Many of my past articles cover FireWire, aka IEEE 1394 and i.LINK for capture of legacy video formats in their native interlaced state, for later processing and proper de-interlacing. The latest macOS Tahoe completely disable’s FireWire intentionally. This also affects older external drives and iPods which use FireWire. For those of you mistakenly believe that you are immune if you have a converter from FireWire to Thunderbolt, you are not. The only current solution is to use an older version of macOS, up and including Sequoia (for FireWire video devices and FireWire hard drives, not for FireWire audio interfaces, which were removed from Core Audio earlier). Even though Sequoia and prior versions support FireWire, in May 2025, I published Advantages of capturing old videotapes with an old Mac with native FireWire & High Sierra (macOS 10.13) to show that FireWire on recent Macs and recent macOS versions is less reliable and less functional than with older ones. Ideally, you will use an older Mac for capture. However, if you must continue to use a recent Mac with FireWire, avoid updating to Tahoe until you no longer need FireWire.

To see my prior and future FireWire articles, click here.

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FTC disclosure

None of the listed individuals or companies mentioned above has paid for this article. Some of the manufacturers listed above have contracted Tépper and/or TecnoTur LLC to carry out consulting and/or translations/localizations/transcreations. So far, none of the manufacturers listed above is/are sponsors of the TecnoTur, BeyondPodcasting, CapicúaFM or TuSaludSecreta programs, although they are welcome to do so, and some are, may be (or may have been) sponsors of ProVideo Coalition magazine. Some links to third parties listed in this article and/or on this web page may indirectly benefit TecnoTur LLC via affiliate programs. Allan Tépper’s opinions are his own. Allan Tépper is not liable for misuse or misunderstanding of information he shares.