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General discussion

Tapes made by broken Sony CCD-TRV 52 NTSC

Jan 25, 2011 11:10AM PST

I have a broken camcorder, Sony CCD-TRV 52 NTSC, and want to convert the tapes I have onto a my computer into I-movie. How do I figure out which camcorder to buy on e-bay that would do the trick since I can't find the same one. Also, prices are so different.....does it matter?

I have an older MacBook Pro.

Discussion is locked

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I could find
Jan 28, 2011 4:58AM PST

DCR-TRV520 and 525 at Sony.com. If this is the camcorder,
http://www.docs.sony.com/release/DCRTRV520.pdf
then you need to find a Digital8 tape replacement.

The varying prices you see can depend on lots of things - whether the camcorder actually works and motivation of the seller are two most common.

Assuming you locate a suitable Digital8 camcorder, you will treat that digital tape the same as you would miniDV tape when importing.

Connect a firewire cable to the camcorder's DV port and the computer's firewire port. See page 127 (item 63) for the location of the 4-pin DV port. In this context, DV, i.LINK, firewire and IEEE1394 are all the same thing.

Your MacBook Pro probably has a 9-pin firewire port, but you need to verify this. It means the difference between getting a 4-pin to 6-pin or 4-pin to 9-pin firewire cable.

If the computer is off, power it up. When at a stable desktop environment,
with the Camcorder off,
Connect camcorder to computer using the firewire cable.
Put the camcorder into "VTR" mode. This is a power-mode selection. See page 7 in the manual for "VTR" mode.
Launch iMovie
Name the project, when the iMovie widows appear, under File, select Capture or Import (it depends on the version of iMovie).

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Tapes made by broken Sony CCD-TRV 52 NTSC
Jan 29, 2011 10:45AM PST

Thank you so much. I really appreciate all the information that you put into your response to my question. But, the manual that you showed me is not the one for my camera. Looking at PDF downloads for my camcorder, there are the following:
CCD-TRV52 NTSC
CCD-TRV52 CCD-TRV14E
CCD-TRV52 CCD-TRV24E
CCD-TRV52 CCD-TRV44E

My model is the first one...CCD-TRV52 NTSC. And, that is my question....what should I buy to be able to play the tapes and download them onto my MacBook Pro. I am not sure, how to tell that a camcorder on e-bay would be compatible with tapes recorded on my CCD-TRV52 NTSC, unless of course, it is the very same one.

This is the info on my Macbook Pro:

Model Name: MacBook Pro 15"
Model Identifier: MacBookPro1,1
Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 2.16 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 2 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP11.0055.B08
SMC Version (system): 1.2f10
Serial Number (system): W862300KVWZ
Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-0016CB92426B
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled


Thanks again....

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Apologies...
Jan 29, 2011 1:51PM PST

I finally found it! The CCD-TRV52 is a Hi8 camcorder. This is analog - not digital.
http://www.docs.sony.com/release/CCDTRV32.pdf
I was looking at the DCR-series instead of the CCD series. My bad.

NTSC is for North America.
The "E" designation is for non-North America (PAL) environments.

There is no firewire/DV/IEEE1394/i.LINK port on your CCD-TRV52 because it is an analog video camcorder. Your options are pretty much limited to getting another Hi8 camcorder and an external "analog/digital converter" (like the preferred Canopus ADVC55 for firewire connection or one from Elgato using USB) or identifying a Digital8 camcorder that can also deal with Hi8 tapes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi8#Transferring_8mm_footage_to_a_computer_for_editing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital8#Analog_recordings

On your MacBook Pro... Under the Apple in the left corner of the desktop, select "About this Mac";
Click "More Info";
Under "Hardeware", click "Firewire".
If "Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec" then it is a 9-pin firewire port.
If "Maximum Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec" then it is a 6-pin firewire port.