Where has Firewire gone?

PeterWright wrote on 10/13/2025, 11:37 PM

I'm losing it.
There was a deprecated feature to bring back DV capture with Firewire, but I can't find it in V19 or V22. "Firewire" in Help produces no results.
Must be somewhere???

 

Comments

RogerS wrote on 10/13/2025, 11:55 PM

Probably a discontinued feature relying on old OS features that may no longer exist?

I'd keep old hardware and software around for that purpose. Archive the media and then edit it with modern versions of VEGAS.

Some alternatives here: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/video-capture-support-dv-camcorder-via-firewire-1394--142109/

Steve_Rhoden wrote on 10/14/2025, 12:34 AM

@PeterWright IEEE Firewire DV Capture has been long outdated. And using that technology now means you have to draw back for old hardware and old software to complete that task..... No current software supports it, So it makes no sense for Vegas Pro to continue also.

Back in the day for perfect DV captures without any dropped frames, i usually use WinDV, and its still there to download and use http://windv.mourek.cz/

PeterWright wrote on 10/14/2025, 6:44 AM

That is a big shock

There is still a huge market all round the world to digitise tapes, whether they are VHS, Video 8 and heaps of Mini DV and HDV.

Surely Magix should have canvassed users before discontinuing FireWire capture

I still have Vegas 15 installed, so l'll use that, but l am amazed that such a feature has gone.

 

 

VEGASDerek wrote on 10/14/2025, 8:23 AM

There is still a huge market all round the world to digitise tapes, whether they are VHS, Video 8 and heaps of Mini DV and HDV.

Not really.

Surely Magix should have canvassed users before discontinuing FireWire capture

We did...and usage was extremely low and since the future had broken in recent versions of Windows, the cost of reviving and maintaining such an old tool was too high for the potential benefit with a team as small as ours is.

It still works for older versions of Vegas. Old technology requires old hardware and thus old software.

We had marked this deprecated for a few versions before ultimately removing it. (It is actually available in VP 19 if you enable it.) It has been removed from VEGAS Pro since version 20, and only a couple people of actually expressed any disappointment about this.

3POINT wrote on 10/14/2025, 8:29 AM

@PeterWright Vegas is a video editor at the first place, its (H)DV-capture feature was in my opinion never a good capture feature (I always had lots of drop-outs when I used it about two decades ago). So it doesn't hurt IMO that this feature is gone.

As @Steve_Rhoden advised, use a free DVcapture like WinDV for capturing and continue editing those captures with Vegaspro.

Steve_Rhoden wrote on 10/14/2025, 10:43 AM

@PeterWright That is no big shock..... And the market for it is not as huge as you are making it out to be.

Here are just some of the many free options no longer being maintained, but still available for anyone still wanting to use this old capturing format. Why still complain for Vegas Pro alone to maintain it.

http://windv.mourek.cz/

https://www.videohelp.com/software/HDVSplit

http://www.scenalyzer.com/

VEGASDerek wrote on 10/14/2025, 10:57 AM

And on top of that, you can pretty easily take the VidCap application that was installed in older versions of Vegas and just run it as a standalone. Granted, it does not have the HDV stuff, but it does work for DV (if it actually launches on your machine).

PeterWright wrote on 10/15/2025, 2:50 AM

Well I'm still surprised.
"Vegas is a video editor at the first place, its (H)DV-capture feature was in my opinion never a good capture feature". Sorry to disagree but firewire was the central way of capturing, from Vegas Video 3 onwards, which is where I began. Initially shot on Super VHS, then Mini DV then HDV (now 4k MXF) and from those many years there remains a huge amount of footage on tape that can still be saved by digitising and converting to MP4. So many people have holidays, weddings etc. that they would love to have available on USB to watch on their TV if only they knew it was possible.

Ah well.

Changing the subject, I used to be able to move events to new tracks vertically up and down using Numerical 8 and 2 keys - not now. Has this been removed?

Dexcon wrote on 10/15/2025, 4:11 AM

@PeterWright ...

... I used to be able to move events to new tracks vertically up and down using Numerical 8 and 2 keys - not now. Has this been removed?

Keypad 2 and 8 is moving highlighted events up/down tracks for me in VP23b302.

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3POINT wrote on 10/15/2025, 5:13 AM

Sorry to disagree but firewire was the central way of capturing, from Vegas Video 3 onwards, which is where I began. Initially shot on Super VHS, then Mini DV then HDV (now 4k MXF) and from those many years there remains a huge amount of footage on tape that can still be saved by digitising and converting to MP4. So many people have holidays, weddings etc. that they would love to have available on USB to watch on their TV if only they knew it was possible.

You expect that a firewire capture feature should be still available in Vegas while since years no more PCs are produced with a firewire connection. When you still need to edit old stuff like VHS, DV(CAM) or HDV, better keep old hardware and software just for that purpose. I did that too, but stopped with digitizing about 12 years ago because hardware (VHSplayer etc) became unusable. BTW I never used the DV capture of Vegas for that purpose, because drop-outs, I used always WinDV and HDVsplit.

The same is true for burning DVD/Bluray, also gone in Vegas.

Last changed by 3POINT on 10/15/2025, 5:17 AM, changed a total of 1 times.

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PeterWright wrote on 10/15/2025, 5:27 AM

Ok, but understand that I still get requests to digitise these tape formats and I still say Yes, and I don't feel bad about that. My business benefits by trying to meet my customers' requests.
I don't recall Firewire being a "standard" part of PCs - it was achieved by buying a PCI card and fitting it.

Steve_Rhoden wrote on 10/15/2025, 5:46 AM

This thread is now being closed !.