Video Capturing Newbie

[monteie]

I am in the process of planning to playing with video outside the vcd domain. I would like to start just capturing video from my digital camcorder. In looking around for a low cost capture card to get my feet wet I have gotten confused. Here are a couple of questions...
1) Does the fact that a card can do TV out mean that I can capture from it?
2) If the above is true and the card doesn't come with software how do capturing, how do I determine which software will work? Trial and error?

Currently I am in the process of reading the reviews on the board. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[Jedi27]

Hi,

In answer to your questions:
1. I don't know about the TV being captured if you had the right card.. .I suppose you could. If not, you should be able to connect your camcorder to the output on your VCR (if the VCR is connected to the TV) and capture to your camcorder. Then, you could capture from the camcorder to the PC.

I bought a Creative Audigy soundcard which has firewire and it works fantastic for connecting my camcorder. It's about $150 CDN..give or take a bit.

As for the software, I would check the forums as well as d-load some trial versions. Ulead's Moviefactory has a trial as well as some others. I personally use Pinnacle Studio 8 as I used version 7 and am used to it. I've created 4 DVDs since the weekend and they all work nicely.

Hope that helps...

Cheers,
jedi27

[johnny quest]

Maybe I misunderstood you but didn't you say you had a digital camcorder. If so, you don't need a capture card, you can connect to your PC via Firewire. If you don't have a Firewire card, you can get one for less than $50.

After that, download Virtualdub and use it to capture in DV format. You could also use number of programs that cost little or nothing, just look in the tools section.

Hope this helps

[yg1968]

Virtual dub doesn't capture DV but you can use DVIO, Windows Movie Maker, etc to capture DV through a firewire card.

What digital camcorder do you have? The reason that I am asking is that some have a "video in" which means that you can also use the digital camcorder as a capture card for your vhs tapes. This process is made easier if your digital camcorder has a passthrough feature (most Sonys and Canons have this).

[monteie]

I have a JVC digital with no firewire. One of the earlier models. Its not acutally mine and yes I was surprised that there wasn't anything that allowed you to just dump off the footage easily.
Looking for a low cost card that will allow me to capture video well. I have no problems looking for used stuff either.

[yg1968]

It's probably more expensive than you expect to pay ($300) but the Canopus ADVC-100 would be a good choice. There are cheaper cards but this one will not give you dropped frames and out of sync issues. It hooks up to your firewire card (so you also need a firewire card). (I don't actually own the Canopus given that the passthrough feature of my digital camcorder essentially does the same thing than the Canopus).