How do you capture streaming USB or i.LINK (IEEE 1394) DV signal from a digital 8mm video camcorder?

i am a little confused. you say you are playing back analog video8 videotape in your DCR-TRV380. according to the Sony manual for the camera, only the companion DCR-TRV480 has the capability of playing back analog recorded Video8 and Hi8 tapes. If you have the 380, then that would explain why you can't get playback on the iLink, but you say that the AV out works? if that is so then i would stick with that method. forget the USB, that was an idea Sony had for making the camcorder act as a low resolution web cam. they never updated the software to work with modern operating systems.

" I'm trying to transfer all the home movies of a lifetime onto something durable." You've already got that - you're not going to find anything better than tape! The problem will be finding something to read the tape. "Is better resolution possible through streaming USB or i.LINK (IEEE 1394) connection?" Without question, it's the IEEE1394 connection - the USB streaming facility downgrades the video to try and overcome USB1 & 2's inability to stream. USB 3 can do it but your camcorder doesn't have USB 3. Long term data archiving is a thorny problem and you can find a lot of well reasoned discussion on the web. The bottom line is that you should (ideally) make multiple, lossless, copies on different hard drives, copying them every couple of years to make sure they're still legible. As part of that copying process you might convert them to a more modern (i.e. supported) lossless format. For the time time being, don't panic, your video's as secure as it can be. As an aside, don't backup to optical disks - their lifetime can be as little as a couple of years, maybe less. DVDs are a particularly bad idea - the video's very highly compressed in a lossy format and how long are DVDs going to be around?

Ilink will give you better transfers, what you is a NLE that can both recognize and control you camcorder while it is hooked up. My Pinnacle Studio NLE does that with my MiniDV tape camcorders. If all else fails, and this may help you anyway, once your videos are on DVD, the battle is half over. At that point, your videos are MPEG2 file, which are digital video files. To get them on your computer, insert the DVD into a DVD drive on a computer. Get a good Video converter program, use it to both lift the files as it is converting the files to something you can use with your NLE. I have created a site to help , see - http://asimplelife.ca/dazzle.html

" I'm trying to transfer all the home movies of a lifetime onto something durable." You've already got that - you're not going to find anything better than tape! The problem will be finding something to read the tape. "Is better resolution possible through streaming USB or i.LINK (IEEE 1394) connection?" Without question, it's the IEEE1394 connection - the USB streaming facility downgrades the video to try and overcome USB1 & 2's inability to stream. USB 3 can do it but your camcorder doesn't have USB 3. Long term data archiving is a thorny problem and you can find a lot of well reasoned discussion on the web. The bottom line is that you should (ideally) make multiple, lossless, copies on different hard drives, copying them every couple of years to make sure they're still legible. As part of that copying process you might convert them to a more modern (i.e. supported) lossless format. For the time time being, don't panic, your video's as secure as it can be. As an aside, don't backup to optical disks - their lifetime can be as little as a couple of years, maybe less. DVDs are a particularly bad idea - the video's very highly compressed in a lossy format and how long are DVDs going to be around?

Ilink will give you better transfers, what you is a NLE that can both recognize and control you camcorder while it is hooked up. My Pinnacle Studio NLE does that with my MiniDV tape camcorders. If all else fails, and this may help you anyway, once your videos are on DVD, the battle is half over. At that point, your videos are MPEG2 file, which are digital video files. To get them on your computer, insert the DVD into a DVD drive on a computer. Get a good Video converter program, use it to both lift the files as it is converting the files to something you can use with your NLE. I have created a site to help , see - http://asimplelife.ca/dazzle.html