Anyone ever used an nNovia QuickCapture?
 

I was complaining to a friend how my youtube work is becoming hard to do because I either run out of MiniDV tapes or the tape decks keep requiring extensive maintenance so he gave me three of these babies.

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It's a little hard disk based video recorder that accepts digital audio and video from a firewire source like a modern MiniDV/DVCAM camera but also supports ANALOG in and out as well, so with a bit of fiddling I can totally make an adapter that makes this an HDD replacement for EIAJ-10 and K-connector video cameras so you no longer need to lug around a portable VTR.

Thing is, nNovia is long out of business and the manuals are scattered around. Anyone here messed with these and possibly have the firmware updates? Looks like they used to be available at one point.

If you get the right computer you can skip the recorder altogether. A Mac with OSB software will record, do transitions, etc. right on the computer. Stream also, if you want.

If you have to edit a lot, a Blackmagic Micro Recorder will take SDI or HDMI input straight to disk, which you can subsequently edit with their Resolve editor. All software needed is gratis. The Micro Recorder is about $150 or less. Many, many alternatives out there, too.

For the analog side of things, the pricier Blackmagic HyperDeck Studio 2 with the analog inputs will record all day, as long as you cycle in hard drives (which are hot-pluggable in the front bays). But it's not free or cheap. Lots of analog to h.264 recorders too, but no outputs -- just inputs.

I have used Pinnacle Video Recorders for analog to .mov recording. Has composite and S-Video in, and records to good thumb drives. Used to be $100. (I have a few left over from a mass transfer project.) No output options, though.

Looks like you got a good price on your recorders. Tracking down firmware updates can be a challenge for stuff like that.

I mainly preshoot all footage and edit it later before it is transferred to archival storage. I do not have cameras new enough to support anything beyond firewire.
I don't have the budget to compete with the regular Youtube channels.
I'm not in the market for completely newer hardware and software.