Mini Dv to either Computer or DVD - Panasonic NV-DS28

[Flowerpj]

Hi all,

Newbie here, I have a Panasonic NV-DS28 video camera and we want to transfer the Mini Dv's to our computer and ulitmately onto DVDs. (Connection lead missing).

We only have a regular DVD player and not a recorder / combo.

Can someone advise what is the cheapest / best way to transfer onto computer. What leads, hardward etc?

I have looked for any cable connections on my PC and there are no small 'two rows of pins' sockets available on my computer only a very large one at the back. On the front it has 2 USB sockets a red and green round socket and a vertical square with diagonal bottom edge socket - but this is covered by plastic - I presume this is the socket I need, but I presume being covered, I don't have the hardware installed. (Edit) My laptop has a 1394 port on the side of it.

Many thanks in advance

[stantheman1976]

You need to transfer by IEEE 1394, aka "firewire". Your camera has a 4 pin connector and if your PC has a connector it will be a 6 pin. Your laptop will have a 4 pin connector. If you are going to use your laptop you will only need a firewire cable with a 4 pin male connector on each side. You can get this at any electroincs store or online. It doesn't matter if you buy an expensive one or a cheap one. They do the same thing. Once you plug up both ends and turn the camera on your computer should automatically recognize the deivce. You want to transfer your footage in DV-AVI Type 2 format, which is standard for MiniDV transfer. This footage will be a bit for bit copy of 0's and 1's from the tape and will take up about 13GB per hour of footage. For transfer you can use WinDV, which is free, or any other editing software will be able to transfer also.

[Flowerpj]

Hi Stantheman1976

Many thanks for your reply - in my easy to understand terms too! It looks like I will have to go with the laptop as most of last night I looked for information on 'ports' for my PC and I just don't think it has any. I know for sure that my laptop has a 'port' 1394 which is quite small with 4 tiny pins. 13gb per hour - wow they sure do take up some space!


I will download the WinDV once I get the cord - hopefully it can burn it straight onto the DVD burner on the laptop and not take up too much storage as the laptop only has 2gb card.

Stay tuned for any further questions once I get all of the equipment!

Many thanks again

[safaje]

you can also use windows movie maker...
it is very user friendly and the quality is amazing

[Flowerpj]

Hi Safaje,

Is that instead of WinDV? As I just downloaded it and it says I also need DirectX? Not sure what that is or why I need it. I also might point out at this point that I have Windows Vista and it doesn't list that on the Windows requirements....any problem?

Windows Movie Maker - I have that on my laptop already - would I need anything else?

Many thanks for the reply

[safaje]

Windows Movie Maker is all you need to capture the video...
you can also edit it... i still didn't try that though...
I was also trying to figure out how to transfer my home movies... I tried WinDV as everyone here on the forum recomends it... however I didn't like the quality i got... I'm sure it must be good but i just couldn't figure how...
so when i tried Windows Movie Maker I was very impressed...

I used Digital Device Format (DV-AVI)
then I needed to fix the aspect ratio (I recrded in 16:9 but i got 4:3) so I went to tools/options/advanced and changed the settings to Pal 16:9 and it was fixed...
I also plan to download DV_Datecode or DV Sub Maker so i can extract the date and time and add that as subtitle before burning it to DVD...
Still didn't figure out that part though so any help would be appreciated

Safa

[Flowerpj]

Well later this morning when I get the firewire we'll give it a go and see what happens...... thanks again for replies.

[safaje]

I just tried DV Date from http://paul.glagla.free.fr/dvdate_en.htm
after transferring the file to avi using windows movie maker I used DV Date to extract the date and time and saved that to a .srt file
this file is supposed to be used with the avi file to create a dvd with the date and time included as subtitles that you can turn on and off!
Now i need to figure out which software to use to author that to a DVD... some of the suggested ones on this forum are DVDauthorgui, DVD-lab pro or Ulead DVD Workshop. I still haven't tried any of them though.

not sure you really wanted to know all this about the subtitles.... i thought i'd share it just in case

[Flowerpj]

OK, I've plugged the cable into Laptop - turned on camera and it is not showing the camera or anything, only my C, D and DVD drives.........
Help please

[Flowerpj]

Turned the camera onto VCR mode and still nothing, have tried it in Windows MOvie Maker and WinDV - Error: Device not found.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Try these troubleshooting tips I've put together:

http://www.enosoft.net/products/enodvproc/help/htm/_troubleshootingdvdeviceconnectivity.htm

(There are three dirty words to watch out for: Nero, Pinnacle and Roxio)

[Flowerpj]

Hi John, that's great thanks - I found the device manager and the 1394 with the host controller below it. I turned the camer on, nothing changed, I recorded nothing changed, nothing else happened full stop?

Any suggestions?

[Flowerpj]

hold the fort...................... it was disabled - I had to enable the device because I hadn't used it before! Stand by

[Flowerpj]

Ok, done an hour of one tape, compiled a storyboard and now want to publish it, I noticed that to publish it to use on computer then DVD it takes about 120 minutes, should I be using this option or another i.e. Other options - Dv-AVI? This is for Windows Movie Maker.

Any suggestions / tips?

[safaje]

If you want the best quality then I would suggest using Dv-AVI when transferring from the camera to the PC
If you use the recommended option it compresses the file and you loose quality.

[Flowerpj]

Might try that one next time, this took 2 hours, (that's an hour to copy beforehand) then at the end for some reason it couldn't complete it, so then I did the option of to computer and DVD, another 2 hours, and I've been waiting the last 20 minutes for the disk to eject. Be nice if there was a quicker way - Doesn't help when everything is downloaded to the laptop that there is no room left - only 1.84gb of 34.6gb.

Cheers

[Flowerpj]

OK, worked out the whole thing took about 5 hours for a 60 minute Minidv tape. Is this normal? The last two hours was burning on my laptop to the DVD.

[safaje]

I'm glad you worked it out... as to what is normal... I am the wrong person to ask cause, like you, i am just new at all this...
I spent all day trying to add the date and time as subtitles and still nothing i tried worked!!!
it takes forever to transfer these files... I am starting to regret buying a minidv... however... to just transfer the movie as it is with no editing at all the fastest way is to use a stand alone dvd recorder... that should take the same time as the time of the recording! I used to use a panasonic dvd/vcr combo... the menu was ugly though and i could not add any subtitles.

so tell me.. how did the quality turn out after all this time?
Safa

[Flowerpj]

Hi Safa -

I didn't have a DVD recorder - but had I had I would have done it that way! Well bugga.... as it was so late last night, I didn't check the disc - until right now - and there's nothing on it!! What the?? Two bl**dy hours the laptop was as slow as anything, I couldn't even eject the disc and now there's nothing on it. I have no idea what the h*ll I'm doing wrong! During everything last night I transferred the storybook file to my memory stick to try and speed things up on my PC but my program is too old to use it - might try and download an update and get things started.

Just opened the storybook I saved on both Laptop and stick and every little square has a red cross in it! I think I've stuffed the whole thing up once I created a storybook and saved it (so I thought) I deleted the original download because it was sooooo big and no memory left. The other couple of smaller test ones I deleted, I just restored and they have appeared again, but the big one has gone to god.

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG? CAN SOMEONE GIVE ME A SIMPLE STEP BY STEP:

On another note, before I checked the disk this morning, I started on my 2nd MiniDV this time in WinDV - it started capturing but nothing else was happening on the screen, does it usually take a few minutes to start up?

[Flowerpj]

I tell you 24 hours ago we were thinking of keeping this camcorder rather than buying a HDD one - but no way not anymore! This one is going to god!

[safaje]

If you want a simple way of doing things... this worked for me to create a dvd with no editing and just a simple menu

1. transfer the dv video from the camera using windv or windows movie maker (just be sure to select dv-avi)
2. use FAVC to convert the avi file to a DVD

the FAVC file is large but totally worth it... it is very simple and easy to use... just read the instuctions from the website so you can understand what each setting does before actually using it!! I only tested it on a few minutes of video and used the highest quality settings... the result was superb! it will create a dvd copy on your hard drive and it can burn that onto the dvd.... so you can test it before burning...

I think the time will depend on your processor speed.... however i think the whole thing might take 3 hours for every hour of video....

i hope that helps
Safa

[Flowerpj]

Hi Safa,

So at what point can I get rid of that huge file?

[safaje]

oh its not really that huge.... i just meant that compared to all the other software i see on this site its large to download thats all
check out the link... its really worth it... i downloaded the 32bit self extracting one

it is actually a couple of different programes linked together to make our life easy... i was even able to access each one by itself!! you don't need to do that though.

[Flowerpj]

sorry, I mean the file I downloaded from the video camera

[safaje]

you can delete it right after you create your dvd

[Flowerpj]

ahhh, see I deleted it as I (thought) it was burning to CD - that's probably why there was nothing on the CD.

OK. Many thanks again.

[Flowerpj]

Thank god for that it worked! Helps if you leave it to do its thing without deleting anything!