Easist way to capture video from camera on to PC

Ok I own a Sony Digi Video Cam that has i-link and s-video. What is the easist way to transfer video on to my pc for video editing? I'm a complete newbie when it comes to this. I heard the easiest way would be to get a firewire card and to use that (my mobo doesn't have firewire).

Any help would be great.

 

Hi there, I have just started doing some dv editing from my panasonic DV cam. My motherboard dosent support firewire either, so Ibought a pinnacle firewire card from ebay (bout £17 from ebay) and a 4-6 ilink (firewire) cable off ebay as well (£3). I then connected it all up and installed pinnacle studio 7, it was then a simple matter of using the intuitive software interface to capture the footage from the camera.

To de honest I'd been thinking about doing it for a while and hadn't got round to it, now I have I can't belive how easy (and fun) it it to capture and create your own movies.

Hope this helps

 

Cool thanks man exaclty what I was looking for.

By the way cool avator Jimbo rules

 

Thanks, glad to be of help... How you have as much fun with it as I have Let me know how you get on

 

Ok I've installed my firewire card (£19 from comp fair with software and 4-6 cable) and hooked it to my computer. Now I can capture video ok but I'm having trouble getting audio across. Any help would be great.

 

Bump anyone help?

 

What software are you using? I'm not really an expert or anything... I just pluged mine in as you seem to have and it worked

 

Just been using windows movie maker since the software the card came with (Ulead Video Studio is a little complex.

 

Yo Hiren!

Right, you've seen a piccy of me dads set up for Video-Editing, well the hardest bit of getting it all working was the sound. Just keep playing around with the settings, try a trial for Adobe Premiere 6.0 that's really good. BTW, if premier "hangs" it hasnt... trust me, even on pa's workhorse it will "hang" for about 15 seconds while it's figuring out what it's doing..

One of the temp solutions we had with the sound problem was to simaltaneously run firewire and phono sound at the same time. I seem to remember our video camera needing to be "flashed" using a disk and a serial cable.

 

I use Pinnacle Studio v7 and i just installed the software, pluged it all in and away it went. Might be worth giving it a try if you can get hold of it.

 

I have a Sony digital-8 camera w/ ilink as you have. The best way that i know to move video across is using firewire. I bought a d-link firewire card to use. The only limitation that i can see if your computer. I have an 1.1ghz amd, 1gig ram, and 140 gb of harddisk (7200rpm, ata100) and at times it is slow to work with but i can capture video without dropping frames. Just yesterday i captures about 15 minutes of video without one dropped frame, but it was over 4 gigs. I have never had any problems with audio though, but i use Adobe Premier 6.5. Does it not caputre it at all or does it just not preview the sound during the capture?

 

It's not capturing any video at all. As far as my PC specs go I'm going to be upgrading the RAM and I have a few hdds lying around so space shouldn't be a problem.

 

Does it show the preview ok before you start capturing? One thing that has cause problems for me and others is the "Angelpotion Codec", check in the Unistall Programs Control Panel to see if you have that installed. Also, is it not capturing anything at all or is it capturing just the video? What kinda of firewire card did you buy? The first one i bought was really cheap and did not work properly with Sony Cam's. What model of camera do you have? Your system should be ok for capturing video (maybe 10 minutes or so). Make sure all extra programs are shut down. If it still doesn't work you might want to try to capture the video using the Ulead software (just to see if it works) or download a trial of Premier.

 

demonstalker - Sorry if I was unclear before. It's not caputuring any sound (think I said video.) The card is an unbranded one froma comp fair. I will find out the model of the camera when I go home at the weekend. (at uni right now.)

 

Hmm, well I would suggest that you either try a different program or if it is possible try a different computer w/ firewire. I doubt it is the card then because the card i had problems with didn't allow me to capture anything.