I was hoping this would be easier. But I guess not.
I do want to know if the usb-to-firewire will work or not. I ask as this is like my own firewire device.

I do want to thank you for your due diligence in helping me this far.

It will only work if the firewire interface device you buy is supported by the Linux kernel drivers. There was a time when some laptops provided a firewire (IEE 1394) interface. It's not commonly used these days. If you have a desktop machine, a PCI firewire card might exist. It's uncharted territory for me, so I'm not prepared to speculate about which one might work or not. I don't see many recent threads on the subject either. However, once one does have a supported cable, then dvgrab should be your friend...

https://www.organicdesign.co.nz/Linu...ire_(IEEE1394)

Good luck which ever way you choose to proceed.