Fire Wire connection

[Ravindran]

I want to transfer my contents from digital 8 casette taken via digital camcorder to a Recordable CD through my PCWhat requirements should I have apart from fire wire connection and default CD/DVD drive & CD-Rewriter.Which Video is best suited for this purpose?
Thanks

Ravi

 

[Andy22]

You only need two things: A firewire card and a video editing software package. I bought StudioDV from Pinnacle Systems after reading a lot positive reviews on it. It's supposedly one of the best out there. The great thing about this package is that it comes with a 2 port firewire card.

Here is the homepage for it: StudioDV

 

[Lost Pup]

I found Win2k more stable than Win98 at least in my case.
I use the Sony for video & an external firewire case with
my cdr burner in it. They both work well under Win2k as
with Win98 I encountered contant crashes.

Lost Pup

 

[Ravindran]

Lost pup,
My dell system comes with winME...I have a sony digital camera with a i-link slot...i am planning for a computer system with fire wire slot . I am in dilema in choosing the videocard between Geforce 2MX with tv-out or Geforce GTS DDR !!!... some friends suggested ATI all in wonder..but dell doesn't have it...could u give some tips...apart from this do i have to buy an external software kit to do my editing? throw some light...

 

[Jittles]

I used my dad's Apple G3 with built in firewire and free iMovie 2.1 to edit a movie for school. Worked like a charm. Didn't need to burn it though, I sent it back to the camera then to VHS.

 

[Jvolm]

As far as extra stuff, you need the camera, firewire card, cable, capture software (a lot of firewire cards come with some), and of course the burner.

I would also recommend TMPGEnc to compress the video to burn onto the CD. The AVI's you get from some capture software can have video rates of 200MB/min. Go here to get some tips on compression. You can download TMPGEnc there as well, along with a LOT of other really good compression utilities & tips.

You're going to need a big HD (200MB/min adds up quick), a good bit of RAM (especially if you ant to edit the video) & a fairly fast processor (compression takes a lot of CPU time).

 

[Ravindran]

Capture software.. does dell system comes along with this software? I am planning for 60GB HD and 256 MB Ram with P3 1Ghz Processor...Could u recommend the type of video card i can go for?

 

[Helznicht]

Why does it seem everybody is talking in different directions on this thread?

First off, make sure your Digital Camcorder has firewire support.

Next, get a "Firewire Card/DV Editing" Package like DVStudio or PyroDV (both should be available from BestBuy or Circuit City, as well as online)

Now, It doesnt matter AT ALL what kind of Videocard you have. Capturing DV through your firewire card has nothing to do with your vid card. You can use whatever.

Get a CD-RW if you dont already have one.

As far as movie format, I prefer VCD, its not as high a resolution as the raw DV(avi) just saved from your camera, but has many advantages:

* about NTCS TV resolutions
* a CDR will hold about 70 min of VCD movies
* VCD suported by most DVD players (standalone entertainment center types) so you can play your movies on your TV.

Go here for lots of info and how-tos for VCD and DV to VCD conversion:
all your VCD needs

Couple notes:

1) Firewire is only supported by Win98SE and later MS operating systems.
2) DV takes a BIG HONKING Harddrive. 30 gig will give you about a little more than an hour of DV video, but then where are you gonna save your converted movies (resize?, different format?) You cant save your DV(AVI) movie to CD as it would only hold about 3 minutes of video :Q