Exporting videos from a camcorder? I am using Sony Handycam DCR-HC20 which uses Mini DV for recording. I'm new to this and I've been wondering how can I get the videos I record to my computer in .AVI or .MPEG format by keeping quality high and size low. The camcorder offers an option to directly burn a VCD to a DVD/CD when connected to the computer via USB, however, that's not what I wanna have. I need the simpliest, fastest and easiest way to get the video content on my computer using the minimal size for the video file. I would appreciate your help. Thanks in advance. P.S. The only option I've tried so far was connecting camcorder via USB, playing the movie on camcorder and recording it simultaneously using a video software (record from device), but first of all it tooks a lot of time, there was a quality i.e. frame loss and the size was like 5 GB for half an hour. Not sure if my comoputer can handle converting those files....
Connect your camcorder to your PC via Firewire (or iLink in Sony speak). You might need to purchase a Firewire card if your computer doesn't have it built in. For capturing software, try either Ulead Video Studio or Pinnacle Studio. Both offer free trials at their respective websites. As for the smallest size, ain't going to happen right away. You'll be capturing in DV avi, which is a very lossless codec. Translation? Huge files. About 3GB for every 15 min. How you encode after capturing (to VCD, DVD, avi, etc) will determine the final size of the video file.
Wassup is right. Best is to capture in DV-AVI using Firewire, but you will end up with big files. Your PC will have no problems handling those as long as your hard drive is big enough. Your PC will have more problems while capturing with USB @wassup: DV-AV is not lossless, as a matter of fact is it is lossy (and "pretty lossless" is a contradictio in terminis ;-) )
Thank you very much for your help. I hoped there was a way to make like a file transfer from MiniDV to the PC, but I guess I'll have to go with Firewire.
I always use a very damn easy (but powerful) program to transfer from my MiniDV to my PC (via firewire). It's called CaptureFlux (freeware) Google for it!
