Transferring movies from camcorder to laptop

Discussion in 'Horn Depot' started by Orange Infused, Oct 27, 2006.

  1. Orange Infused

    Orange Infused 25+ Posts

    I have a Panasonic Mini DV camcorder (model number PV-GS2), a firewire, and a Dell laptop. And, for the life of me, I can't figure out how to transfer the movies on the tapes in the camcorder on to my laptop so I can burn them on to DVD. I can transfer the still images from the SD card in the camcorder to the computer with no problem, but the movies are another thing. Is my problem a software issue? The info I have found online re: DV Studio indicates that it will only work on transferring still images, and not movies. Short of going out and buying a Mac (which I can't afford to do anyway) what do I need to do to get the movies from the tape to the computer?

    Thanks VERY much for any help and suggestions. [​IMG]
     
  2. Xminus6

    Xminus6 500+ Posts

    you have to play the tape in the camera (or a tape deck) and capture it with a video capture or editing program on your computer. sorry if this sounds basic, but i don't know for sure how much you know about editing. you can obviously download pictures because they're just files on flash media. the movies are on a tape and the computer can't just read the movie as a file. it has to capture the movie.
     
  3. Orange Infused

    Orange Infused 25+ Posts

    Honestly, I know VERY LITTLE about video capturing/editing.......translate: I've never done it before, so I don't have a clear idea of where to start. My video camera has a button/dial on it that has 5 symbols. They are: video record, video playback, still record, still playback, and "PC". However, when I put it on "PC" my computer only picks up the SD card, which is where the still images are. It doesn't seem to recognize that there is also a tape in the camera. I've gone onto Google and searched for "video capture software", which I downloaded. I'll give that a try this evening, to see if/how I can get the video capture software to make my computer "talk" to my camcorder. I also noticed that there are two "ports" on my camcorder. One is the USB port (with the USB symbol showing above it), and the other is a little smaller and square (with iDV showing above it). Should I be using that connection when trying to do the video capture?

    Thanks for the help.
     
  4. Xminus6

    Xminus6 500+ Posts

    firewire should work in doing video capture. your video capture program *should* be able to control your camera through the firewire connection. so you can start, stop and play the camera from the interface on your computer. i don't know what software you're using, but that's how it should work.

    here's why you're seeing the difference between the still photos and the video. on your camera, it takes still photos on some form of solid state memory like a flash video card or a memory stick. it's usually a square or rectangular stick you put into a slot somewhere on the camera. this is also how digital cameras store their images. when you hook up your camera to the computer, it can take these images off the memory stick because the camera just treats them as computer files, like a word file or any image you could download from the internet. think of the stick as another hard drive, albeit very small.

    on a mini dv cam, the video footage isn't stored as a "file". it's stored on the length of video tape that rolls through the camera's record/play head. in other words, it's not just an .avi or .wmv file like you might have downloaded from jcdenton. it's distributed across that whole length of tape. in order to make that video a computer file, your computer has to read it from the tape sequentially. you have to play your tape and your computer records it as it goes. after it's all recorded in your capture application, then you can save it as a file and/or edit it.
     
  5. LAktownhorn

    LAktownhorn 250+ Posts

    thank goodness for rtf!
     
  6. Orange Infused

    Orange Infused 25+ Posts


     
  7. dlatin

    dlatin 100+ Posts

    With the purchase of firewire pci adapter and cable I got the ULead Video Studio 7 SE along with their DVD authoring program. I was a bit surprised that the adapter, cable and SW were like $30 at Fry’s when I was looking at the SW costing about $70. I was skeptical but I loaded it on my computer and it recognized my mini-DV camcorder and I just chose capture video. From there I could edit it. It takes some time but you can make home DVDs.

    I see they are selling their v10 for about $70. I bet the newer version is a lot more user friendly. I think any proper video capture program should allow you do copy the video to your computer.
     

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