DV Capture Newbie, NEED HELP PLEASE!

[Network Enforcer]

Ok, dad was cool enough to buy me a Sony DCR-TRV33 Digital Camcorder for my birthday. I will mainly be using it to take video of my baby girl as she grows up. I want to record and then capture to my harddrive and finally burn to DVD.

I have gone through the guides and what not but am not clearly getting a picture to how to acutally do this process.

Is there an easier way?
What packages are good for this type of conversion?

I have a P4 3.06 with 1gb of pc3200 ram, 80gb WD HD, Pioneer DVR A-05
SIIG Firewire PCI Card and a Radeon 128Pro 32mb AGP video card.

Thanks

[i_am_dave]

You might want to look at one of the all-in-one solutions from Ulead such as Movie Factory 2.
[/url]www.ulead.com

I have had much sucess with Ulead products, and using MF2, you can perform all the steps from capture to burning the DVD.

And besides that, it's cheap, less than $50 USD

[Tommyknocker]

First, let me congratulate you on the birth of your daughter. Second, I_am_dave has a good point with the all in one package suggestion. I use Ulead's Video Studio 6 and it does it all. I suggest you go to the ulead site and download a demo version of their programs to see which one suits you.

Next, the procedure involves you connecting your camera to your computer. Since the TRV33 is a analog camera, you either will need a capture card that has RCA-in capability, which most of them have, or spring for a hardware encoder that encodes your video to DV and and stores it on your hard drive via firewire.

Since you just have a new arrival to the family, you may want to go the capture card route, as they are really cheap, whereas hardware encoders can be pretty expensive.

So, once you have all this, the Ulead program will capture the video to your computer, allow you to edit it they way you want, save it to your hard drive, then burn it to DVD for you with your A05.

[Network Enforcer]

First, let me congratulate you on the birth of your daughter. Second, I_am_dave has a good point with the all in one package suggestion. I use Ulead's Video Studio 6 and it does it all. I suggest you go to the ulead site and download a demo version of their programs to see which one suits you.

Next, the procedure involves you connecting your camera to your computer. Since the TRV33 is a analog camera, you either will need a capture card that has RCA-in capability, which most of them have, or spring for a hardware encoder that encodes your video to DV and and stores it on your hard drive via firewire.

Since you just have a new arrival to the family, you may want to go the capture card route, as they are really cheap, whereas hardware encoders can be pretty expensive.

So, once you have all this, the Ulead program will capture the video to your computer, allow you to edit it they way you want, save it to your hard drive, then burn it to DVD for you with your A05.

I thought the TRV33 was a Digital . It has a USB and Firewire connectivity support. http://www.techtronics.com/uk/shop/851-sony-dcr-trv33-dv-digital-camcorder.html

[Tommyknocker]

Sorry. I did a search for TRV33 and it took me to the CCD-trv33. So please skip the part about capture cards as your firewire card will do just fine. I still think the all in one packages from Ulead will work for you, though.

[Network Enforcer]

Thanks alot guys. My Daughter as a matter of fact is still getting ready to come into the world. I just want to be prepared to get everything ready for her. I will give the software a shot and give updates to my successes and failures.

Thanks.

[Karate Media]

If it has a firewire port then you have digital, and don't worry about what Tommy's smokin'

For some reason I'm surprised that the camera didn't come with some sort of rudimentary capturing/editing software. I don't own a digital camcorder, but it seems most hardware nowadays comes with some sort of simple-use app.

Anyway, for a newbie, I really would recommend FREE over even low-cost. Windows Movie Maker 2 is free -- I haven't used it, but I hear it's actually quite useful for being a free M$ product. It will allow you to capture and edit your footage (nothing too fancy, though).

Your Pioneer should have come with Sonic MyDVD 4.0 (which also includes Arcsoft for video editing, actually!) for DVD authoring. This program will convert the captured (and edited) footage to mpg2 and also will guide you through the DVD creation process.

I have a Sony 500UL burner w/ Sonic MyDVD 4 and my version will let me capture within MyDVD, edit it within ArcSoft, and then create the DVD. I don't use all of these functions, but they exist, and I assume they exist in your version of SOnic MyDVD, too (according to the Pioneer website, this is what is bundled w/ the A05).

Tommy and Dave's idea are just as valid, but I am a firm believer that newbies should spend no money unless they absolutely have to -- you'll be busy spending money on your first couple of DVD coasters (I did, at least!) and you'll be thankful for every penny you saved.

Once you get the hang of it, then you lay out some ducets.

My 2 cents...

[Tommyknocker]

First, I do not smoke anything. Second, downloading demos and using his own equipment costs him nothing until he decides what he really wants to invest in. And third, if you were really interested in saving him money, why did you not tell him to use a DVD-RW instead of a DVD-R? And lastly, when you see me here "making change", keep your "two cents" to the side.

[Karate Media]

Alright, Tommy Capone...was that a knife or a gun? I guess I'm gonna hafta send ya to the morgue!

[Tommyknocker]

Now we see the violence that is inherent in the system -- Monty Python and the Holy Grail

[tjtoed]

I too do the same thing with my digital DV camcorder.

I use the following:
1. Capture via a firewire card.
2. Import using Windows Movie Maker 2 on the DV-AVI setting.
3. Edit, cut, and save out the movie(s) using Movie Maker 2 to DV-AVI.
4. Import the AVI into Ulead DVD Workshop and let it encode using the VBR setting with max at 7000 and audio as MPEG 2 audio.

This produces great results and I get near DV quality results.

I did my wedding and it turned out awesome...

You can download a trial of DVD workshop and Movie maker 2 is free...

Let me know if you want more detailed instructions when you get closer to actually doing this.

[Network Enforcer]

I too do the same thing with my digital DV camcorder.

I use the following:
1. Capture via a firewire card.
2. Import using Windows Movie Maker 2 on the DV-AVI setting.
3. Edit, cut, and save out the movie(s) using Movie Maker 2 to DV-AVI.
4. Import the AVI into Ulead DVD Workshop and let it encode using the VBR setting with max at 7000 and audio as MPEG 2 audio.

This produces great results and I get near DV quality results.

I did my wedding and it turned out awesome...

You can download a trial of DVD workshop and Movie maker 2 is free...

Let me know if you want more detailed instructions when you get closer to actually doing this.

How long would a process of one our take you to do this? I am a man on the go and would like to get more done than just wait if it is long.

Thanks

[tjtoed]

Capture is real time, so for a 60 minute tape, it would be
60 minutes capture
+ 30 to 120 to edit, cut, and save out AVI file
+ Ulead DVD Workshop.

Once you get your menus and such in Workshop, I create a disk image to HD first, then you can walk away and do something else for the hour or so it takes to encode and create image.

Then burn.

While this is not quick at all, it creates awesome DVDs and since you won't have to use TMPGenc or another encoder on top this this, it is faster than it could be...