explaining what tapes were and I was like "There's no need for this." I knew I was old.

I immediately scrolled down to check the release date of the video in the first 5 seconds 😂

Yes, the VHS project would be something I would be interested in. Lots of family recording stored in a box for 20 years. Getting them converted to digital format is something I always wanted to do. A show on that would be something a lot of people would be interested in I'm sure.

Firewire ... that's a name I haven't heard in a long time.

Defaulted to 240p. Seems appropriate

The Asus B350 Prime Plus still includes a couple of PCI slots, which can be useful in a situation like this :)

Yes VHS tapes please that would be cool hahah

Those dark single frames that pops up every now and then. I don't know if it's intended or not.

That’s a shyt camcorder. Get a panny Edit: yes! Do the VCR video. I wanna do that as well!

Please be Kind, Rewind errr wait. Solid video Paul. I am old so I remember those days using tapes and VCRs etc. The young tykes have it so easy now.

I went through this just last year. Apparently, it's hard to get functioning cables and driver set up was a pain. It's like everybody forgot how to make old firewire tech. I was actually thinking about getting an old Pentium II or original iMac. I still had the install disk for my old Pinnacle systems software from the 1990's. The tapes do degrade causing the timecodes to jump. On degraded tapes, I found it easier to import the complete tape and manually separating different scenes. I also ended up capturing them multiple times and syncing them in the editor. This way I was able to recover more scenes as they would black out at different intervals. Recording the audio separately from the camcorders analog output also helps for when the digital side cuts out. I actually used audacity and my video software (Vegas) at the same time to capture so only one pass was needed. Some tapes played back perfectly and both audio and video got captured the normal way. Other times it was a mess. I manage to find a sealed, never opened Sony DV cam at an estate sale for $20. It was the exact same model camera I used to record them. Sometimes slapping the camera helps the tape track slightly different and all of a sudden everything works. Good Luck. Years from now we will be like how do we get all our videos off of those DVD and Blueray disks?

Don't feel too bad with the old tech. I still use CD/DVD/BD-R, though mostly as a hobby.

FireWire. Now that’s something I haven’t heard in about a decade.

I have two of those cards. They work and that’s why I’ve kept em. :)

I am playing to upgrade to 5.25” floppy disk. Can you give me advice, Paul?

TAPE! also on the capture problem with Premiere capturing use another program, Premiere has lots of problems with capturing via firewire/strange compatibility problems with some cameras.

At first I was like, hey they must have created some kind of new Firewire tech. That would be cool. Wife!!! Break out the old camera. But sadly no. So thanks for that Paul. Have a great day.

I went through this a while back, miniDV and a bunch of digital 8. It was like reliving years of my life. It’ll get you in the feels. Enjoy!

for anyone who wants to do this - there are PCI to PCIE adapters, and some newer boards still have a PCI slot (I had a Gigabyte H270 board with 1 PCI slot)

I use both Windows and Apple laptops these days, having crossed the line a bit after Y2K with a Macintosh SE 4/40. This digital video tape > HDD via FireWire reminds of when I upgraded to recordable DVDs and began transferring early 1980's VCR recordings to DVD. At first, I looked at any of the G4 (PowerPC) PowerBooks, not learning until later that I would need at least a 1GHz PowerPC chip to encode video. My oldest G4 PowerBook is a 1.5Ghz PowerPC unit that "does video" and takes a standard FireWire 400 cable that connects to a LaCie DVD recorder. Before this portable solution got worked out, I also installed/configured/troubleshot a FireWire PCI card in the 1990's when I was using the Nero DVD burning program on Windows. Yes, I recall the days when USB 1.1 was left in the dust by FireWire 400, which could also beat USB 2.0 for a time.

If you can find a Panasonic DVX cheap and you can only output the old RCA connectors, then the DVX has both RCA inputs and a FireWire. The good thing is that the ins & outs are bi-directional, so you can input RCA and output FireWire simultaneously, thus capturing analog video. When DigiDesign bought Pinnacle years ago they sent out firmware "upgrades" that bricked my Pinnacle capture board and this was a workaround I discovered. So those analog video formats material need not go forgotten.

Aw man this is a nostalgia trip!

My brain froze for a sec... I was wonderin if a new firewire standard had been released of if I just didn't know that FW could compete with today's standard... Than it hit me. Good job.

It is good to see reviewers being interested in old stuff.

From what I can remember, using the on-board FireWire port and Premiere, would grab audio and video simultaneously from my Sony mini-DV camcorder.

magnetic tape is still the most reliable form of storage (or so I hear) so keep those handy. also this is the first one of your videos that's popped up in my news feed for awhiule so it got an automatic like and comment... good to see ya Paul!

Now this is old school tech, this stuff is nostalgic lol

haha this is awesome. I'm literally doing this right now with my old home videos.

Oh man, I remember offloading a huge set of tapes for a family friend. Fortunately, my 990fx Mobo still had FireWire 800 on it. It took so many hours, but she paid well

Liked for the VHS 📼 backup !

I remember capturing my skate footage as a kid using a sony tape cam and windows movie maker. Having to play it back to record it basically. The import process was always the hardest part.

Yes. Have lots of VHS tapes wound like to back up. I have one interview on TV show Hard Copy to back up to computer. Just have to find a way to do that.

Bruh the Backyardigans on the vhs was my childhood. Brings back good memories lol

OMG you do give off that church media guy vibe. Never been able to nail it down until you mentioned it.

Yes, please do VHS next! My mother has some old family tapes she wants to convert to digital.

Absolutely love the idea about vhs to dvd

This is why I like Paul, he can get an April fools joke in and turn it into something informative so I'm not just wasting 10 minutes of my life on it 😃

I backed up a bunch of old tapes (VHS, 8mm, Beta) using a Canopus ADVC-55. Uses S-Video or standard video/audo in and produces digital video out to firewire. Worked like a charm.

Hey Paul I actually just inherited a bunch of mini dv tapes from my Dad who passed recently and wasn't sure how to go about putting them on my computer so found this pretty helpful

I know that most posts are a year old BUT Paul if you haven't made your VHS capture video yet, there is an easy way using the firewire shown here and a JVC SR-VS30 SVHS deck which has a digital (IEEE firewire) output. The quality is VERY good, so much so that I've managed to intercut SVHS footage into a 1" broadcast program and re-master the series to 1080p using DaVinci Resolve and Topaz Video AI. Old school meets the digital age....

I used to capture video tape using my ATI All in Wonder Card. That thing is long long gone.

To capture VHS tapes I use a cheap $7 USB2.0 component video capture device and a Goodwill VCR ($20 at my local goodwill), then use VLC to capture the playback. Total cost including software is less than $30 because I ran it on my Linux machine .

For capturing your VHS content, go to Costco and grab one of those DVD/VHS combo systems, the ones they're currently selling (at least in my area) have DVD-RW support that allows you to use it as a DVR for TV, or back up old VHS tapes to DVD, which you could easily rip back onto your PC and process.

This is so advanced

Dear paul For some reason your video is flashing on some instances Just wanted to point it out

Thanks for helping determine the Young/Old threshold..... Young:- ‘What’s a VHS?’ Old:- ‘Ooh VHS, those were the days’

I still have a pair of JVC mini DV cameras. The time code capture was really nice because I would just start and stop them along with the capture. was using it back in the day to capture Rock band videos.

Ha, did the same thing a month ago. I started by going to Best buy to ask if they had a FireWire card, the kids there thought I was speaking German, they had no idea what FireWire was. I even made the same mistake on getting the wrong PCi-e card from Amazon. My next project is to get my family's 8mm converted.

Hey Paul, I just went through this process myself a few months ago. What worked for me was to use VLC and use the camera as a "capture device" and stream to file. It's also worth noting that FireWire is not technically plug and play (although it often does work). So anytime you plug or unplug the camera it's recommended to power cycle the computer and the camera to make sure it all initializes properly.

525 lines were nominal. There were 480 active lines and NTSC is interlaced, so 240 lines to each field, or 480p, 30 Hz refresh

FYAWYA! Yeahhhhh buddyyyyy!

finally. firewire is great

Please Paul do a VHS capture video!

Good luck hope it works out for you. Glad to see I am not the only one attempting to do this.

I just did the same thing for a friend who had a bunch of DV tapes he wanted archived. It was the longest 3 days in my life lol. Actually i just setup a 2nd pc and let it run.

I still use firewire every day lol. My audio interface is firewire and I have no need to upgrade. Low latency, lots of channels, and sounds great. Also that firewire pci-e card is the exact model that I use. It has the Texas Instruments chip which is the superior firewire controller.

No joke, I'd actually really appreciate the VHS tape backup video. I have a 30lb box of VHS tapes I'd like to back up :)

I had that same background for the longest time!!!

Nice intro. Made me check the date.

Man, all this brings me back to highschool when all the video projects were on DV tapes.

The title of this video gave me old school vibes!!!

Also a great tip, if you have VHS tapes, some of these dv cams have the best converters in them. Simply run VHS int the input of the dv cam and use its built in converters to capture via firewire. In your case, you need a better camera that can read those tapes. I've had great success with Panasonic, staying away from the tiny cheap looking ones.

The thing is, there are a ton of cheap audio mixer/recording devices that actually are firewire only, and while yeterday's tech, they cost tens of thousands new. If you could get one for a few hundred and you just needed a firewire port to make it work, it is entirely feasible, interesting and no more off-topic than a Tesla wall or a new baby.

I still have a DV tape camera . It has excellent audio and features when it’s just siting on a tripod I pull the SDI signal and that’s it

i might have done only very little research on this topic, but actually i find capturing old VHS tapes or other analog home video formats like video8 or hi8 to digital not that difficult. there are several video grabbing dongles (composite and s-video plus audio to usb) available for around 30..40 euros/dollars and companies like magix offer complete packages with the converter, cables+adapters and a capturing/editing software for still way below 100 bucks. of course, the software will be rather basic but is enough to make a nice and cleaned up digital copy of your old home videos. i am converting our old videos right now (20..30 years old) and it works perfectly; i was even more surprised and happy that those video8 tapes from the late 80s almost had not degraded at all. :)

Tape spools to reels :) Great content as usual

NOt bad for almost 20 yrs ago ;) I go back further, my friends and I used to record with either VHS camcorder, which I have in the closet, but probably is dead, and sometimes we used Super-8 tapes etc. We thought we'd be the next Spielbergs xD Thanks for sharing, Paul!

I don't remember capturing footage to be this difficult back in high school. Audio was captured as it was recorded, digitally.

Oh my...robocop, the feels.

No joke that camera looks dope af!

I had a DV camera when I was a kid (yeah, it was actually mine). Last summer I bought some cheap RCA to USB adapter thingie to get the videos to the PC. Tried to get it working with VHS tapes as well but didn't have much luck with those. I think I only got the audio working.

I used a small program to rip tapes "WinDV". Also connected a VHS player to the camera and used a pass though setting to rip VHS tapes over Firewire.

Have tons of these in my storage. A VTR to play them back

I remember using Firewire for for my MiniDV cam in 2004, it was a royal pain in the butt syncing it to your computer though.

someone get this man a camera we need to see what young paul did in vegas!

Ha awesome. I recently did this with my ancient toshiba handycam DV .i had better luck with getting my firewire connection to work and being able to use the pc to control the camcorder ie pausese play record stop eject and audio left right. I did have problems with 1 cable and swapped it for another one i had lying around . Highschool videos were soo funny to watch back :D

Yeah, Firewire port fragility was the problem with my Canon HV20 miniDV camcorder, so I picked up a cheap HDMI external capture to pull video off that way. It captures at 1440x1080 and scales to 1920x1080. My alternative is/was to either install my Firewire card, or use my old, trusty(?) Diamond external which has RCA, SVideo, and Firewire input. All that over USB 2.0 goodness.

The first PC I ever built with my own money had Firewire built into the motherboard. It was a Gigabyte GA-7VAX1394. I didn't even know what Firewire was at the time, but the board cost as much as the non-Firewire version, so I figured it couldn't hurt. :p

Yes i would love to see how to back up VHS to computer and if you can also think about building a NAS system from a older computer would be great . Thanks Steve

Some of the FireWire cameras can do a video pass-through... I know a lot of Sony’s could. Just plug a VCR into the camera’s composite jacks, and the camera will pass the video out through the FireWire port for digital capturing.

The video title made me think it would be an april fools video, but at the same time reminded me that my parents have dozens of Mini DV tapes that we never got around to transferring to PC despite buying a firewire card... I then thought I should hunt for that firewire card when I get around to dismantling the various old PCs at their place, but of course that will be a PCI card so I might put a spare SSD in one of those old systems to resurrect it long enough to archive the tapes... fun times ahead ;-)

Amusingly enough, I've recently found some old DV tapes that I've been trying to figure out a way to back up. Thanks for the ideas!

Yes vhs to DVD back-up!!

I've done a few mini DV to dig. And I've found that even though mini DV is a standard some manufacturers did their own thing here and there.

Spittin mad fire......wire problems.

Nice. We had Canon XL1s when I was in high school.

Wow great video, takes me back to my Sony vx1000 days late 90s :-)

Paul, Sony MiniDV tapes can be very fussy. I've had problems with brand new ones binding up in my HDV camcorder. Its likely the tape lubricant they used thats causing playback problems. Of course it may also be the camcorder. Samsung wasn't known as a top tier maker of MiniDV cameras. For that I'd go with Sony, Canon, or Panasonic. For capture, throw Premiere away, its broken when it comes to Firewire DV capture. Use the free WinDV utility instead. Its an oldie, but it does the job of capturing well and it properly captures audio! It produces DV files in an AVI container, which just about every video editor supports. For capturing VHS, well that's a rabbit hole in itself. A good capture setup requires now expensive and hard to find equipment and usually an old Windows XP machine to run the better analog capture cards (don't even think of using a Blackmagic card for it, their analog capture section is worthless). Otherwise you'll have a result that looks like crap (even by VHS standards) with tons of dropped frames. If you need assistance with the transfer, give me a shout, I already have a high quality VHS capture setup here or I can provide referrals to pro transfer services.

Must be nice to have all those handy wires and connections just laying around :)

We have recordings of every vintage, going all the way back to my parents' wedding recorded (audio only) on a metal wire. Thanks for the interesting video.

OK, you got me with that title. Nice work.

I still remember vividly my first few interactions with a VHS camcorder. Once in highschool we had a pretty cool video productions class. I was obsessed with it. We recorded on VHS and then transferred to some Apple imacs. On there we would edit with imovies. What sucked was that the other students would leave the capture going and fill the hard drives and crash the machine. This caused me to lose my projects every few weeks. I still receive an A because the teacher saw how obsessive I was editing at lunch and after school. Memories and such.

Read the title, thought it was a April fools joke. You got me.

I do have a VCR, which is passing my cable through to the TV. It's not used anymore, the last time I did I recorded and uploaded the Aristo Cats movie which got my old channel terminated some years ago. At the time I was testing a recorder. I just wanted to share the memories and got ninjad in my sleep.

Just picked up a old vx2000 to film skate vids. So this helped a lot thanks!

I still use firewire 800, and a special firewire 1300s one. Works wonders still

Great timing! I was just about to do this!

Why do i feel old now.... Anyway a video like this would remind that technology is improving