Video > DV > PC in one go .. problem

[shaunl]

Hi,
I have a bunch of home movies on video cassette that I am transferring to DVD.

My mini dv is a Canon MV800i. I can easily record from the video cassette to a mini dv, but I want to go one step further.

I want to be able to transfer from the video to the canon to my laptop at the same time. This is what I am doing ...

1. Connecting the Video Recorder to the Canon using a Stereo Video Cable and inserting it into the AV connection on the Canon. (signal is fine) I press the buttons to record and it is fine.
2. Connecting the canon to my toshiba laptop using a firewire cable.
NOTE - I have set the canon to transfer the analogue video signal to digital when it is coming into the canon.
3. My intention upon getting the signal successfully fed into the laptop is to then burn a dvd on the fly.

The problem is that whenever I plug the firewire cable in the to the canon the camera stops accepting the signal from the video. Indeed, it believes it should be receiving the signal via the firewire cable.

Now the manual for the canon (pp 73) states that the firewire is an output terminal only. Indeed, p73 of the manual explains this very process but uses another mini DV camera instead of a laptop. I can't see why the use of a laptop would screw this process up.

So...
1. Has anyone else successfully done this and if so how?
2. Is there a fundamental problem in the way the canon receives and outputs a signal/s simultaneously?

I am really trying to avoid having to transfer to mini dv, then transfer that to the pc, then combine all the vids then burn to dvd.

Any comments or suggestions would be great.

Cheers
shaun in sydney

[FulciLives]

I know nothing of your particular CANON miniDV camcorder.

However ...

If you can input an analog signal and record it to a miniDV tape then you should ... I stress should ... be able to pass that through to the computer.

Now there are a few camcorders that will act like your model ... you can record to a miniDV tape but not pass through the signal. Which of course means you have to record to a miniDV tape first then play the miniDV tape in order to transfer it to the computer.

But most are not like that so chances are you can do a pass through. As for why it is not working ... could be a wrong setting on the camcorder ... could be the software you are using ... could be the right software but wrong settings within the software, etc.

Please note that it is best to do the capture in the DV AVI format and then after the capture convert to MPEG-2 DVD spec.

Best advice I can tell you is to read the manual and if you lost it then chances are there is an Adobe Reader PDF file at the CANON website. Most companies do that now for current and even older models (as long as it is not really old).

Also I don't know what software you are using but make sure you are using software capable of doing a DV AVI capture as I said before. I know that WinDV is very popular for this as it is free and works well for most people.

Good Luck !!!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[shaunl]

Hi John,
Thanks kindly for your observations. I have the manual, which is good news and from that know that it is possible to use the camera as a "pass through". The problem doesn't seem to be the software, rather it is how the camera behaves.

I firstly plug the AV into the camera to get the feed from the VCR then I plug the firewire cable in. As soon as I do this the camera loses the feed from the VCR - it expects there to be a feed via the firewire cable.

Seems like such a simple process to achieve but alas ... not!

[guns1inger]

Check your camera settings to make sure you have output directed to the firewire cable.

I use a Panasonic to do this, and have not had much luck with WinDV for pass-through capture. It works fine for capture from mini-DV tape, where it controls the camera, but for pass-through you don't want the app to try to run the camera.

I use Vegas to capture pass-through material by disabling the DV controls in the preferences for the capture app.