MiniDV HD Files to PC

[1downfall]

Hello all...first off....wow! what a wealth of information here! As a new guy, am a tad overwhelmed by it all, but thank you for a great site.
Have a Sony minidv cam that i record in 1080i. I have about 30-40 tapes. I would like to edit some and put on a disc to send out to family that live outside my area.
The files are tremendous!
Question: How can i download say 5 tapes or so and then edit them? 2minutes of tape is like 400+mb. I cant transfer 60 minute tapes at that rate!

[smrpix]

5 tapes is about 65GB. If you don't have that available, really twice that, preferably on a non-system drive, You aren't realistically prepared to do this project. Sorry to be a meanie.

What NLE are you planning to use?

[aedipuss]

your computer specs you list contain a 2tb drive and a 1tb drive with assorted others, there has to be plenty of space. tapes take an hour to capture and use 13gb. no other choice.

[1downfall]

your computer specs you list contain a 2tb drive and a 1tb drive with assorted others, there has to be plenty of space. tapes take an hour to capture and use 13gb. no other choice.

Bummer! So it is a slooooww process...I guess after I download a few and put a few on disc, I have to remove them to make room for more.

[Cornucopia]

Also, BTW, what you have there is NOT a DV cam, but an HDV cam. Consumer DV is SD only, HDV is HD (hence the name).

If you are planning on getting them to DVDs, think of starting with ~2hours worth. At 13GB/hr, that's only 26GB you'll need (actually, you'll need more for the renders and for the exported/converted output, so assume triple or ~75GB). If you wanted to keep it HD, you'll need to create an AVCHD or BD (or data disc) instead of a DVD-Video, so that will affect playing time also.

Scott

edit: you should KEEP your original tapes (so they could be re-worked later on), but if you have to remove the masters after exporting to disc, you should at least keep the NLE's EDL/Session Data and/or Authoring setups (those aren't very large anyway).

[1downfall]

Also, BTW, what you have there is NOT a DV cam, but an HDV cam. Consumer DV is SD only, HDV is HD (hence the name).

If you are planning on getting them to DVDs, think of starting with ~2hours worth. At 13GB/hr, that's only 26GB you'll need (actually, you'll need more for the renders and for the exported/converted output, so assume triple or ~75GB). If you wanted to keep it HD, you'll need to create an AVCHD or BD (or data disc) instead of a DVD-Video, so that will affect playing time also.

Scott

edit: you should KEEP your original tapes (so they could be re-worked later on), but if you have to remove the masters after exporting to disc, you should at least keep the NLE's EDL/Session Data and/or Authoring setups (those aren't very large anyway).

Thank you! I do plan on keeping the tapes as well. I am not yet familiar with AVCHD files and do not have BD burning capability .

[Cornucopia]

Much of AVCHD is meant to be burned on DVD media, (since it has a different target than true BD) so that shouldn't set you back any. Just a matter of learning the Avchd/Bd structure (and encoding parameters) and getting the right apps for the job (tsmuxer, multiavchd, etc).

Scott