I am new here and this forum seems the best for camcorder help. Anyway, ive just come back from a holiday, purchasing a SONY HC42 and using it to capture footage while away. Now at home i am having troubles transfering the video from the MINIDV tape to my PC. The software SONY included was "PICTURE PACKAGE" that focused only on transfering and editing pictures. I need help with tranfering video. Ive tried using the included software called "Video Capture Tool" which uh captures the video off the minidv tape to PC while its playing. But ive had a few problems: -The video quality on the PC looks very bad, while if the quality of the footage if connected to TV is great. And this handycam was not cheap and its "megapixel engine". -The footage is also a bit "laggy" on the PC. -The file size of the created .avi is insane, 200megs for 30seconds...is this correct? -Also it seems transfering video from the tape to pc takes time, i.e if the minidv tape is 90mins long, it takes 90mins to copy to pc....is this correct? isnt there are much faster way like trasfering the whole tape faster? Anyway i know its alot of questions ive asked but i really need help, as i bought this camcorder for the reason to edit on PC. I know how to edit video and covert to DVD, i just need help with transfering MINIDV TAPE to PC. Also i am using the included USB cable. System Specs if this helps: P4 3.0 512 RAM 128 FX5600 120G HD ON BOARD SOUND (865 PE Neo2) Thanks
OK, a lot of questions but they can all be answered.. The main issue here is that you are using a USB cable to transfer your video. You should use a Firewire connection. Check this article: http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/basics/transfer.php The fact that you are using USB is the cause why you get bad quality. A bit surprising to me is that you end up having 200MB for 30 seconds. That is an odd number. Nevertheless, if you capture through Firewire you will anyway end up with big files: around 13Gigs/hour. When capturing from tape, there is no way that you can do it faster than real-time (i.e. it takes 1 hour to capture 1 hour of video). Finally an advice: I don't know the capture software that came with your camcorder, but you might as well use one of the freeware capture tools listed here: http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/downloads/freedownloads.php They definitely will not mess with your video during the transfer, they just simply "copy" the video to your hard drive.
Thankyou for such a great reply. What is the difference using a firewire cable? Also with the freeware software, does that affect the quality of the .avi produced? or you can choose the quality?
I quote the article that I recommended above: "The compression format used on DV tape is also used to store the video on your hard drive, so this process is a direct transfer. There is no digitizing or decompression/compression involved so there is no loss of quality." So this also applies for the freeware programs. No loss of quality whatsoever. The difference with using a USB cable is that it is not a direct transfer of DV. USB is simply to slow for that.
I didnt want to start another topic, so ill continue here, sense I kind of have the same problem....I did some research here and went and got my "fire wire" and also I have Nero express....I all ready capture my mini dv to my hard drive using windows movie maker, what I want to do is put my movies in DVD....the editing part seems not that hard, I can deal with it later, but my big thing is putting this movie into a dvd...so far what I understood is that I need to do some "encoding', I saw theres lots of option , but wich ? thx in advance
So if i use a firewire cable i get direct transfer..ok. If i use USB, it isnt direct? i dont mind if it takes longer but if the quality is the same as firewire i am happy. But currently the quality shown with transfering with my USB is very bad.
I captured on an EP tape, 2 hrs long but there was a slight digitized effect on the motion, suggest recording at normal speed if your not.
I just "capture" and edit with "windows' movie maker...Im trying to copy it to a DVd using NeroVision Express.. but I cant...Im supposted to use something else to converted the "capture" I have a mini DV and im using firewire.thx
Ok, just to make sure here....I have a panasonic minidv, bought me a firewire card, cable. I recorded at EP to get a hole 1 1/2 hours on the tape. Now when I begin to transfer it, it seems to be HUGE. Is this correct? I have tried changing the format options to try and make it smaller, but it seems to like to drop frames. Editing it and putting it to dvd is no problem with me. I just want to make sure its suppose to be a huge video file. Why so big? A 1.5 hour video seems to take up more space than a dual layer dvd movie with crap loads of extras on the disc. Compression...that sounds funny cus it dont seem like they are not using any compression. especially if its just copying it directly over.... Is there a way to convert it for a smaller size? Any who let me know what you know....
mini DV (MS) is around 13 Gig per hour compared to MPEG2 DVD which is between 2.2 Gph. DVDs are highly compressed. Oh, i should add, the mini DV is 13 gig per hour when using the DV25 or MS compressor usually default. I think its 5 times larger without that 5:1 compression. You should be able to capture using an MPEG2 encoder or try 30 minutes at a time, then transcode that miniDV into MPEG2 if you dont have room for a larger file.
I have been using a firewire, I got off ebay cheaply (maybe that's my problem) but I still get the same lousy quality as I did with the USB. Its almost blurry, but when I connect miniDV directly to the TV I get perfectly clear quality any ideas?
The Firewire card should not make any difference in quality. It is a direct transfer, so if it works, it works. Mayube you are using a capture program that directly converts to some other format. Use one of the freeware capture programs to make sure that you're just doing a direct transfer and nothing else. http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/downloads/freedownloads.php
