Connect FireWire video camera to Mac mini M4

If you want to make a Firewire connection – so that you can import the digital video on the tape AS digital video – you're going to have trouble finding hardware to make the connection.

Thunderbolt 3 and up could support FireWire ports, but as far as I know, no manufacturer ever put a FireWire port on a Thunderbolt 3, 4, or 5 dock; or made a Thunderbolt 3, 4, or 5 to FireWire adapter. Apple had an adapter that went from the old type of Thunderbolt to FireWire 800 – and you could daisy chain it with an Apple TB3-to-2 one, but it's been a while since Apple discontinued the TB-to-FW800 adapter and they also may be impossible to find.

That leaves options like the following

• Using an old Mac that had a built-in FireWire port to import the video (for transfer to the newer Mac)
• Using a PC with a FireWire PCIe card to import the video (for transfer to the newer Mac)
• Using an analog video capture device that works off of the composite video output or S-Video output from your camcorder. These often plug in using USB 3.0. If necessary, you can get a USB-C to USB-A adapter; what you would want to check is that a device supports Apple Silicon Macs and current versions of macOS.

My son used the cables below to import DV/D8 .dv to FinalCut Pro in his MacBook Pro 16-inch 2021 18,1, M1 Pro in Sonoma. Import works also in QuickTime Player. Those quite pricey cables are hard to find nowadays so try eBay if you go that route.

I prefer to use my old Mac mini late 2009 with iMovie HD 6.0.3 in El Capitan for that because it natively supports FW with only a simple FW cable.

In Sonoma and later you must Restore legacy video device support In Recovery Mode:

system-override legacy-camera-plugins-without-sw-camera-indication=on

To change back to the default settings:

system-override legacy-camera-plugins-without-sw-camera-indication=off

If you can't use your camera or video output device after updating to macOS Sonoma 14.1 - Apple Support

You will probably never be able - even with the said -to-be proper adapters, to transfer from a Firewire cam to a newer mac. And rather than spending on unsure (and usually expensive) adapters, as suggested, find yourself an old mac for that purpose (if you intend to keep that camera for a while). You may be able to find either an old working mac mini (2010-2011) that has those ports. Or a macbook pro 2012, any of these for perhaps $100 or so.

Are you sure your cam can only transfer through FW ? (many of these older cams were also able to transfer through USB, or even wifi).

MacMx5 wrote:

Have some old family movies and would like to edit them on new Mac mini M4. Am I able to connect a FireWire video camera to the mini somehow with adaptors or cables??

If all else fails, do some online searching for people/services that transfer data from obsolete technology to current formats. These services maintain old equipment so that they can do this work. Sorry, don't know of any specific names.

lanstrad1 wrote:

Are you sure your cam can only transfer through FW ? (many of these older cams were also able to transfer through USB, or even wifi).

There were many MiniDV and Digital8 camcorders with USB ports – but those were for transferring still photos and/or short, low-quality video. Not for transferring digital video on the MiniDV or Digital8 tape. FireWire was much better suited than USB 2 for that – which is why all of those camcorders used FireWire in the first place.

This is the type of item servant of Cats referred to

USB Capture Card

There are many versions available.

Note that the cables have female connectors so you will probably need a set with male.

+1 Great info. 👍🏽