Need software advice for capturing video over firewire

[Wekiva]

Back in the day I had a great process set up for getting my digital 8 movies into my computer. I would plug my Sony digital 8 camera into my computer using fire wire and I'd capture it using Adobe Premier Pro.

Move forward 8 years...and I no longer have the Adobe Premier Pro loaded on my system...nor do I want to. I'd like to import some more video and need advice on the easiest software that can do this. Will Windows Movie Maker allow for this type of capture. When I try to research this they only talk about importing via USB (they're assuming from newer vid cams that are all digital). Any other software that will work?

Thanks

 

[corkyg]

You may need a Firewire driver in your computer. Do you have a disk that came with the camera? It should have the necessary app and driver. You might also consider a Firewire to USB adapter.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Wekiva - first of all, I admire your restrain at posting!

OK, jokes aside... I was exactly where you are, about a year ago. I have a large collection of Digital8 tapes (and a camera which still works), so I simply connected my camera via firewire (1394) to my quad-core Athlon (!) and Win7 machine, and fired up Cyberlink Power Producer.

It did a beautiful job at encoding high-bitrate MPEG2/AC3 encoding on-the-fly, with zero dropped frames.

I would assume any relatively modern (from XP onwards!) video editor will have a capture function which allows you to capture from 1394 (and I don't think you'll need any extra drivers)...

In any case, take a look at these links:
1) http://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/Firewire-1.htm
2) http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...amcorder/dcdac3ba-8fe2-4b1f-a414-cb80fb0cfa2a - I think the problem described here may be fixed with the solution from 1)

Check out these two links as well:
- http://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/video/articles/25846.aspx
- http://www.mccambridge.org/blog/2009/07/how-to-import-dv-video-on-windows-7-using-windows-live/

Good luck! And please come back and let us know if things worked out!

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Also, look here for alternative (and even honest 100% freeware!) capture software:

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/capture

I recommend this one, and it even has a 30-day full-featured trial version (which should be enough): http://www.videostudiopro.com/en/#tab=1

 

[lupi]

I just started this same process. Installed windows movie maker on my win 8 machine, connected firewire between sony and the pc, and selected import on movie maker. Movie maker started the sony playing and captured the video right to pc.

Only thing I'm looking for now is a program to convert the dvvideo format to mp4 so it's streamable to non-pcs. Overall though this was much easier than I though it'd be.