Bring Back MiniDV with This Raspberry Pi FireWire Hat (jeffgeerling.com)

Jeff Geerling describes a portable “MRU” built from a Raspberry Pi 5 plus a FireWire HAT to replace older MiniDV recording units. The setup can record directly to tape or archive MiniDV tapes to the Pi (e.g., via dvgrab), with an OLED/status interface and battery support through a PiSugar 3 Plus. He outlines the Linux kernel changes needed for FireWire on Pi OS, reports about 2–4 hours of battery runtime, and compares the HAT approach with an alternative Mini PCIe/Open MRU design using different FireWire controllers.