rjh

Hi,
I've just bought a Canon MV400 mini DV video camera and want to connect it to my PC, mainly for still pictures but also for movies. Does anyone know the cheapest way of doing this? What hardware and software will I need? Is there any free software available?

thanks

Richard

Damaja

You will need a firewire card if you don't have one. Not sure how much they retail at but the kit should come with the firewire card, cable to connect camera to PC and the software. If you are a little more serious and would like to edit the movies more etc then I suggest looking into some decent software as the stuff supplied is usually quite poo poo.

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

ATi Rage All-In-Wonder graphics card has all the necessary bits or any TV card (Haupage or simillar). Most come with all the basic software required.

Wires should've come with your video.

Damaja

Puff those cards capture a AV signal sent from the camera, the Firewire card allows you to capture the digital signal, it is a lot quicker and the firewire card allows you to control the camera via the pc.

Think that is right anyway!

boxst

Hello

You can use a capture card (as mentioned above), but by far the best choice is the firewire card. They are around £40.

Once you have edited your movie on the PC, the best thing to do is write it back (Also via firewire).

Note that your camera will probably have dv-in disabled. If so, scan the internet and you should find the right code to re-enable it.

Steve.

paulr

On a similiar vein,is it possible for me to transfer small video clips off my Sony Hi8 to my pc....or am i better off getting a new digi camcorder?

boxst

Paulr:

A capture card would be fine, something like the Hauppauge WinTV would do the job, and can be picked up cheaply at auction sites.

Steve.

Sheepsplitter

There is a very useful article in this months 'Personal Computer World' that covers this in quite a bit of detail.
Personally I use a Radeon 8500 with a Firewire socket.
I can record real time with no frame loss, then tinker with the video using Adobe Premier V6 and spit it out at the other end onto Video CD/DVD or back down to the Video camera.

paulmon

I have just bought the PYRO 1394 DV from lynx http://www.lynxdv.com/dvstore/

It costs £70 and works a treat with Adobe Premiere 6.0.

A word of warning, you will need a decent spec PC with fast disks, preferably SCSI 10K to write back to tape and a lot of free space (20 mins of video = 5GB). I would also recommend Windows XP.

Cheers
Paul

JackClark

I use the cheapest Firewire card I could find in PC world and a copy of WinXP Movie maker, works a treat! Examples here http://www.californear.com/video.htm Small size, great quality and the majority of people can view them.

paulr

Thanks to steve....

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

Dunno if you're exactly right, as I have definately controlled my JVC mini-DV via the PC for editing purposes & I've not got FireWire. Good old S Video



Probably quicker though, I'll agree.

[Edited by Puff The Magic Wagon! - 3/4/2002 2:08:50 PM]