Community Newsletter: Q&A: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it
- 9/18/08 9:21 AM
Transfering miniDV footage
by peterphoto2 - 9/7/08 12:28 PM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Your best bet is to purchase the Pinnacle Studio Plus program from a place like Bestbuy. I use it to transfer and edit videos I shoot. Here is the basic procedure: output from your video camera via Firewire cable into the computer via Pinnacle Capture program and a firewire card. It has to be done in real time. Once captured, you can easily edit them with the Pinnacle program, trimming the shots, adding titles, photos, music, special effects like slow motion, etc. It is incredibly easy to use, you could get up and running in a few hours.
Output is easy as well, as AVI files, output to videotape (DV) and DVD creation.I tried Ulead, and others, but Pinnacle works the best by far.
A word of caution: it is better (and easier) to edit the DV footage first and THEN create the DVDs as the last step. I tried sub edits using DVDs as the source material, but the quality goes down with each step. When editing with DV, there is NO loss in quality.
To save space on the hard drive, I would often make a sub edit, output to videotape (DV) and record it onto the camera, then reimport the footage back to the computer for further editing. Why? In this way I can collect a "highlight reel" of footage I want, instead of the hours of original footage, and work with that.
By the way, the while there is a Pinnacle Studio, get the Pinnacle Studio Plus. The reason? The "Plus" allows picture in picture capabilities, having two images on the screen at once. A very worthwhile feature!
Good luck editing!
Peterphoto
editing software
by cnet.com82 - 9/18/08 8:43 PM In reply to: Transfering miniDV footage by peterphoto2I did a lot of research on editing software, at least as far as reading the reviews. It is great that Pinnacle is working for you. Many of the reviews for Pinnacle and Adobe on Cnet and amazon are less-than-positive. Sony Vegas got much better ratings (at least as of about 2 months ago). Right now I am just using the basic Ulead given by Canon -- not working at all thus far.
MINIDV editing
by jimsupport - 9/8/08 5:56 AM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Once you use a MAC for editing you will never try it again on a PC again due to all the plug-ins that have to coexist. My wife has a business and she wanted to take video of events and burn to DVD. I looked at a few systems (bought a Gateway with XP and returned it) on the PC side but decided on the MAC as it has applications the integrates together iPhoto, iMovie, iTunes and iDVD. If you want to do basic DVD's it is very easy to use and it WORKS. When I bought the MAC they offered Final Cut Express for $99.00 (approx reg price $299.00) which is a paired down version of their professional (Final Cut $999.00) software, I used it a few times for doing flashy editing but the basic iMovie works great. If you get stuck the Apple support team will assist with any OS, hardware and software issues, they will not say call Sonic or some other software/hardware company.
I have a friend that uses AVID (AVID use to have a free product) at work in Manhattan where he does professional DV editing, he bought a SONY PC and likes the software because it is bug free and easy to use.
Good luck and by the way I have the MAC for 6 years and no problems or crashes or virus issues.
Transferring MiniDV footage.
by tolszewski - 9/8/08 7:58 AM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
You didn't say how large a hard drive you had in your desktop, but your setup sounds similar to mine. I use my desktop and Adobe Premium Elements (mostly) but there are other fine programs available. I installed a Firewire board because most software will look for the camera on it. I then connect the camera using a mini-plug a/v output to firewire cable (I have a Sony digital camera). I fire up the program enter the "capture" function and I can start the download with the program controlling the camera. After it's captured it's up to your imagination to edit the video and burn it to a DVD. Look into getting a DVD RW drive for your desktop. They're relatively cheap these days. An external hard drive (useable for both computers) is also a good idea.
Transfering and Editing MiniDV Footage
by Myron Achtman - 9/8/08 8:37 AM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hello Alex,
The best procedure is to purchase an EXTERNAL high capacity hard drive (e.g. 500 GB to 1 TB) and copy your source tapes to that drive. You will need software that does not alter the source footage in any way -- in other words you will be creating pure .AVI files that are an exact replication of your source material. The external drive can be connected using a Firewire or a USB2 connection.
You will also need software to edit your footage. I'm not a big fan of any of Microsoft's video editing software. You'll get great value from Pinnacle Studio Ultimate or Adobe Premiere Elements. They're relatively easy to learn and let you create menu-driven DVDs for set-top DVD players.
It's too bad you chose Windows Vista for your laptop. Windows XP (SP3) is superior because it delivers faster performance and is more compatable with the various video editing software packages on the market. Your 2GB of RAM will barely serve your needs with Vista, but with XP you'd have plenty to spare!
Video editing puts a lot of demands on your computer. It's never a good idea to copy footage to your C: system drive. When editing, the computer must access the Windows operating system which is on the C: drive. If you have video clips on that drive, the computer must now "buffer" video data and system access on the SAME drive. This typically leads to reduced throughput resulting in dropped frames, system lockups and total user frustration.
One final note. When you create a DVD for set-top playback, the footage is highly compressed and converted to MPEG2 video. However, it will look great because you started with "pure" source footage that was an exact copy of your MiniDV tapes. Many people make the mistake of creating DVDs on the fly by recording from the camcorder directly to the DVD drive in their computer. This process completely destroys the integrity of the source footage because the data is highly compressed to the MPEG format in order for the computer and DVD recorder to maintain an uniterrupted data stream. Furthermore, there are fewer video editing applications that let you edit MPEG clips. Never work in this manner.
Minidv Video editing
by Jamonit2008 - 9/23/08 7:29 PM In reply to: Transfering and Editing MiniDV Footage by Myron AchtmanThanks for the information. The setup that you described is similiar to the one in my dreams.
I am a videographer. I have projects that need editing, layout and finalization. I have'nt used any hig-end editing software but I was considering something with a little more punch and affordability. I like the idea of using Pinnacle in conjunction with an external hard-drive. But can you elaborate on the Windows Vista OS pros & cons.
I have a PC with a 500 GB HD , 2GB ram. VIsta OS etc... I like the idea of adding a 500 GB or more HD to use as a scratch disk or backup. I also want to understand the differences between using this editing software with XP or Vista.
Thanks in advance.
vista bites
by cdcguard - 9/23/08 11:08 PM In reply to: Minidv Video editing by Jamonit2008I made the mistake of buying a Vista machine in March (Dell XPS desktop). I hate it. Like nearly everything Microsoft has ever done, they released it with about a gillion bugs still in it. I'm now dual booting to Linux (Ubuntu Hardy distro). The only thing that keeps me from switching completely: You guessed it; Video Editing. If I can find a Video Editing program and a DVD authoring program I like in Linux, I'll leave WinDoze and never look back.
In it's defense, the performance I'm getting in Ulead VideoStudeo is much better than my old XP machine (after I spent 60 bucks on the "upgrade" version to actually be compatible with Vista).
The single biggest thing I hate about Vista (aside from Windows Explorer crashing once or twice DAILY since day one): The dreaded green bar syndrome in (you guessed it again) my media folders...
i know the answer
by kishpom - 9/8/08 9:17 AM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
all you have to do is get a pc to pc wire from argos and its around £8.99 it will transform your laptop into an external harddrive so it will be like plugin in a memory stick and its easy to transfer files to them for e.g. drag and drop or copy and past
Pinnacle Studio
by guywayne - 9/8/08 9:52 AM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I've been using Pinnacle Studio for years and really like it. It's easy to use and figure out how to do things, and if you use mostly the default settings, it doesn't take much setup. The only thing that I've had a problem with, is that V10.5 doesn't work on Vista, so I had to pay to upgrade to V12, but all of the 'extras' that I bought with V10.5 are now lost unless I buy the new versions of them,too. Oh, well, the program is definetly worth the cost.
First the basics
by slappie - 9/8/08 10:58 AM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The first step in getting footage off of a miniDV camera is to connect it via firewire (yes I know it has usb and firewire but firewire is really the only way to do this). So if your laptop has a firewire port, then use it. If neither of your computers have a firewire port, then purchase a pci (for the desktop) or pcmcia/express card (for the laptop) firewire adapter.
Then you need a program that will basically record the live playing stream from the dv camera over firewire. Most cameras come with some inexpensive program like pinnicle studio that can do this. nero and sonic are two other dvd burning programs that can also record the dv footage. I prefer adobe premier and some people will suggest moving all the way up to final cut pro but this is probably excessive for your purposes.
Once the program has recorded the footage off the dv tape (this will take awhile since it can only go in real time) you will have a huge .avi file. One thing to remember during the recording process is to check whatever box that is used to enable automatic scene splitting. This will separate the footage whenever you paused the camera during the original recording. Most programs will not let you do automatic scene splitting after you have ripped all the footage.
Now you can use the same (or a different if you want) program to arrange, splice, add background music, etc, however you want.
The final step is exporting this as some type of movie. This can be flash or wmv for streaming over the web, or dvd files that are ready for burning to disk.
I suggest you use an external harddrive to store the original avi files and whatever other files the editing program uses to store your splicing information. There is no way to take the exported dvd and re-edit it without losing quality.
I hope this has served as a general overview of the process you need to undertake, I know it took me awhile to figure all this out the first time I used a dv camera.
Why would you tell him to use Firewire when USB2 is faster??
by Bill F. - 9/16/08 10:02 AM In reply to: First the basics by slappieI don't disagree with much of the rest of the suggestion, but you insisted on Firewire and USB2 is faster. I found that to be disturbing and somewhat apple-centric. Those programs you mentioned do not care which port brings the digital content. If they do, get another program.
not in the real world.
by cdcguard - 9/16/08 12:04 PM In reply to: Why would you tell him to use Firewire when USB2 is faster?? by Bill F.USB2 is faster that firewire in raw throughput numbers. In real world use firewire outperforms USB2 by something like 30 percent. I'm nowhere near geeky enough to completely understand it but it has to do with archetecture differences (peer to peer for firewire vs master/slave for USB2). For transferring large amounts of data (such as video) it is still superior.
Unfortunately, it appears that USB2 has won out in the overall battle and those of us who (stupidly) made the switch to Windoze Vista, firewire is basically useless). I have NEVER been able to get my VISTA machine to enumerate my camera via firewire. I have to do all my captures on my old XP laptop...
Vista works with Firewire, no problem
by Wes#1 - 9/22/08 8:32 AM In reply to: not in the real world. by cdcguardcdcguard writes: "I have NEVER been able to get my VISTA machine to enumerate my camera via firewire. I have to do all my captures on my old XP laptop..."
On the contrary, I use VISTA with Firewire on my HP desktop and never have a problem. I also use Sony Vegas as the capture/editing software.
mini dv dillema
by rymeinklynd - 1/26/09 7:52 PM In reply to: Vista works with Firewire, no problem by Wes#1i have vista and i use firewire and sony vegas pro 8.. do you find you lose a lot of resolution and integrity when you make your transfer? am i doing something wrong? the clarity i get on playback on my camera is far superior to what ends up on my computer. help please.
Try using the built in ethernet devices to transfer directly
by Phraedrique - 9/8/08 11:59 AM In reply to: Easiest way to transfer MiniDV footage to PC and edit it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Alex:
In situations like this it is probably easier to transfer the files via a network interface (your ethernet ports) directly to th new device, and THEN edit the files before moving them to a DVD. I would suggest taht you attach both devices to a switch or router (most people these days have such things hanging off their broadband internet connections to allow more than one machine access to theinternet at a time) and then allow sharing of files and folders on one of the machines. You can then copy the files from that shared folder into a secure location on the other machine.
If you do not have a network router or switch, it is possible to do the same kind of transfer of files using a "Crossover Cable." You can purchas tehse from Radio Shack or any office supply store these days, probably for less than $10.00 USD.
While both machines may already have wireless access cards, I recommend using the ethernet cables for a higher transfer rate and generally more reliable file transfer. Since we are talking about larger files, using the wired connection will take less time and have fewer errors in the file transfer process.
Additionally, it is possible to use the file transfer application that came with Windows Vista to set up a semi-automated process of transfering the old files to your new machine.
Good Luck!
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