After learning Apple killed off FireWire (IEEE 1394) support in macOS 26 Tahoe, I started looking at alternatives for old FireWire equipment like hard drives, DV cameras, and A/V gear.
I own an old Canon GL1 camera, with a 'DV' port. I could plug that into an old Mac (like the dual G4 MDD above) with FireWire—or even a modern Mac running macOS < 26, with some dongles—and transfer digital video footage between the camera and an application like Final Cut Pro.
But with Apple killing off support, and my desire to have a modern, supported hardware solution, I turned to Linux and dvgrab.
Linux will likely drop support for IEEE 1394 in 2029, but at least that gives me three more years!
On a Raspberry Pi, I can plug in this GeeekPi Mini PCIe HAT, and connect a StarTech Mini PCIe FireWire adapter. This allows the Pi to recognize the FireWire controller:
$ lspci
0001:00:00.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM2712 PCIe Bridge (rev 21)
0001:01:00.0 PCI bridge: Texas Instruments XIO2213A/B/XIO2221 PCI Express to PCI Bridge [Cheetah Express] (rev 01)
0001:02:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments XIO2213A/B/XIO2221 IEEE-1394b OHCI Controller [Cheetah Express] (rev 01)
0002:00:00.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM2712 PCIe Bridge (rev 21)
0002:01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Raspberry Pi Ltd RP1 PCIe 2.0 South Bridge
But to use it, you have to recompile the Linux kernel with FireWire support, then configure the Pi's PCIe bus for 32-bit DMA support, since old FireWire controllers like the TI XIO2213A and VIA VT6315N don't support 64-bit access.
Recompile the Linux Kernel with Firewire support
Recompile the Linux kernel, enabling the following features:
CONFIG_FIREWIRE(Device Drivers -> IEEE 1394 (FireWire) support -> FireWire driver stack)CONFIG_FIREWIRE_OHCI(Device Drivers -> IEEE 1394 (FireWire) support -> FireWire driver stack -> OHCI-1394 controllers)
Configure Pi Boot options
At the end of /boot/firmware/config.txt, under [all], add:
dtparam=pciex1
dtoverlay=pcie-32bit-dma
At the end of the line in /boot/firmware/cmdline.txt, add:
Reboot your Pi.
Using FireWire on the Pi
At this point, you should be able to use FireWire devices connected to the FireWire 400 port. If you want to use the FireWire 800 ports, you'll have to find a way to connect auxiliary power to the power header on the Mini PCIe card (StarTech provides an adapter for this).
All my devices are FireWire 400, so this was not a concern for me.
Using dvgrab (which can be installed with sudo apt install -y dvgrab), you can record clips from the camera in either camera or 'VCR' mode, for example:
$ sudo apt install -y dvgrab
$ dvgrab
Found AV/C device with GUID 0x000085000014e35a
libiec61883 error: Failed to get channels available.
Waiting for DV...
Capture Started
^C"dvgrab-002.dv": 45.89 MiB 401 frames timecode 00:00:00.00 date 2067.02.15 22:26:25
Capture Stopped
You can use dvgrab interactively, too:
$ dvgrab -i
Found AV/C device with GUID 0x000085000014e35a
libiec61883 error: Failed to get channels available.
Going interactive. Press '?' for help.
q=quit, p=play, c=capture, Esc=stop, h=reverse, j=backward scan, k=pause
l=forward scan, a=rewind, z=fast forward, 0-9=trickplay, <space>=play/pause
I posted my first sample video recording with this setup over on GitHub.
DVgrab is straightforward, and can easily be used in scripts—something which I'll explore later with a prototype Firehat, and which would be useful for projects like Open MRU, both of which I found on the r/tapeless subreddit...