I just spent two hours at CompUSA and got a varitey of opinions on which is the best way to capture my MiniDv video into my pc. (I have a Sony Handycam DCR-HC30. I saw other threads that spoke highly of the ATI All-In Wonder video capture card, but when I looked at it, I noticed that there is no Fire-Wire input jack. This dissuaded me from buying it. I bought a Pinnacle AV/DV PCI board. It has the I.Link connection. Also came with the Pinnacle Studio software which I've not heard anybody speak of...I'll ask about that on the software forum. Just want an opinion about using the IEEE 1394 fire-wire concept to transfer the video onto my PC. Is this ok?
A video capture card is typically the term people will use for taking an analog signal and "digitizing" it. This is the function that an ATI All-in-Wonder provides. Following that definition, a vid capture card is only good for cameras that are not digital. Your camera is a miniDV camera, which is digital, so getting a video capture card is a bad idea. The reason for this is that your camera would have to convert the digital signal to analog and then the capture card would have to convert it back to digital. Any time there is a conversion, you can expect some amount of quality loss. Bottom line: for a digital camcorder such as yours, you want just a plain firewire card (Firewire, i.Link, 1394 - same words for same thing).
Thanks Pthor. I came to that realization quickly. I did get a firewire card (with 3 ports) and have sucessfully captured the DIGITAL video (in .avi format no less). Now the fun begins....
