DV Tape Drives As PC Peripherals?

Phil McKreviss asks: "I've been trying to capture digital video from my DV camera, and have tested a number of solutions. Starting with a 1394 card, I've tried to capture the data stream to my hard drive using UDMA33 drives, UDMA66 drives, and now an external SCSI Ultra Wide drive array. I still face challenges handling the data stream. My question is this: why do I have to have such a high bandwidth solution? Does it seem crazy that I need such a system to capture data from a pre-recorded source? It's not like I'm trying to capture live data or anything -- heck, it's already recorded!" Is there a DV tape drive that I can install in my system? I would think that simply copying data from the tape to the hard drive at a moderate pace would be far simpler than 1394/SCSI-UW/RAID. Suggestions? "

Had the same question

[jon_adair]

I wondered this too. The video is already digital. Why can't I download it at 19.2kbps if I wanted to? I suspect that the DV tape just can't be run at a slow speed (or rather, the playback deck wasn't designed to slow down).

I'm still waiting to buy one of these, but from the research I've done, I think that Canopus [canopuscorp.com] has the best 1394 solution now. They have an explanation [canopuscorp.com] of why their card works "perfectly" that sounds good to me.

Firewire tape drive that reads DV

[bakes]

Take a look here [indigita.com]. These people make a firewire tape drive, which you might be able to use to grab the video data directly using OS utilities to catch it at whatever speed your system can keep up with. You should contact them to make sure though.

Found this in on a list of firewire products [apple.com] on the Apple website. Looks like it may only support Apple Macs though. Again, check with the vendor.

bakes
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