Bring Back MiniDV with This Raspberry Pi FireWire Hat
by ingve on 3/28/2026, 9:04:06 PM
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/minidv-with-raspberry-pi-firewire-hat/
Comments
by: icyfox
Digitizing my old tapes was one of the most rewarding side projects that I did over the last year. I managed to get in under the wire (pun intended) of Firewire compatibility on Sequoia and a long daisy-chain of adapters. But it was clear the days of this approach were numbered. I'm optimistic these 3rd party accessories will become more standardized into self-contained cheap boxes where people can easily transfer over their stuff before camcorders degrade.<p>My pipeline went camera -> dvrescue -> ffmpeg -> clip chunking -> gemini for auto tagging of family members and locations where things were shot.<p>We now have all our family's footage hosted on a NAS with Jellyfin serving over Tailscale to my parents Macbooks. I found the clip chunking in particular made the footage a lot more watchable than just importing the two-hour long tapes although ymmv.
4/1/2026, 5:17:26 AM
by: criddell
Any idea how long the tapes will last? I have a bunch sitting in a box that I should probably verify have all been imported already before they turn to dust.
4/1/2026, 9:57:21 AM
by: bdavbdav
This would have been much nicer than suffering my dad’s 12 year old iMac I found in the loft.
4/1/2026, 9:37:23 AM
by: EvanAnderson
Discussion of prior post (FireWire on a Raspberry Pi): <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47535249">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47535249</a>
4/1/2026, 5:34:30 AM
by: ErroneousBosh
Oooh! Relevant to my interests :-)<p>I'll have a shot of this I think.
4/1/2026, 8:05:18 AM
by: MORPHOICES
[dead]
4/1/2026, 8:48:50 AM