Does any hardware exist that will let me connect a camcorder to a computer and convert the film into a digital format?

[Cougar]

Here's the rundown: My sister just bought a Sony Digital 8 TRV250 and she's wondering how she can go about converting what she films into either a DVD or Video CD. The buring part itself isn't really a concern at this point, but I'm just wondering how she can go about getting the film onto the computer without losing much of the quality. The camera has i.LINK (IEEE1394 AKA Firewire) and USB connectors built in but if we use the USB connecter it can only stream video at 320 x 240 and I know that's gonna degrade the picture quality a fair amount.

So, I'm left with 2 options A) Use camera's Firewire capabilities or B) get some other kind of video editing device that will transfer the video without losing much of the quality. I can't find any information about the camera's firewire capabilities so I have no idea what kind of resolution it will be using so now I'm sort of leaning towards buying some kind of video editing hardware for her computer. I know absolutely NOTHING when it comes to video editing but surely there must be something that exists that will let me plug the camera in via RCA jacks, load up a program, and convert the film into a massive .mpg file right?

She won't be doing anything fancy like creating a super fancy DVD with pretty menus and backgrounds, she just wants to be able to send the video files to her in-laws so they can watch them on their computer and eventually keep everything on CD or maybe DVD (if they get a DVD burner) so that they can toss a disc into the DVD player and kick-back on the couch and watch some home movies.

Price is definately an issue here so the cheaper the better. Oh, and I didn't know if this belonged in the Video Forum or if it would be better suited for the General Hardware Forum so I figured I'd stick it here for now and I could post it in a different forum if necessary.

 

[Sheriff]

Best Device going IMO and many others for her purpose.

 

[Spicedaddy]

How fast is her computer? If it's fairly recent, then all she needs is a firewire connection (add-on PCI card is pretty chep) and encoding software.

Canopus Procoder

Sonic MyDVD


You could also use free software like TMPGEnc, but it's not as simple to use for someone who doesn't know much about video.

 

[Crusty]

The camera has firewire on it. It can and will transfer the data at whatever resolution your camera records at, most likely 720x480. TMPGEnc will be able to capture it and produce files. You can also just use Windows Movie Maker. It is very simple, and will work with virtually any firewire camcorder.

 

[Sheriff]

For the cheapest route MCrust's solution sure would be the best avenue as long as the Rig will see the Vid device as Sony and Sharp has had issues with it's Firewire Cams, but I definitely would give it a go 1st.

 

[wallsfd949]

This may be a good option. If your camera has firewire, you should get a firewire card. It will provide lossless transfer from your camera to your PC. The Ulead software included with the card should capture the footage, and sonic mydvd has been suggested and probably would be a good option.

My setup is a canon GL-1 to a firewire card. I use adobe premiere to capture/edit the footage and export to a dvd.

Firewire will provide the best quality transfer (0 loss) and the card is inexpensive.

 

[Cougar]

Thanks for all the replys. The Canopus ADVC-100 seems like a nice piece of equipment but unfortunately it's probably gonna be out of her price range (I'm not sure how much she's willing to spend but $300 seems like it'll be too steep). Judging by the other responses I'm assuming that Firewire won't butcher the picture quality correct? If that's the case then I'll probably start by trying that since it's the cheapest, but how will the computer detect the camera? As far as I know there are no drivers provided with it so will the capture program (whichever one we choose) just sense the device is there and start converting the video to a digital format?

Also, how much power is needed to run the video capture software? Her PC is a celeron 1ghz w/256mb RAM and Win2k. According to some of the specs I've read she might be able to pull it off, but I tend not to trust the software requirements that the manufacturer slaps onto the box. If her PC isn't fast enough then I guess we could use mine in a pinch (it's a P4 1.6ghz w/1GB ram and Win2k...hopefully that should be enough).

 

[Sheriff]

Her's will take more time but probably work, it may want more RAM.
1 word of advice when encoding video: Do not use other programs on the Rig while in action as that will cause frame drops while rendering.

>Judging by the other responses I'm assuming that Firewire won't butcher the picture quality correct?
Yes
>If that's the case then I'll probably start by trying that since it's the cheapest, but how will the computer detect the camera?
Automatically
>As far as I know there are no drivers provided with it so will the capture program (whichever one we choose) just sense the device is there and start converting the video to a digital format?
Yes it will let you know
>Also, how much power is needed to run the video capture software?
She's @ the low end and may need more RAM

 

[Cougar]

Originally posted by: Sheriff
Her's will take more time but probably work, it may want more RAM.
1 word of advice when encoding video: Do not use other programs on the Rig while in action as that will cause frame drops while rendering.

>Judging by the other responses I'm assuming that Firewire won't butcher the picture quality correct?
Yes
>If that's the case then I'll probably start by trying that since it's the cheapest, but how will the computer detect the camera?
Automatically
>As far as I know there are no drivers provided with it so will the capture program (whichever one we choose) just sense the device is there and start converting the video to a digital format?
Yes it will let you know
>Also, how much power is needed to run the video capture software?
She's @ the low end and may need more RAM

Well, as luck would have it I've got an extra 256mb stick laying around so I can toss that into her computer. Whenever I upgrade my system I can give her my old parts so eventually she should have a decent rig for doing this stuff. I hadn't planned on upgrading for a little while, but I guess I could take the plunge a little early if it will help her out.

Does it matter at all what kind of video card you use? I'm not sure what card I put in her system but I can't imagine that it's anything above a Geforce 1.

Thanks for all your help so far.

 

[oldfart]

Firewire is all you need for hardware. A full quality xfer of video will be 100% of the DV quality. No loss. It will be a 780 x 480 DV encoded AVI file that is ~ 13 Gig for 1 Hr. Be sure you have plenty of HD space. A slow HD is fine. Video card does not matter. You need software that will capture the file and render it to MPEG2/DVD format. You may want to do some editing and menu chapter and transition type stuff too. A few products have been mentioned. Pinnacle Studio 8 is another good one.

 

[anandfan]

Firewire! You might also want to download and run 'EndItAll'( http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,697,00.asp ), a freeware program that closes all unnecessary programs running in the background that might interfere with a long transfer from camera to computer. I use it when I do captures from my analog camera.

 

[oldfart]

DV transfer over firewire is no big deal. It goes at a leisurely ~ 3.5 Mb/s. Not taxing at all. Analog is another story.

 

[RKS]

Originally posted by: wallsfd949
This .... I use adobe premiere to capture/edit the footage and export to a dvd.

Firewire will provide the best quality transfer (0 loss) and the card is inexpensive.

I just got Adobe Premier Pro and just found out that you need the SSE instruction set to use it. I guess I have to reload 6.5 until I get an HT Intel chip.

 

[tiap]

You can get a cheap fireware pci card for under $20.00. Mine works flawlessly. Lots of freeware capturing progs out there. Look at dvdrhelp.com for links to the free progs and lots of video advice and tutorials.

 

[Cougar]

Originally posted by: oldfart
Firewire is all you need for hardware. A full quality xfer of video will be 100% of the DV quality. No loss. It will be a 780 x 480 DV encoded AVI file that is ~ 13 Gig for 1 Hr. Be sure you have plenty of HD space. A slow HD is fine. Video card does not matter. You need software that will capture the file and render it to MPEG2/DVD format. You may want to do some editing and menu chapter and transition type stuff too. A few products have been mentioned. Pinnacle Studio 8 is another good one.

Holy cow, is that right? 13gb for 1 hour? How is that possible? I've got DVD rips that are only 700mb and the quality is really good. Is there any way I can minimize the file size? At best I could throw in an extra 40gb drive that I have but even that will only get me a couple hours of footage.

 

[oldfart]

13 Gig/Hr is pretty paltry compared to analog capture. DVD is MPEG2. 1 Hr DVD is ~ 4.5 Gig. DV-> MPEG2 compression is only 3:1. Get a big HD. They are cheap! No excuse for not having lots of storage space these days. If you are going to be doing video capture/editing/authoring, its a necessity.

 

[Cougar]

Originally posted by: oldfart
13 Gig/Hr is pretty paltry compared to analog capture. DVD is MPEG2. 1 Hr DVD is ~ 4.5 Gig. DV-> MPEG2 compression is only 3:1. Get a big HD. They are cheap! No excuse for not having lots of storage space these days. If you are going to be doing video capture/editing/authoring, its a necessity.

I know storage is cheap, but she still has to buy the firewire card, cable, and encoding program (if I'm following this correctly). What exactly are her options for encoding the file? Will it have to be MPEG2 or is there another format that she can choose from (perhaps one that that offers a higher compression ratio)? I want to try to work with her current hardware and keep costs to a minimum.

 

[TerryMathews]

After you get the video file into the computer, you can encode it however you want. If you're going to burn to DVD, MPEG2 is the way to go. Archival for computer use, XviD is a very good codec.

 

[oldfart]

Originally posted by: Cougar

Originally posted by: oldfart
13 Gig/Hr is pretty paltry compared to analog capture. DVD is MPEG2. 1 Hr DVD is ~ 4.5 Gig. DV-> MPEG2 compression is only 3:1. Get a big HD. They are cheap! No excuse for not having lots of storage space these days. If you are going to be doing video capture/editing/authoring, its a necessity.

I know storage is cheap, but she still has to buy the firewire card, cable, and encoding program (if I'm following this correctly). What exactly are her options for encoding the file? Will it have to be MPEG2 or is there another format that she can choose from (perhaps one that that offers a higher compression ratio)? I want to try to work with her current hardware and keep costs to a minimum.

It depends on what you want the final project to be. If its going to ne a DVD or SVCD, its MPEG2. VCD is MPEG1. Does she have a DVD burner? If you are not going to do any editing, you may be able to capture to MPEG2 directly, but likely with a quality loss. Most of what you are looking at is not that expensive. Firewire card is < $20. You can get an 80 Gig drive for ~ $50. Software runs the gamut. Pinnacle Studio 8 can often be had for very cheap after rebate. It was free AR on a black Friday sale.

 

[Cougar]

Originally posted by: oldfart
It depends on what you want the final project to be. If its going to ne a DVD or SVCD, its MPEG2. VCD is MPEG1. Does she have a DVD burner? If you are not going to do any editing, you may be able to capture to MPEG2 directly, but likely with a quality loss. Most of what you are looking at is not that expensive. Firewire card is < $20. You can get an 80 Gig drive for ~ $50. Software runs the gamut. Pinnacle Studio 8 can often be had for very cheap after rebate. It was free AR on a black Friday sale.

Right now she doesn't have a DVD burner and she most likely wouldn't get one for a little while if we pick up a new hard drive and firewire card. In the immediate future she would like to get the video off the camera onto her computer and then burn the video file onto a CD to send to her in-laws (her in-laws don't have a DVD player so most likely the file would be burned as data and they would then watch the file with Windows Media Player).

Now, once the in-laws are taken care of I know eventually she would like to burn her home movies onto a discs then pop them into her DVD player and kick back on the couch and watch them. Since she doesn't have a DVD Burner it seems like she'll be stuck with SVCD for the time being. It would be a shame to degrade the picture quality of her home movies so it looks like one way or another we have to retain the original quality until we can get the stuff burned to DVD.

I'm starting to understand what this is going to involve but I'm just trying to think into the future whenever the original film is long gone and all we're left with is whatever file is stored on her computer. When that time comes if the only thing we have is a sub-standard video rip that was made to save hard drive space or to cram it onto a CD then everything we've tried to accomplish will be lost.

This is alot more involved then I ever imagined it would be. I figured if she did any editing then that's where we'd hit a wall...I didn't think that just getting the video onto the computer in it's original resolution would present such a problem. Ah well, at least I'm learning so that's a step in the right direction.

 

[wallsfd949]

If you do purchase a larger hard disk, once you have "imported" the movie from camera to PC and edited it, you can create a CD to send to in-laws, and then create an Mpeg compressed movie that she can store until she gets a DVD burner. You will be importing at 14GB/hr at first, but you can create an Mpeg file that won't be a noticble loss in quality and will be more like 2GB/hr. Then the original 14GB/hr file can be deleted. It's like exporting to DVD without actually creating the DVD disc, you just have the file.

If she picks up a good size HD (80-120GB), she could store 20-30 hrs of Mpeg home movies (read DVD files) before running out of space, and hopefully by then she can purchase a DVD burner to burn them off as they have come down to near $100 and will probably continue to drop.

Digital Video is not as easy as the old VHS cameras or Hi-8 but what you loose in convienience, you make up in versatility. And once she gets the hang of editing (storyboard style would be the easiest for her), her "home" movies will take on a new dimention when you can add text, graphics, and mix up scenes.

Good luck with your project. DV is great!

 

[aka1nas]

Definately go with the firewire for transfer. I think file size would be less than 13GB/hour as its only D8 not full on DV(Digital 8 has fewer lines of resolution and is kludged into a Hi 8 tape).