Very Newbie Question - DV - DV Capture

[Corremn]

Hi all,
Sorry for this basic question.

I just want to capture DV from my video Camera, what hardware do I need. Can I just use a i.link port and some nifty software or do I need to get some sort of external hardware/ capture card??
I want perfect duplication.

[Richard_G]

All you need is something to connect the i-link port on your DV camera to. i-link is the Sony name for IEEE 1394 which is also known as Firewire. I notice you are running Windows 98 so assume your pc isn't new enough to have Firewire built in so you will need a Firewire card which fits in one of your PCI slots. In the UK these cost from about £20 upwards, spend a little more and they come with software to allow you to capture (and edit as well if you want to). Alternatively, get the cheapest you can and use one of the freeware applications to capture.

One thing to bear in mind. DV video gives big files and under Win 98 you will be limited to file sizes no larger than 2 Gb. Some capture software takes this into account and splits the capture into a number of files. Alternatively, you have to capture a bit at a time to keep each file down in size.

Using DV you will get perfect duplication. DV is a digital format and you are not capturing as such, merely copying a data file from your DV tape to your hard drive. It's what you do with it afterwards that causes the problems.

[holistic]

..........To add to Richard_G

DV = 222Mb a minute (data stream) therefore about 9 minutes for every 2Gb.
Be warned - I had win98SE when i got my digital camcorder. It DID NOT like win98SE so i eventually upgraded to XP for my video editing needs. Still use 98 though for everything else.

DV from camera to harddrive is (in your words) perfect duplication.
After that it becomes a subjective thing.

In order to view your final (edited / transitioned) video you must either export back to your camera (to view on TV) with perhaps a 1% loss in quality due to the DV codec........OR........ convert in to a form of MPEG.

MPEG2 is my codec of choice. MPEG2 is the codec used on DVD's.

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[i_am_dave]

good job of describing the hardware guys. For software, you will need something to capture the stream and place it on the hard drive.
There are several applications listed in the tools section of this website, many of them are free - Look in the Tools->Capture section.

I am assuming that you will eventually want to do edits and make final productions of your videos. There are several good, but not free, programs to do this.

You can download and run free trials from Ulead (what I use) and others.