Posted by: Phipli on 2026-07-16 04:37:47What do people know about these cards? Does anyone have a copy of the software that came with them?
The manual (attached) says they're for G3s and G4s, for use with Premiere and Final Cut.
I feel like you see them quite a lot, were they an option from Apple directly?
Were they used with any other hardware? Or is the cars everything you'd need?
I have a card, but am missing the audio breakout. Does anyone have one, ten minutes and a multimeter?
Posted by: Phipli on 2026-07-16 04:47:52Here is a Mac OS X driver :
miroMOTION DC30 Plus v1.1.2 Install Software Macintosh (1998)(Eng)
archive.org
Posted by: Phipli on 2026-07-16 04:54:03Both attached here for posterity.
Just need to find out about the audio adapter wiring and any interesting history / complementary hardware now I guess?
Posted by: chelseayr on 2026-07-16 07:45:54I was sure I had seen this one before while I was initially trying to sort what video card I could like trying track down (which atm has been shortlisted to just targa)
Drivers for MiroMotion DC30 and DC30plus video capture cards. For MacOS 7.5 to 9.1 use MiroMotion drivers and Xact_Driver by Squared5 for MacOSX. Here link for XactDriver by Squared5. http://www.squared5.com/svideo/dc30-xact-mac.html
macintoshgarden.org
looks like it pretty much works in anything that has pci considering any(afaik) ppc system needs 7.5 at minimum as well
(and looks like you don't have to archive-link to the osx version atm but mm)
Posted by: Phipli on 2026-07-16 09:28:31
looks like it pretty much works in anything that has pci considering any(afaik) ppc system needs 7.5 at minimum as well
The manual for the plus says a G3 and 8.6. I'm sure you could get away with a high end 604, but the plus has significantly more throughout than the older version so probably needs the higher spec because of that.
Well, I missed that page on Mac Garden because my cards are all branded as Pinnacle and I misread Miro as Micro.
Isn't Targa stuff notoriously difficult to get working because the serial number is tied on a card by card basis to the hardware? If it is the card I'm thinking of you need to get the serial with the card. Might be something different. I have one, you can apparently do stuff to work around the restriction and I meant to do it as a project but haven't got around to it yet.
Posted by: Unknown_K on 2026-07-16 11:30:10Targa cards used in AVID machines need a serial to work tied to the card, but the stand-alone retail versions do not.
Posted by: Phipli on 2026-07-16 11:32:52
Targa cards used in AVID machines need a serial to work tied to the card, but the stand-alone retail versions do not.
Ah interesting - I'd forgotten there were two versions.
Posted by: chelseayr on 2026-07-16 16:59:17unknown_k's right, its not always easy to tell in auctions so since they're not expensive I may nevertheless decide if I want try bid on two of them as the chance of both being avid-specific ones is not too big hopefully
the only one thing I could maybe slightly warn about targa 2000 kits tho is to be mindful which daughter card option you actually get with it. especially as one particular option only can handle sdi input aka it has no analog capture support at all
(I guess one could use an used blackmagic analog>sdi adapter with such sdi-fitted pci card but mm yeah)
anyhow phipli I had to look for the pdf manuals out of curiousity (relatively easy to find on the web thankfully) and it seem that the dc30plus manual makes no direct mention of any hardware offloading unlike the dc20 and dc30 ones but on the other hand the dc30plus manual mentions that the suggested data rate is 3000kbyte for dc30 and 4000kbyte for the dc30plus .. I may suspect that they didn't want to have to support so many different possible setups when the dc30plus came out hence the 'higher' system requirement?
Posted by: Unknown_K on 2026-07-16 17:56:03Avid models have a cable at the end that connects it to a DSP board, easy enough to tell the difference.