Transfer from my 1990's Sony Video Cam to external digital drive

You need to be able to connect your camera to the computer with the FireWire cable that came with it.

Unfortunately most Macs for the last 10 years do not have FireWire sockets, so depending on the model you may need one or two Thunderbolt connecters at £40 each and there is no guarantee they will work.

If your Mac is over 10 years old it should have a FireWire socket.

The Sony CCD TR 517 is an analog camcorder , not a digital camcorder and therefore you would need to use an analog to digital converter in order to capture your video into iMovie .

As your camcorder is analog it will not have a FireWire port , so don't try looking for the FireWire cable that didn't come with it .

You would need to connect the video and audio output of the camcorder to the input of the analog to digital ( A to D ) converter and then connect the output of the A to D converter to your Mac.

Do a search for camcorder A to D converters on the internet if you wish to pursue this . Just be sure that it is Mac compatible.

OOOOOPS! What a mistake to make. I was confusing it with the Sony TRV Digital 8 series using the old Hi 8 tapes.

I have no excuse as I owned a Canon that shot Video 8 . . . put it down to advancing years.

Exactly what camera is it and does it shoot on Video 8, VHS, DV cassettes or something else?