Hello everyone. I need some help with the concept of transferring video to PC by firewire cable. I have read a couple of threads where it is suggested to simply transfer the footage from camera via firewire & save as mpeg & then edit etc. The only method I know to do this is to actually capture the footage into say Studio 9. This is a lengthy precess. is this process the one being referred to as above.?? is there another way to do this?? or is the above the only way. With my DVD Camcorder I just finalise the disc in the camcorder & then use that disc in my PC- very simple & fast!! I can then even import that footage from the mini disc into Studio 9 & edit away. I only have a firewire connection that comes with my Studio capture card. Not a separate firewire PCI card. I have recently bought a second hand Sharp mini dvd camcorder (as a second camera) with firewire & was going to simply hook that cam up to my settop dvd recorder (by svideo, cos set top dont have firewire, bugger, eh) , make a disc & then import into PC. I have read that using firewire is a better way to do this , so I am keen to get the best advice, cheers
With a DVD camcorder you don't use Firewire. The easiest way is just finalize the disc, put the DVD in a DVD drive and copy it to hard disk. With a miniDV camcorder the way to go is Firewire. This will give you the best quality. The issues is that DVD uses a heavily compressed format (MPEG-2) which is difficult to edit and secondly if you edit it it gets decompressed and compressed again which reduces quality.
I've just bought a miniDV Panasonic PV GS-35 and the manual goes with downloading via USB 2.0 I can't recall now but I remember reading somewhere on this forum that Firewire was definitely the way to go (Why was it?) My doubts: 1) I don't have a Firewire card, should I buy a PCI one and install it at the computer instead using USB 2.0??? 2) Which program should I use for transferring the video from tape to PC? The camcorder includes MotionDV Studio, is it good? Thanks!
Yes, Firewire is definitely the way to go from a miniDV camcorder, because it offer a direct transfer without any recompressing, so it offers the highest quality level. Check this: http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/basics/transfer.php If you don't already have a Firewire connection on your PC, you certainly should install a PCI Firewire card. They come as low as $15. In terms of quality, it does not realy matter which program you use to do the transfer. There are a couple of freeware ones; you can find a collection here: http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/downloads/freedownloads.php Idon't know MotionDV Studio, but if it is a decent vide oeditor, it will also allow you to do transfer over Firewire and it should then also have device control to control the camcorder form your PC.
Thank you very much. One last question. Which is the difference between DV-AVI type 1 & type 2. Which one should I select for just making a DVD? Thanks
Check this: http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/techinfo/avi.php There is no quality difference. Just use the one that is accepted by the programs that you use.
