To Capture or... To wait for drivers?

[Yeah]

Hello,

I have a sony handycam DCR-dvd203

We got a new computer (dell) with vista on it because the older computer died during a storm.

There is a USB connector on this camcorder and a connector on the front that goes to RCA cables.

Today I was finally able to capture the video from the handycam after about a week of headaches.

I used the picture package software that came with the cam corder to finally get the video off (part of my problem was I could not find this disc) During installation the program said it was not compaible with vista but It installed ok.

these files turned out to be in the format of mpg1.

When I try to use the roxio to make a dvd from the files created it tells me that the files were created using AC3 and they want me o upgrade Roxio to be compatible with buring that to dvd.

I never would have believed how complicated this is to get movies off of the video camera and I am now wondering if I would be better off investing in some kind of capture card that I can plug the RCA cables into and if someone could reccomend me an inexpensive one. The reason is we have to finalize the disc to copy the video to the computer but what If the disk is not full but I want the video off of it. I hope you understand my ramblings. I hope someone can help.

[Nelson37]

Generally the USB connection gives a low-quality stream.

Best way to transfer the data is to read off the disk. Finalizing should not be a problem with RW disks.

The Sony transfer software and custom formats sometimes do not work as well as they could. You might want to try some other programs for this.

[edDV]

You are the poster child for why DVD cams are a nightmare for "capture". Sony stated when these camcorders were introduced that they aren't intended for computer editing. They are for people who want a DVD without using a computer.

While it is possible to use Sony's software to transfer MPeg2 data over USB2, they never supported these programs well.

Most people will buy a video edit suite like Premiere Elements or ULead Video Studio which will import from the DVD directly as MPeg2. You must have a DVD drive in your computer for this.

My advice remains to avoid MiniDVD MPeg2, Hard Disk MPeg2 and AVCHD camcorders if you are serious about computer editing and/or authoring.

Stick to MiniDV or HDV tape based solutions.

[thecoalman]

Generally the USB connection gives a low-quality stream.

I was under the assumption that doesn't apply to DVD cams, if you think about it the cam is just a external HDD.

.

these files turned out to be in the format of mpg1.

However if the files are in MPEG1 then i would have to agree that's what it's doing.

using AC3 and they want me o upgrade Roxio to be compatible with buring that to dvd.

AC3 is the standard for DVD, most newer applications support it out of the box. FYI XP has no support for AC3 on a fresh install.

I am now wondering if I would be better off investing in some kind of capture card that I can plug the RCA cables

No need and you'll take a hit on quality doing that. Matter of fact unless you get software designed for working with MPEG you'll take a hit on the quality. There's a variety of tools for doing what you want. As mentioned the first thing to do is finalize the disc. To get started you can use Vob2mpg to rip the disc, this will give you a MPEG file that's an exact copy of what's on the disc which you can import into just about any editing/authoring application.

What you really need is software that supports what you are doing. I believe both Ulead Movie Factory and Ulead Video Studio will both import directly from the disc. They will only reencode where necessary too which is important.