A couple of years ago (almost to the day) I purchased a Sony Hnadycam (DCR-HC48) mini-dv camera. This camera has served me well on the few occasions I have used it. One thing about this cam that I never liked was that it has a Sony Handycam Station (DCRA-C155) and this is required to connect the camera to a computer for video import. A few weeks ago, I decided that it was time to import some video that I had captured over the Holidays.

To make a long story short it seems my iLink (firewire) port no longer works. When I began googling for a possible solution I found that this is pretty typical of Sony Handycams. I was quoted $130+shipping for repair by a cam repair center. I have seen the Handycam stations sell for around $35 on eBay, however I’m not sure if this is faulty component. As you can imagine I’m not real keen on dumping any money into a mini-dv cam when HD cams are dropping in price.

While testing the cam ports, on the not so handy Handycam Station, I discovered that the USB and RCA ports still work. While I was able to get USB streaming working Windows 7, the video quality (frame rate and resolution) was greatly reduced. I then began searching for a video capture card on eBay as I have seen old PCI cards sell for next to nothing many times in the past. This is when I came across the Easycap USB 2.0 video input device. The total purchase price, shipping and all, was around $12. I figured for that price I really couldn’t go wrong, so I hit the ‘Buy it Now’ button.

So far this has been a pretty decent work around for the bad firewire port that seems to be quite common on the Sony Handycams. I don’t like how the audio imports using the Easycap USB 2.0, so I use an RC to 1\8″ adapter and capture the audio through the microphone port. This is a great way to get a clean video signal to your computer without purchasing a video capture card. This USB adapter has RC inputs as well as an S-Video input. I have used it with my DVD player as well as my Dish network receiver.


The Easycap USB 2.0 provides a great way to capture video from almost any source. This device also came with a free version of Ulead Video Editing Software, which really isn’t that bad. There was a USB extender cable as well, but I’m not a big fan of these cables for this type of thing so I’ve never tried it. For $12 you simply can’t go wrong, you can rip DVD’s or capture a flick you rented on Dish Network. These things are being sold all over the place, I happened to get mine on eBay, but the price was pretty comparable on Amazon, Tiger Direct and CDW as well.