Blackmagic Forum

I need to capture footage that was shot on mini DV into a laptop to be able to edit in premiere cc. There is an sdi output on the camera and a USB 3.1 Gen 2/Thunderbolt 3 Combo Port (Type C) Input on the laptop. Will the Ultra Studio Mini Recorder make that happen? And if so, is there any worry of lost quality?

If it's MiniDV, i would suggest capturing the footage via firewire as that will be a 1:1 copy.

Frank Pido wrote:If it's MiniDV, i would suggest capturing the footage via firewire as that will be a 1:1 copy.

Not if there's no FireWire (IEEE1394) port with which to make the connection. SDI is by far the best camcorder output but there isn't a low cost Blackmagic solution to capturing as an SDI input and then outputting to the laptop via USB without compression. The nearest device that will provide these connections is the H.264 Pro Recorder (USB 3.0) but obviously that will give MPEG-4/H.264 output at data rates of between 1Mbps and 20Mbps. Bearing in mind that DV is effectively using compression of 5:1, you may get away with it at 20Mbps. I have two, and they're very good.