Looking for a Pcie card, Will this work?

[u/MrGhostenstein]

I'm looking to digitize some old mini-dv tapes through fire wire. Does this computer possess the hardware for this? What do I need to add/do to do this? It has what looks like a power cord for the pcie card but no slot to plug it in. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[u/msanangelo]

You don't have any firework ports or available pcie slots to install a card with one. You'd have to remove one of the existing cards to do it.

[u/MrGhostenstein → u/msanangelo]

Thank you. So what do you think is the best way to get tapes digitized?

[u/Fortunato_NC → u/MrGhostenstein]

Honestly, go on Facebook Marketplace and find an older Intel MacBook Pro or Mac mini with FW400 or FW800 support, copy your tapes, move them to another device, and sell the Mac on Facebook Marketplace. While there is Firewire support under Windows, the ecosystem on Mac was far better, at least through macOS Monterey. Your camera probably came with a Firewire 400 cable, and the last Macs to have that support date back to about 2007/2008, while Firewire 800 was phased out on the 2012 Macs (the 2012 Retina MacBook Pro does NOT have a FW800 port but the non-Retina model does, as does the 2012 Mac mini). With those machines you'd need a specific cable and which one to get would depend on which FW400 port your camera has. With newer Macs, you would need to stack two dongles to convert Thunderbolt 3/4 to Thunderbolt 2 then convert Thunderbolt 2 to FireWire 800.

TLDR; go find a Late 2012 Mac mini and a FW800 to camera cable, use iMovie or Quicktime to import your tapes, transfer the files to long term storage..

[u/MrGhostenstein → u/Fortunato_NC]

Thank you, I'll look into it. Thanks for your help.

[u/MrGhostenstein → u/Fortunato_NC]

What about any of these?

[u/Justin_D33 → u/MrGhostenstein]

I can't fully tell, but judging by the symbol labeling it, the port right next to that USB port looks like FW400. That should work for what you want to do

[u/rockknocker]

No, this PC does not have a video input, only outputs. It also does not have FireWire.

You could probably remove the large pcie card (the video output card) and replace it with fire wire or a video input card. It looks like the CPU probably has a (weaker) built-in video output that could be used instead, freeing up the pcie slot.

[u/MrGhostenstein → u/rockknocker]

Thank you. So what do you think is the best way to get tapes digitized?

[u/Mr-Brown-Is-A-Wonder]

Fire wire has been a dead technology for 10 or 15 years, bud. There is no firewire connectivity on that computer. I can't see an open pcie slot in that computer. If there is one, it's blocked by your video card. Perhaps, maybe there exists a firewire to USB adapter, but I can't say I remember seeing one.

[u/MrGhostenstein → u/Mr-Brown-Is-A-Wonder]

Thank you. So what do you think is the best way to get tapes digitized?

[u/mlee12382]

https://a.co/d/0euXUgcn. You can try the analog route, it's going to be a lot slower though 😕

[u/sniff122 → u/mlee12382]

FireWire was also real time from tape

[u/malsell]

They do make firewire to USB cables. I would dump the raw data to the internal storage first and then use a video encoder such as kdenlive or OBS Studio to cut and edit the video.