Simple question: How do you capture using firewire

[entwood]

This is new technology for me so I need to ask.

I have 20 MiniDV tapes that a friend wants put on DVD. His Panasonic Palmcorder has a IEEE port. I read the manual though and all it says is that the IEEE port can be used to transfer video to computer.

I also have a Sound Card with an IEEE Port. The sound card manual says it can capture DV video from camcorders.

OK - I knew this already. Can anyone give me better details. Do I need software to download the video. Will it become a certain type of file on my PC. What works well for conversion.

If this doesn't work I'll need to do something ugly and just play it to my video capture device.

[Richard_G]

IEEE 1394 or Firewire is a file transfer standard. Connect a Firewire cable from the camcorder to your computer and you will be able to transfer (not capture, Firewire is a simple file transfer system) the video files. You may need to go into the menu on the camcorder and enable DV OUT, it isn't always there by default. Windows Movie Maker will do it, although most recommend WinDV or DVIO. The transferred files will be in DV .avi format and are about 13 Gb per hour. In order to play back these files from your hard drive you will need a DV codec loaded (Panasonic DV Codec is usually regarded as the best one, download it from the link on the left).

Once you have the DV files on your hard drive you will need to convert to DVD compliant mpeg2 and author into the correct file structure for DVD (See What is DVD at top left). I use Ulead DVD Workshop as this can take DV format .avi files and do everything right through to the burn (trial version is available for download from the Ulead website). Others prefer to use individual tools to do the various stages but DVD Workshop (or DVD Factory) will do the whole process.

[jimmalenko]

Yep, Richard_G pretty much covered everything with his post. Nice work !

[upshot]

I use iuvcr to convert the DV stream to PICvideo MJPEG 3 as it comes into the system. Good quality in a slightly smaller files size. Then I encode with Procoder for dvd burning. Works great!

[entwood]

Thanks, thats what I was looking for.

[thecoalman]

FYI I had trouble capturing from the firewire port on a soundcard. If you have trouble such as the cam keeps disconnecting get a regular pci firewire card.

[SatStorm]

You can also use mainconcept 1.4.2 to convert realtime your DVs to mpeg 2 with nice results...

[p_l]

You can do everything Richard_G describes with Ulead DVD Workshop, including capture with it. In other words, the whole process from beginning to end.

[waldi]

Is there such thing as TRANSFER of data from mini DV to PC?

Isn't it that in most softwares out there you still have to hit the "record" or "capture" button to get your movie via firewire to the PC? after which you will get "capturing frames... " message?

Is there a way to REALLY transfer the mini DV data as a computer file, faster then just playing the movie and capturing it at 1: 1 speed? or PCs are just too slow for it?

I'm using Adobe Premiere and I can't find an option dump a movie other than by actually playing it back and capturing it even though it may not be converting it to DV since it is already recorded in DV avi.

... I wish that there was a possibility to load a mini DV tape, like you would load an IBM tape on a mid-range computer to a disk.

Right now if you have 1 hour mini DV tape, it will take you 1 hour to "transfer" it to a PC (is that correct?) which really does not give you any advantages over capturing and analog tape via a capture card.

This really ticks me off, since I found that video quality recorded from analog tapes to DV avi is not any worse and somehow better (especially with images recorded in the dark) than the one recorded on digital camcorder (and I have Panasonic 3ccd dv-953).

I'm eager to here your comments on this. Thanks.

[jimmalenko]

When extracting video from camera to PC via firewire, you are transferring. Even though your capture app says "Capturing...", you are still transferring if it's via firewire and it's DV. And no, 1:1 is as quick as it gets.

[Sc0rp10n]

even though it's an old thread, i'd like to subscribe.

just to sum up and clarify so i'm sure i've got it right...

i have a canon optura 40. i connected it to my laptop via 4pin-4pin firewire cable. computer recognizes everything great. i fire up nero and go to the "capture video to hard disk" option. i have few choices in here, basically DV1 or DV2. anyway, i have a window where i can play, rewind, fastforward the tape on the disk. when i want to start "capturing" the video that's playing on-screen i click the record button. at this point, the video being played is "captured", "transferred" to my computer hard disk.

2 questions: when i'm doing this, is my hard disk getting bit-for-bit exactly what's on that tape (for the part of the video that i've told it to record)?

also, what is the difference between the DV1 and DV2 options nero gives me? it said i should take DV1 but also said that it takes less disk space (worse quality?) it said DV2 was only compatible with windows or something to that effect. if i'm a windows only guy should i choose DV2 to get better quality?

it's choices like these that make me wonder if "capturing" DV via firewire is truly bit-for-bit. and if it's actually transferring video instead of capturing, who was the moron who started using the term "capturing" for DV? it's very misleading.

[Richard_G]

when i'm doing this, is my hard disk getting bit-for-bit exactly what's on that tape (for the part of the video that i've told it to record)?

Yes. Think of the MiniDV tape as just another form of data storage, no different to a floppy disk (but a lot bigger!).

what is the difference between the DV1 and DV2 options nero gives me?

The only difference between Type 1 and Type 2 DV is how the audio is stored once the file is put in an .avi wrapper on your hard drive. See DV in the Glossary at top left for the exact details.

who was the moron who started using the term "capturing" for DV? it's very misleading.

No idea. But prior to the existance of DV all video was analogue and had to be captured, the details of the process have changed but the terminology hasn't. To the end user, you are doing the same thing, getting video from a camcorder to the hard drive. The difference is that before it had to be converted from analogue to data now it is simply copied (which would probably be a better term to use than transferred if you think about it).

Finally, people have asked (in this thread and others) why the transfer takes place in real time. The simple answer to this is that nobody makes a DV tape mechanism that is capable of running at any other speed. They may well exist in the commercial world, but not in the consumer end of things and I doubt there will ever be the demand for anyone to produce one. It's no different to the early days of CD drives. Everyone is now used to 48x and 52x CD drives, my first one was a single speed CD drive(and when quad speed ones came out, wow, what an increase!!!).