Newbie Help on Capturing from Camcorder

[Drooling Dog]

I'm brand new to this stuff, so please type slowly for me.

I have a Canon Optura 200MC, and a a Radeon 8500 video card running on Win2000. (full computer specs in profile)

I understand that my video card doesn't capture video, but I also have 2 open Firewire ports. The software/manual that came with my camcorder says I can only capture video through the Firewire port if I'm running WinXP, which I'm not willing to do.

Am I S.O.L. without upgrading my video card or switching to XP, or is there something else I can do with my current system?

Thanks.

[daamon]

Hi Drooling Dog,

I run Win2K Pro as an O/S and capture via Firewire from my miniDV cam perfectly OK.

I'd say, give it a go and see how it looks. Freeware capture tools: DVIO, WinDV.

Read the "Sticky" titled "Why does your system drop frames?" in the Capturing forum to make sure you can eliminate any problems with dropped frames so that, if you do have a problem (of any kind), you've already ruled out a lot of possible causes.

If you capture to DV AVI (type 2), you're looking at around 13Gb per hour of footage. Then use GSpot or AVICodec to get info on your AVI file.

Basic info:

PAL: 25fps, 720 x 576 picture size
NTSC: 29.97fps, 720 x 480 picture size

Hope that helps. Good luck...

[Beavis]

Yeah, you do need to use firewire to transfer your DV video from the camera to the computer, but that should really be possible with any Windows OS from 98SE on up. I don't think any extra software from Canon is needed for a simple transfer of video. The firewire and camera drivers should be included with Windows. Connect everything up per the manual and see if WinDV can see the camera.

[saurabh_fzr]

I understand that my video card doesn't capture video, but I also have 2 open Firewire ports. The software/manual that came with my camcorder says I can only capture video through the Firewire port if I'm running WinXP, which I'm not willing to do.

I think that would be the limitation of the specific software that came with your cam. As pointed by Daamon and Beavis try to use other capturing softwares, there should not be any problem.

Saurabh