Help Required. Capturing DV to PC

[jeffbhoy]

Hi...Noob here...

Im looking for some help if possible... I have JVC GR-D230EK Mini DV camcorder which i had been able to capture video onto my old XP pc... and guess what.. i upgraded to VISTA !?!?!?!

So now i have installed the drivers (Victor Pix MCV Video Capture) and it shows as working, but when i turn it on using the USB i get the usual sound notification of hardware being plugged in but nothing shows up in my hardware list.

If i then go to Imagemixer or Windows Movie maker it says no device connected.

Anyone had similar issues or knows of a work round.

The only other thing i can think of doing is copying straight to DVD with a standalone as i normally do, but i fancied doing a bit of editing and dont know how easy it is to take from a Video-TS folder ???

Thanks... J.

[aedipuss]

don't use usb. you really need a firewire port and cable to the cam to capture minidv in it's native format. if the computer doesn't have one buy an add-in firewire card.

[Richard_G]

I agree entirely, USB on a MiniDV camcorder is for stills and low-res, webcam type video. Firewire is what you should be using. and re-upgrade back to XP......

There are so many problems with Vista that the best thing anyone can do is wait for at least Service Pack 2!

[jeffbhoy]

thanks for your help guys... unfortunately i dont have a firewire card... what would be the best way of getting the movies off of an already burnt DVD to then edit them....

[thecoalman]

Vob2mpg is a free tool for doing that, there's others...

Firewire cards are cheap and very easy to install. No special software required, your cam will work with hundreds of applications.

[Richard_G]

Get yourself one of these http://svp.co.uk/products-solo.php?pid=407 it even comes with a cable and has been proved to work under Vista.

The difference in quality after using USB will be very noticable and you'll end up with DV.AVI files that you can use in any editing and DVD authoring software.

[aedipuss]

jeffbhoy - do you have a miniDV camera i.e. uses tape, or a cam that produces DVDr/rw's?

[Richard_G]

I have JVC GR-D230EK Mini DV camcorder

That model is MiniDV and is one of the rarer ones in the UK as it has analogue and DV in enabled.

[sdsumike619]

not even USB 2.0? I thought the transfer rates were similar to firewire?

[edDV]

thanks for your help guys... unfortunately i dont have a firewire card... what would be the best way of getting the movies off of an already burnt DVD to then edit them....

Start over this doesn't make sense. What DVD are you talking about? And what does DVD have to do with a MiniDV camcorder?

Seems like Vista upgrade caused you to loose your USB connection. Get a IEEE-1394 connection and you are set. JVC is responsible to get you a webcam driver.

[Richard_G]

From the original post it sounds as though he has two questions rolled into one. How does he get footage from the camcorder to pc, edit it and then author into a DVD and, if he transfers from the camcorder to stanalone DVD recorder, how does he get the footage from the DVD into pc to edit it?

We've answered the first bit, buy a Firewire card, the second bit hasn't been answered yet. I must admit, I've seen a lot of posts where people are recommending using a DVD recorder to turn camcorder footage into a DVD. To my way of thinking, if you want to do some minimal editing in the camcorder then that's fine but to encode to mpeg, author, convert back to mpeg, edit an unsuitable format and then author back again, seems to me to be a recipe for poor quality.