How to get from Sony HVR25U to my laptop?

eworthi

I have 15 or so DVCAM tapes. I want to transfer the footage to my laptop for editing. I bought a Sony HVR-M25U off ebay to do this with. It has HDMI out, Firewire, and Component cable ports. My laptop only has USB 3.0 and Ethernet ports.

This is a one time thing for me, once I get the videos I'll put the HVR back on Ebay where I got it from. Retaining the quality of the videos is important to me, they were shot at the highest quality 15 years ago, dont recall the settings, but playing them via hdmi to my 4k tv they look great!

Is there a bluray writer with hdmi/component/firewire input, that I can transfer from via USB? Or a straight to USB recorder? I've looked and keep coming up empty. I did find streamer type hdmi recorders, but the reviews of quality output are all over the place.

I don't mind spending a bit more, especially if it's something I'll use again or has some resale value.

Thanks for the help! Help!

EndlessWaves

Minimum changes to the files would be from transferring them across a data connection rather than having the camcorder play them back across a video connection then re-encoding.

That essentially means USB, Thunderbolt or Firewire.

Unfortunately Firewire never really became that popular so support on modern systems is often poor. Firewire to USB converters never really showed up either, there were apparently some major enough differences as to make them unviable (although Apple does sell a Firewire to Thunderbolt converter).

Your best bet is probably to buy an old PC that either has a PCI-Express slot (including ExpressCard/Thunderbolt) or Firewire ports.  You should be able to resell it for a similar amount.

eworthi

Thanks! I'll look into that, our local Habitat for Humanity has a bunch of old towers, I'll check ebay too.