DVCam To PC Via Firewire - WOW!!!

[hitechjunkie]

well, after owning a firewire card for over a year, and a dvcamcorder for 6 months, i finally decided to install the firewire card and attempt my first dvcamcorder/firewire capture/transfer. my system specs are

amd k6-3 350mhz, 256mb ram, win98, ati tv wonder,
20gb drive, master on primary ide bus,
60gb drive, slave on primary ide bus,
creative 6x dvd-rom, master on secondary ide bus,
acer 8x/4x/32x cd-rw, slave on secondary ide bus

which has served me well for my ripping, satellite captures, encoding, and XVCD burning.

initial install of firewire card went well (recognized by system and driver installed successfully) but the dvcam kept turning up as 'unknown device'.

i removed the ati tv wonder, moved the firewire card up to the top PCI slot, but still no go. i checked the newsgroups and found a blurb about a MS firewire device busy/timeout patch, which when i tried to apply it, it said i did not have the right OS, win98se. "what! that's ridiculous!", i exclaimed, "of course i have win98se!"

sure enough though, i checked and i was still on win98 (must have been that other machine - duh!). i quickly upgraded to win98se, ran the patch and VOILA! "MS DV Camera and VCR"!!

i quickly captured some DV footage, previewed it and was totally blown away by the video quality!!!

analog video - NEVER MORE!!

[TOMMO]

hightecjunkie,

Yeas its great isn't it. I too have just gone down the same route with firewire and DV. Just set the thing capturing - no frame drops - nothing. When converted to SVCD the results are outstanding.

[hitechjunkie]

yeah, i luv that no frames are dropped during capture (or transfer). i haven't encoded or burned anything to XVCD yet, but i am sure, based on the quality of the DV AVI i am seeing, that i am going to be extremely pleased.

[Tommy]

Congradulation!

its great isn't it. I normally don't get too many dropped frames but its so much easier. just plug in the dv cable...

[Riot_Inc]

welcome to the DV family.

[jtor]

...just a suggestion; why not upgrade to W2K? With NTFS, you don't have to worry about file limits, unless you're using a capture software with seamless capture feature.

my 2cents.

[hitechjunkie]

thanks everyone!

jtor - i was recently thinking about setting up a dual boot machine to try out capturing under win2k. i ain't got the 'noive' or the time to try it yet. soon, i hope...

[ntserver545]

I have the same setup under y2k and it is wonderful to use the dv capture. I use the Neodvd proggie and it caputres from dv Cam to Pc in real time.
http://www.MEDIOSTREAM.COM for trial versions. I bought full version from them and really likes it.
I had Mpeg files with audio synch problems and ran them thru neodvd and it corrects the audio problems also.

[hitechjunkie]

thanks ntserver, i'll take a look at it...

[ktoey]

ntserver545:
I too have NeoDVD.
When I played the disc on my Daewoo DVG 3000N, there is no sound. Picture is jerky.
The disc plays fine on a PC.
Do you have the same experience when playing on a DVD player ?.

[Vandaahl]

You guys seem to know a little something about capturing with a firewire card. I don't, so maybe you can help me?
I have a really fast laptop with a pcmia firewire card for dvd capture and Win2k. Can I use this firewire card to capture a tv signal thrue my VCR? Or just a video from VCR? I have Adobe Premiere5.1, Virtual Dub and Ulead video studio.
I have experience capturing tv on my PC with a tv card, but I don't have a camcorder and know nothing about it.
So, can I captue with a pcmia firewire card? I guess I will need a special cable, allthough I don't know what kind.
Please help!?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Vandaahl on 2001-09-19 18:10:54 ]</font>

[Tommy]

Let me get this straight you want to capture video from your laptop that has a firewire card for dvd capture. I’m not sure what type of firewire card you have, but I’m wonder how you would capture dvd on it. Is there a SVHS connector or something that can connect to a dvd player?
Have you ever captured dvd on it. The reason I ask is because most people tend to just rip a dvd instead of actually capturing it, when you capture you have to worry about macro and such. I for one don’t think it would be worth the time to capture (or rip) a dvd since there not that expensive but thats an argument for a different thread.

With the info you provided I would say that No you could directly capture video from your firewire card. Perhaps it’s a problem with language when it comes to firewire. Firewire is not really designed to capture video like a video capture card or tuner is. Firewire is really just a
standard to transfer large chunks of data quickly. By itself its not suitable for capturing. When someone “captures” video via a firewire, its not really a capture but a transfer of data. In the case of using a digital camcorder to transfer video from an analog source with the pass though. The Digital camcorder actually “captures” or converts the video into a digital format, and just passes the digital data to the computer via the firewire. Think of the camcorder as a hardware encoder.

If you had a digital camcorder with a pass though feature or recorded analog video into the digital camcorder then yes you could then transfer the video into your laptop via the firewire. Of course the camcorder would be connected to the computer with a firewire cable you can pick up at any
computer store and some video shops, but I have found them cheaper at computer stores.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tommy on 2001-09-19 18:39:55 ]</font>

[Vandaahl]

Thanks for the reply, I made a typo, my message should say "DV", not dvd

[Greg12]

i thought he ment capturing dvd quality.


i want to know if their r analog pcmcia capture cards.

[LBcork]

hitechjunkie, I saw your first post and thought maybe this is my problem. I have Dazzle DV Editor SE and loaded the firewire card into the computer and the computer says it's working properly. But I'm using Ulead VideoStudio and can't seem to get it to capture or transfer the video from my camcorder. It says unable to open specified device. Please check if your device machine is ready.

Problem is I don't know anything about computers or VCD's? You mentioned MS firewire device busy/timeout patch and win98se. I don't even know how to check my OS or anything. Could someone help me please, Dazzle's tech support is terrible I can't get anyone on the phone and really need heeeellllppp.

Thanks, Lisa

[Dragonsf]

Hi, I'm using a Dazzle DV Hollywoodbridge for capturing analog Video and first used the Dazzle (Mainactor) capturing program with it's own DV codec. I tried to edit the captured movie, but found that DV Codec will not work properly outside a MainConcept propram.After that I deinstalled this codec and now I'm using only the DVApp which comes with MS DirectX 8.0. You can have a choice of capture type (1 or 2) and 4 diffrent capture sizes.No problems found with converting them to SVCD - 1 hour on 1 700MB CD.

[Dragonsf]

Hi, I'm using a Dazzle DV Hollywoodbridge for capturing analog Video and first used the Dazzle (Mainactor) capturing program with it's own DV codec. I tried to edit the captured movie, but found that DV Codec will not work properly outside a MainConcept propram.After that I deinstalled this codec and now I'm using only the DVApp which comes with MS DirectX 8.0. You can have a choice of capture type (1 or 2) and 4 diffrent capture sizes.No problems found with converting them to SVCD - 1 hour on 1 700MB CD.