[0kama]

Alright, I recently went to China with my dad for business, as a gift the people he works with gave him a Sony MiniDV Camera. I've tried to upload footage onto my computer, but I guess since it's from China it won't work on my Mac. What can I do?

[Axo1ot1]

What format does it record in? PAL? SECAM? What applications have you tried capturing with?

[k_munic]

Originally posted by 0kama:
Alright, I recently went to China with my dad for business, as a gift the people he works with gave him a Sony MiniDV Camera. I've tried to upload footage onto my computer, but I guess since it's from China it won't work on my Mac. What can I do?

if it's from sony and it is a mini dv and it has ifrewire/ilink out it should work -
BUT

as the poster before wrote: what video standard?
of course, you can work on your mac with both standards (ntsc + pal, iMovoe does detect the standard of the camcorder automatically), but exporting them to video (to watch on tv) or on dvd should be in your "home" standard.

yes, qt pro can convert the video standrads (i did it before), but results are a little disapointing

[icruise]

I think there is a difference between DV and MiniDV. I think MiniDV uses a different standard than DV and is not compatible with things like iMovie.

[k_munic]

Originally posted by Icruise:
I think there is a difference between DV and MiniDV. I think MiniDV uses a different standard than DV and is not compatible with things like iMovie.

a mini dv cassette has the size of a matchbox (aprox)

a dv cassette has the size of a small paperback - but inside is the same tape, same standard long time ago, sony tried to establish the "big" cassettes for homemovie recording (afaik, they had 4h lp mode), they did offer a recorder with two decks, one for the small, one for the big ones...

same as vhs and these mini-vhs you needed an adapter for.

never heard of a camcorder using dv-cassettes... ???

[icruise]

I may be mixing up my names here, but there is a DV standard in Japan (and probably in China) that uses tapes that are even smaller than normal mini-DV tapes, and I'm wondering if that's what he's talking about.

[k_munic]

Originally posted by Icruise:
I may be mixing up my names here, but there is a DV standard in Japan (and probably in China) that uses tapes that are even smaller than normal mini-DV tapes, and I'm wondering if that's what he's talking about.

welcome to the wonderful world of standards!

what you mean is micro-mv, again a sony standard for very little camcorders (really nice) , very expansive, tré chic - BUT:

this is, with firewire, NOT compatible, you are absolutly right!

to use a micro mv device you need an external input device like the formac studio etc... (wrong: a g4 has pci slots, you can use internal video-in cards... sorry, Cube owners don't do pci )

[0kama]

Wow, sorry for not answering the questions earlier, I've been busy. Okay I think the MiniDV cassettes are the same in China and America. Anyway, I don't know what video format it records in...How do I find out? Oh and the model of the camera is DCR-TRV11...Which to this day, I haven't been able to find on the Sony website, weird eh?

[k_munic]

try on of these:

http://www.google.com/search?q=trv11...8&oe=UTF-8

it's mini-dv, it has firewire, it is produced both standards pal and ntsc

you don't find at sony, cause it is a very old model.......