Digital8/DV/MiniDV to Mac in the 2020s
9Back in the early 2000s I could capture video on my digital video camera (a Sony DCR-PC100E using MiniDV for video and Memory Stick for stills), hook it up to my G4 iMac via an iLink-to-FireWire cable, import and edit the video in iMovie and then very simply create a DVD with menus in iDVD. I could then post the DVD from Europe back to my family in Australia where it could be watched once and then forgotten about for a few decades 🥹
You can still use iMovie and a modern Mac today ... with the right cables.
I'm using a 2022 MacBook Air with Apple's M2 - this has two 40Gbit/s Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 ports.
First you'll need an iLink-to-FW800 cable, then an Apple FW800-to-Thunderbolt 2 adaptor (Model A1463) and then an Apple Thunderbolt 2-to-Thunderbolt 3 adaptor (Model A1790).
We're going from a 400Mbit/s interface to a 40Gbit/s interface ... wow (obviously at 400Mbit/s).
I got my FireWire cable from Cable Chick in Australia under their IEEE 1394 section:
https://www.cablechick.com.au/cables/firewire-1394-cable.htm
And it worked ... Apple hasn't removed the functionality from iMove after all these decades. So, pretty simple, nothing tricky ... you just need to have the right cables & adaptors.
Things were different in the Windows world ... I guess iLink-to-USB would've been more common (USB and FireWire are both serial protocols) ... so that might be an even simpler situation ... iLink-to-USB-A and then USB-A-to-USB-C ... ?
Dunno, out of my scope as a Mac person 😇
I also tried it on my Dad's Sony DCR-TRV130E Digital 8 camera with iLink interface and it also worked.
Oh, the edge connector for the Sega SC-3000 is an EDAC model 346-044-559-201 (44-pin, 3.175mm pitch, 1.57mm board thickness, right angle through-hole receptacle) that I sourced from Mouser.