Best Mac OS for DVrescue

[joepicard]

Hello!
I'm very excited to find this project, thank you for creating it and supporting it, amazing!

I could use a little advice/clarity.

I bought a 2012 Mac Mini to setup as a capture station because it's the latest mac with an onboard firewire port. It sounds like Monterey is the Mac OS version to use. From what I read Homebrew support goes back to this version but not before and anything later like Ventura doesn't support firewire.

Does this sound right? The install docs are not clear about OS versions and compatibility.
What's working for you?
Thank you,
Joe

[dericed]

Hi @joepicard, I've been testing/developing dvrescue on Sonoma and generally try to stay on the latest OS for that work. @libbyhopfauf may have more info but I think the Monterey to Sonoma range should be fine.

[joepicard]

Thanks David,
Are you using Firewire on Sonoma?
I was under the understanding that that was incompatible.

[dericed]

Hi @joepicard, yes. I was last on a macbook air, so had a usb-c to thunderbolt adapter, then thunderbolt to firewire.

[joepicard]

Ha, interesting.
I have a 2022 Mac Studio on 14.6.1 for my main system and I've tried the same adaptors with it with no luck.
I believe that starting with Ventura, firewire is not supported by Mac OS anymore, that seems to be true in my tests. Interesting that you've had some success with it.

I probably should have gotten a later model Mac Mini and used the thunderbolt:firewire adaptor with it because, this 2012 one (which has firewire onboard and a bargain price) only supports up to Mac OS Catalina which, isn't 100% supported by homebrew. Homebrew does seem to work to some extent but, I'm not sure if that's whats causing me some instability in DVrescue.

[dericed]

pinging @libbyhopfauf

[libbyhopfauf]

@joepicard @dericed I can confirm that the DVRescue GUI and CLI have worked for me on the following devices running the following macOS:

• Mac Mini (late 2012) - Catalina 10.15.7 (direct connection via Firewire cable)
• Mac Mini (late 2014) - Monterey 12.7.3 (connection via Firewire cable + Firewire 800 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter)
• Macbook Pro (M1 Pro, 2021) - Ventura 13.6.1 (connection via Firewire cable + Firewire 800 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter + Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter)
• Macbook Pro (M2 Max, 2023) - Sonoma 14.4 (connection via Firewire cable + Firewire 800 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter + Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter)

On any of the set-ups that you have tried, are you able to see the device attached with adapters via Quicktime?